Would you help me with an instant survey? I’m going to ask you, in just a moment, to put your hand up in the air – I know, a good proportion of you are English and it’s late for this kind of schtick, but humour me.
Here’s the question, don’t
think too hard about it. Just an instant response.
When you think of the year
to come. Are you feeling optimistic, or pessimistic?
If you are feeling
optimistic, please put up your hand. Thank you.
If you are feeling
pessimistic, please put up your hand. Thank you.
OK, so this is a sermon
for about xx of you.
If you just want the
sermon over so you can go home and eat please put up your hand. It won’t help
you know – my finishing the sermon early. Service still ends at 7:19.
But to this question of optimism
and pessimism. Here’s the headline for the pessimists out there. It’s not
allowed – it’s forbidden to be a pessimist.
The only time I’ve sat in
a room of people and been asked the same question I’ve just asked you, I also
put my hand up as a pessimist. I can’t remember what omni-shambolic run of
disasters were afoot – it was a while ago. But the presenter on that occasion ripped
into us. And they were absolutely right.
We have responsibilities for the world, its people, and particularly the people
around us. We need to pour hope out into the world, an infection of possibility
would be a wonderful outbreak for our time.
Al Chet SheChatanu
Lefanecha BTimhon Leyvav we’ve
prayed that throughout this day - for the sin was committed before you by
giving into despair.
It's the great Chasidic
teacher, Rebbe Nachman of Braslav, who taught, “אָסוּר לְיָאֵשׁ עַצְמוֹ” - it is forbidden for a person to despair
of themselves. It’s a famous saying. I looked up the original. It’s in his
Hebrew collection Likkeutei Mehoran. [1]
כִּי אֵין שׁוּם יֵאוּשׁ בָּעוֹלָם
כְּלָל - Rebbe Nachman goes on to say – for there is nothing to this
thing of ‘despair’ ever, at all.
But the Hebrew collection, Likkuetei Mehoran, is based on
Rebbe Nachman’s original Yiddish droshes. And whoever was responsible for the
editing or the translation breaks away, at this point, from relaying the teaching
of the great master in the Hebrew to say this;
וְאָמַר אָז בְּזֶה הַלָּשׁוֹן: קַיין יִאוּשׁ אִיז גָאר נִיט פַאר
הַאנְדִין, וּמָשַׁךְ מְאֹד אֵלּוּ הַתֵּבוֹת " קַיין יִאוּשׁ אִיז גָאר נִיט
פַאר הַאנְדִין " וַאֲמָרָם בְּכֹחַ גָּדוֹל וּבְעַמְקוּת נִפְלָא וְנוֹרָא
מְאֹד, כְּדֵי לְהוֹרוֹת וּלְרַמֵּז לְכָל אֶחָד וְאֶחָד לְדוֹרוֹת, שֶׁלֹּא
יִתְיָאֵשׁ בְּשׁוּם אֹפֶן בָּעוֹלָם, אֲפִלּוּ אִם יַעֲבֹר עָלָיו מָה
And he said this in this exact
language: Kein yiush iz gor nit fahrhandin! He drew out these words,
said them with great power and wondrous depth and awe, in order to teach to
each and every person throughout the generations not to despair under any
circumstances, no matter what happens to them.
Kein yiush iz gor nit fahrhandin! – There is
nothing to this thing of despair at all.
Now, I know I asked about pessimism – and pessimism isn’t the
same as despair.
And I know just enough about mental health and the medical
condition of depression to say just this to someone struggling with clinical
depression – get help, take it seriously, trust that there are people who love
you and take the help.
But for the rest of us, those of us living through whatever
variation of omnishambolic chaos is coming our way… don’t be a pessimist, don’t
be drawn down a path towards despair. This is Rabbi Alan Lew, from his
masterwork, This is Real And You Are Completely Unprepared.[2]
Despair [like anger, boredom and
anxiety is just a marker of the necessity of] Teshuvah. These feelings are so
familiar to us we usually believe them to be part of our intrinsic being. They
are not, and in this sacred time of transformation, while the gates of heaven
are open … we can see that they are not. We can see that they are just
impulses, arising for a moment, the way wind and rain and snow arise in the
world. They are wind and rain and snow, but they are not the world. They are
not us. They only become us by our choice, by our choosing to see them that
way, by our choosing to cling to them so tenaciously. We can make another
choice if we wish to.
Make another choice. Choose optimism. Choose hope. Choose to
have faith that when you can’t see the light in the tunnel, it’s because the
tunnel doesn’t run in a straight line. Exercise the right to take control of
the way we see the world. And if all that feels difficult. Try this.
Three quick thoughts.
Firstly, stop digging.
I remember the first time I led services in this sacred
community, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the TV networks had that shot
of the plane flying into the building on a loop, going again and again, until
they realized it wasn’t helping. If you are feeling pessimistic about the world
and you would like to make a different choice. Stop digging. Put down the
phone. Turn off the radio. Try Shabbat. Real conversations with real people –
you can us in Shul. Walk amongst the trees. I’m not counselling accepting the
mess we are in. On the contrary, if you want to stoke fires of righteous
indignation, nothing gets me going like taking a break from the news cycle only
to return. Just remember to take breaks and if it’s dark in the pit, stop
digging, especially on Shabbat.
Secondly, fix something. There is a remarkable moment in the
Talmud. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai spends 13 years hiding in a cave, and he comes,
heads into town and says this,
אִיכָּא מִילְּתָא דְּבָעֵי לְתַקּוֹנֵי[3] -
Is there something that needs fixing?
If the chaotic nature of
life gets you down, fix something. I love this tale told by David Baum of blessed
memory. He was a pediatric oncologist – and there’s a job where you need to
know how to hold tight to optimism and hope. And when asked if he ever got
depressed treating kids who sometimes died, he would say this.
As an old man walked along a
beach at dawn he noticed a young boy picking up starfish and putting them in
the sea. He asked him why he was doing this. His answer was that the stranded
starfish would die if left until the morning sun. ‘But the beach goes on for miles,
and there are thousands of starfish,’ countered the old man. ‘How can your
effort make any difference?’ The young boy looked at the starfish in his hand
and placed it safely in the waves. ‘It makes a difference to this one.’[4]
Of course, it’s not just the one starfish. It’s never just one
starfish – it’s a world of mutualism, if you remember. It’s the old man, and
the boy and me from the first time I heard it, and, I hope, you too. Fixing
things, making a difference, goodness spills out from our good deeds, even
spilling into our own hearts. Getting out into the world and fixing something
is infecting optimism into the world.
If you are feeling a little bleak, fix something. Any ol’
starfish will do.
Stop Digging
Fix Something
And take time to be amazed.
It
is told that Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, among the 20th century’s greatest
religious thinkers and teachers, once entered his class of rabbinic students at
the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York and very excitedly proclaimed
– “I saw a miracle this morning! I saw a miracle this morning!”
“Rabbi,”
his students asked, “What was the miracle?”
“The
sun came up!”
This is, despite all the challenges, an
extraordinarily beautiful planet. This is, despite all grumbles and rumbles, an
extraordinary gift of life. Walk amongst trees. Look out at the sky. Picture
the 2.7 thousand trillion mitochondria we each have thrumming with energy, even
now, and be amazed. Be radically amazed.
The ability to find radical amazement in the
world, and in our lives is not so much a factor of whether the world is or is
not in a state of shambles. The ability to find radical amazement in the world
is a decision.
Maybe that’s not quite right, the ability to be
amazed isn’t a switch to be thrown on or off, it’s a muscle, a muscle that
needs to be trained, and worked to be able to bear the loads we place on it
through our lives. A New Year resolution to work out the muscle of hope –
there’s one last thing to daven on in the Neilah journey to come.
Stop Digging
Try to fix something
And work on being radically amazed.
Embrace hope. Banish despair. Evict pessimism
from this year to come.
And if all else fails. Try humour.
As many of you will know, I had a sabbatical over the summer.
It was very lovely, thank you. But while I was away, I got a call from a member.
OK, I’m on sabbatical, but it might be important. I answered.
“Hi, I know you are on sabbatical,” they said, “but I thought
you would want to know immediately. I’ve decided to change my name. From now
on, I would like you to call me ‘spinal column’.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied, “I’m going to have to call you back.”
Hatimah Tovah.
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