Rosh Hashanah: Living Matters

Sermon

If you read your newsletter, you know that I conceived this sermon to talk about the Lamed Vov – the "thirty-six" in Jewish lore, thirty-six mortal people scattered about the world, whose living has a redemptive power in the world. My point was to discuss the appeal of the concept, not only in its mysticism and idealism, but also as a worldly option for any of us. Think about it: what would it mean to be a lamed vov? Who would you guess was a lamed vov? Nelson Mandela? Vaclav Havel? Mother Theresa? Martin Luther King, Jr.? Eleanor Roosevelt? The Buddha? They could be, couldn’t they? The lamed vov are defined as regular people, who generally work and live in obscurity. They are humble, they don’t go around touting themselves as saviors of the world. No one knows they are lamed vov – perhaps they don’t know themselves. Their good deeds are done for the sake of doing them, not with a sense of cosmic destiny.

You know what this means, don’t you – you or I could be a lamed vov. This seems particularly germane for the beginning of the Jewish New Year and our new church year, when the theme of examining how we are living, making reparation, freeing ourselves from misdeeds, committing to our best living, is so much on people’s minds. Herein comes that classic Deuteronomy 30:19 text: "Behold, I place before you today life and good, and death and evil…. Choose life."

Judaism observes this holiday through the metaphor of trial in which God is the judge – a merciful judge, perhaps even one of those "liberal, activist judges" - but a judge nonetheless. In reflecting on this theme, the 12th c. Jewish sage Maimonides suggested that "everyone should regard themselves throughout the years as exactly balanced between acquittal and guilt. So, too, (we) should consider the entire world as equally balanced between acquittal and guilt." The brilliant implication of his model was this: "If (one) commits one additional sin, (they) tilt down the scale of guilt against (one)self and the entire world and cause its destruction. If (one) performs one good deed, (they) swing themselves and the whole world into the scale of merit and cause salvation and deliverance to themselves and (all humanity). - TJW, p. 190

In other words, everyone would live with a sense of their lives' power to save or doom, to renew or abandon. This is the power of the lamed vov – but Maimonides was using the High Holidays to suggest a way to view the critical power of every individual in life. And indeed humanity's greatest leaders have lived this way, have understood this – and thus has come their power and their lasting effect. If we live as if our living is charged with meaning and impact not only for ourselves but also the wide world … then it is.

And living with that kind of intentionality and authenticity and care, as if you were a lamed vov, is also what living as a Unitarian Universalist ideally is. As the two coincide in principle, the model of the lamed vov is a beautiful illustration of how powerful a good life, well-lived can be. Nelson Mandela, Eleanor Roosevelt, they lived as if their lives had enormous potential to save people … and their lives gained exactly that kind of power as a result.

Here's where the value of my newsletter write-ups comes into question, because I will now digress, due to developments since that newsletter came out. In working towards this service I found myself spending more and more time researching the traditional Jewish sung prayer, Avinu Malkeinu, that underweaves our worship this morning. I didn't want to use it inappropriately or casually because it is a sacred song, to me personally as I learned to love it in Rosh Hashanah services at synagogue, and to all Jews, as well as to anyone who honors the prayers of any faith tradition. In the end, making sure I felt we were honoring and drawing on it carefully meant studying its history, where it comes in the traditional Rosh Hashanah liturgy, details of the Hebrew that is the original language the prayer and a range of English translations and interpretations, and then choosing how much of the text and melody to use. Ultimately, finding no English interpetation that seemed usable for our purposes, I tried to responsibly adapt it from the original Hebrew text to a liberal English version that would speak both to all of us gathered here with our diverse heritages this morning, and still also to the original sense and story of this sung prayer.

All this was more than I was expecting to do and as I was discussing it with a colleague, they suggested that there is a lesson for all of us in such spending of time. And so I am attaching a tangentially-related part II onto my message this morning. They are perhaps related only by the idea that living intentionally and with respect for the sacred and the most high takes and offers, sometimes, more than we expect.

The tune Avinu Malkeinu is actually already in our hymnal. But it's tacked to an English lyric that has nothing to do with the message, intent, and most important, the yearning mood of the original Avinu Malkeinu. I don't know whether I've managed to capture those better, but at least I believe it is evident that I tried. And that makes a difference because the easy thing is to take something that works for us on one level and ignore the rest, especially if the rest strongly does not work for Unitarian Universalist sensibilities. You've heard me talk before about how in the end that kind of approach short-changes our own faith development because it never gives us anything hard to work on. But the other downside of that only-easy approach is that if what we are drawing on is outside our own small world of Unitarian Universalist sources, our right to draw on it – already questionable to many – is all the more tenuous or downright gone, at that point.

This is a very live dispute in our movement just now – whether we have any right at all to draw, or adapt, or adopt, or take, or steal, depending on how you look at it, from other traditions. I come down firmly on the side that says religion is always changing and always shared. Sometimes it changes from within, as we heard in the story from the Babylonian Talmud of how Avinu Malkeinu originated, and then changed in its use over time. Sometimes religion changes from without, influenced by other faith, cultural, even regional, traditions. What we Unitarian Universalists do in drawing on other religions as part of developing our own is nothing new. That is the way almost all religions came into being and evolved, including Christianity, Islam and even Judaism. The issue is not whether we do it, but how.

American Indians scoff at people who draw on their traditions without bothering to understand them, at all the gringos who take as their spirit name Windhorse and Starwolf … never Fat Bear or Lame Dog. These kind of issues, though, are not reasons we must close ourselves off from other faiths that powerfully beckon us with something that speaks to our souls; they are lessons in what not to do, and in what to do.

Perhaps I am more careful because I know about the Unitarian Universalist church that ignorantly scheduled an all-church potluck as part of their observance of Yom Kippur, a holiday traditionally marked by fasting. As a half-Jewish Unitarian Universalist, I see, as I have preached, power and beauty in the intersection of Judaism and Unitarian Universalism. I wish to share that vision and I am profoundly moved and gladdened to be privileged to share it with this congregation – to learn and sing beloved Jewish tunes together, to watch interfaith families join our congregation because of the mix we offer in turn, to know that non-Jewish members feel wholly welcome and engaged at our annual Passover seder. It is hard and important to do interfaith work seriously and well. It is a task that never eases, both because we never know enough, and also sometimes because our own position and understanding changes over time.

I have a prayer shawl given to me by my parents – it belonged to my Jewish grandfather who was very observant. I keep it proudly and tenderly in the special bag it came with. When I first got it, I thought I would wear it perhaps when celebrating important Jewish occasions in church . But as those occasions came and went, I never quite felt comfortable donning it. I believe I will wear it sometime, somewhere, but I also believe I have to take where and when I wear it very seriously, and in the end, it may not be in church on a Sunday.

The wearing of a prayer shawl is an important thing in Judaism – Jews read the Hebrew verse set into each prayer shawl and kiss each end of it, before they put it on. It is a mindful act. It is a faith act. Each Sunday when I am alone for a minute – occasionally it's just a few seconds – and putting on my vestments before I come to worship with you, I look at the stole I'm going to wear and read its symbols and remember what they mean and the trust with which the stole is charged by those who gave it to me – and then I kiss each side of it and put it on. So I have taken what holds for one prayerful garment and brought it over to my own prayerful garment – and whether it ends there or not, I don't know yet. But I know that I am paying attention and doing what I firmly believe is right and abstaining from what I am not sure about. Hopefully this means that while I, and we together, may innovate, we won’t make mistakes, or if we make mistakes, they won't be stupid mistakes. And if someone disagrees with our choices, we can hear their view and explain our view and perhaps come to a deeper understanding – perhaps changed, perhaps not – of what we do and why.

This year the beginning of the holy period of Ramadan coincides with the Jewish New Year. For Muslims as well as Jews it is a time for reflection, mindfulness, prayer, self-sacrifice, concern for others and reconnecting with the divine. No one people owns those values. No one people is responsible for them or the ways they are enacted in faithful living. May we be reminded by this year's coincidence of timing and by the knowledge in our own hearts that we have our own wrongs to right, our own estrangements and concerns to heal, our own pilgrimage to pay attention to, that no one owns religious practices. By our very access to other faiths, however, we are made responsible that what we do for our faith, we do carefully, that we understand it matters, as if our lives, our souls or even the fate of the world might depend on our actions. If we live as if our living is charged with meaning and impact not only for ourselves but also the wide world,… then it is.

Happy Rosh Hashanah.

Amen.

Reading:
from: Sermon given on Rosh Hashanah Day 5766, October 4, 2005, by Rabbi Allison Bergman Vann -
www.beth-elsa.org/abv100405.htm

A long time ago, in a city far, far away, lived two Rabbis, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva, who helped lead the town, were worried because it had not rained in a very long time. The fields were drying up and the crops were dying; the city water supply was low; and the marketplace was beginning to show signs of trouble. And, rightly so, their community was beginning to panic. In droves, they came to Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva, begging them pray for rain, to help their city.

Worried and fearful for their community, they stood before the Ark in the synagogue and prayed fervently for rain to help save their town. For hours they stood, beseeching God. Finally, as darkness fell, in desperation, Rabbi Akiva prayed: Avinu Malkeinu, Our Father Our King, we have no Sovereign but You; our Father, our King, have mercy upon us, for we have little merit." His head, bowed in prayer for the entire day, moved slightly as his tears and the rain fell.

So goes the story – albeit embellished – of how Akiva's heartfelt words compelled God to fulfill his request and how our favorite High Holy Day prayer came into being. The longer version of Avinu Malkeinu that we know was fashioned over time, built on Rabbi Akiva's foundation. Leaders added lines over centuries: pleas for help during times of suffering, or verses of joy in times of gratitude. The words added were specific for their community, at that time. It is not surprising, then, that this created many different versions. For example, in Poland, a version with 44 different verses was uncovered, while in Salonika, Greece, an edition with 53 different lines was found. The Tur Orah Hayim, a medieval work, mentions a version of the Avinu Malkeinu prayer with a verse for each letter of the alphabet, known as an acrostic prayer.

Just like the numerous versions that span continents and countries, Avinu Malkeinu is unique to us, individually, yet holds a connection for us all. In my own experience, what strikes me about the Avinu Malkeinu is its dynamism: it continues to be vibrant and meaningful. For me, the Avinu Malkeinu is a powerful, spiritual highlight of the High Holy Day services. When we stand for the prayer, I have felt Rabbi Akiva's presence with me. As I recite the words, I have felt generations of leaders surrounding me. I feel the presence of God in the room, as I listen to the melody. I know I am not alone in my love for this prayer. When it is over, and I turn from the Ark, and see your eyes closed as you absorb the words and the music, I know that you, too have been touched. Simply put, there is something about the Avinu Malkeinu. It compels us to hear it, to listen to it. It is timeless and meaningful. I have found, however, that this experience of the Avinu Malkeinu is unusual. More often than not, meaningful prayer is elusive to many, and simply not interesting to others.