This summer, we were fortunate
to spend a glorious week on Cape Cod. One of the highlights was watching our
kids find confidence swimming in the ocean and facing down the waves. Our son
Ziv, who is 7 ½, was doing really well with the waves. But inevitably, like
every beginner, Ziv had that experience of getting knocked down and rolled
under the water. I imagine many of us can identify with this awful
experience - it comes out of nowhere,
you’re disoriented, scared and powerless. And then finally when you surface,
sputtering and coughing, you feel angry and defeated. You had forgotten that
all-important principle of the ocean – once you have tackled one wave, there is
always going to be another wave after that! And another one after that one!
What a great metaphor for our
lives, and especially for the world these past few months. Crisis after crisis
has been knocking us down and rolling us under. The waves of terror, violence,
shootings, rockets, sirens, bombings, refugees, beheadings, and plane crashes
in places like Syria, Ukraine, Iraq, Kurdistan, Ferguson Missouri, and of
course, Israel and Gaza. It has been hard to catch our breath long enough to
make sense of any of it, let alone to figure out what we should be doing to
respond, as individuals or as a country.
In our own lives, I imagine
many of us have had our own crashing waves to contend with – illnesses,
injuries, cancer diagnoses, the death of loved ones; job losses; business
troubles; divorce; moves; life not going as we had planned; worries for
ourselves, our parents, our children. We get our footing just long enough for
the next wave to come along.
Tonight as we embark on these
next 10 Days of Awe I want us to explore some prayers and images we will be
encountering in the prayerbook that may help to frame our experiences of this
past year in spiritual terms. Few of us have the chance to spiritually prepare for
the holidays, and so tonight and tomorrow, when we open the holiday prayerbook,
the machzor, we are hit in the face with words that we haven’t had much time to
wrap our minds around. Tonight, I thought we’d take some time to prepare for
the Shofar service that we will be experiencing tomorrow and Friday mornings. I
do this because I think the prayers surrounding the blowing of the Shofar can anchor
us, comfort us, and provide some guidance as we confront the chaos and the
uncertainty of our own lives and of the times that we are living in.
It’s kind of amazing that these
ancient words, composed by rabbis who lived almost two thousand years ago,
still move us and speak to us today. I invite you, as I speak, to follow along
in the machzor/HHD prayerbook as I reference the prayers of the shofar service.
Of course, if you would rather just listen, that is fine too.
In our Reform tradition, the
Shofar service begins after the Torah is read on Rosh Hashana morning. You’ll
find it on page 138 (Gates of Repentance.)
We begin with a quote from the
Torah where this shofar-blowing holiday is announced. Then on page 139 we have
this beautiful poem that begins in Hebrew, “Uru, y’shaynim mish’nat’chem,”
“Awaken, you sleepers, from your sleep! Rouse yourselves, you slumberers, out
of your slumber!” And it goes on. . . . “v’zich’ru Bor’eichem, eilu
hashoch’chim et ha-emet b’hav’lei ha-z’man,” “Remember your Creator, you who
are caught up in the daily round, losing sight of eternal truth.”
All year long we have been sleepwalking. We’ve
been wrapped up in the details of our daily lives; bogged down in the Facebook
posts and newsfeeds about Israel and ISIS. We think we’ve been paying close
attention, or getting things done. But in fact, we’ve been asleep to what is
really true. We’ve been distracted. We’ve been obsessing and worrying. Or we’ve
been avoiding.
Wake up! Look around you and
remember that you are part of something larger. There is a bigger picture that
we can perhaps only glimpse, in which, perhaps all that is confusing us makes
sense.
And what is that bigger
picture? We learn this in the next three
sections of the shofar service: Malchuyot (kingship or power), Zichronot
(remembrance), and Shofarot (the sound of the shofar.)
First, Malchuyot –kingship. On
page 140 you’ll see the words of the Aleinu. “We must praise the Lord of all,
the Maker of heaven and earth. . . .” “We therefore bow in awe and thanksgiving
before the One who is Sovereign over all, the Holy and Blessed One.” The liturgy continues on the next page with
quotes from Psalms, “Lift up your heads, O gates! Lift yourselves up, O ancient
doors. Let the King of Glory enter”
Here we have a traditional,
masculine image of God as a king entering the gates, about to seat himself on
the throne. We are supposed to praise and thank God, our king for ruling over
us, and we actually bow as we chant some of these words. Last year you may remember my speaking about
how the male king on a throne is not the only image for God – that some of us
may better related to God as a woman, or as a non-human image such as breath or
source of life.
But there is a spiritual
purpose to using this king image her. We proclaim, “Lift up your heads, O
gates! . . . Let the King of Glory enter” – and then we hear the blasts of the
shofar. Suddenly the sanctuary is transformed into a palace. A powerful, loving
presence enters the room and takes a seat on the throne. We are reminded that
God is not absent from the world. God is here, and God is in charge. As God
enters the gates of this throne room, we remember that ultimately we are not in
control.
Whether or not I believe in God
as some supernatural being, I do know that the waves crashing over me are
answering to a power much bigger than myself. This may give some of us comfort
–I don’t have to be in control of everything! It also may be scary – I have to
let go of believing that I am in control of my life! Either way, the blasts of
Malchuyot wake me up to this truth - I am not in charge.
The second round of shofar
blasts comes in a section called Zichronot, or remembrance. If you look on page
144, you’ll find the words “You remember the work of creation, You are mindful
of all that You have made. You unravel every mystery; all secret things are
known to You. For there is no forgetfulness in Your presence, nothing hidden from
Your sight.”
The classic way of
understanding this is that God is watching your every move, so you should be
careful of making a wrong move, or else!
But I like to read it
differently. First of all, how beautiful to remember during these chaotic times
that God created us and has not forgotten us. The text reads, “pokeid kol
y’tzurei kedem” – God is taking note, and giving us caring attention. “There is
no forgetfulness in your Presence” – what a comfort to know that we are not
forgotten. We are not left hanging out here – we are not abandoned.
On page 145 “The Torah
proclaims: God heard the enslaved people’s groaning, and remembered the
covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The psalmist affirms: You remembered
Your covenant with us; in Your great love, You comforted us. The prophet
declares: I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your
youth, and I will establish with you an everlasting covenant.”
God remembered us in Egypt, and
God will continue to remember us. Therefore, whether you are hospitalized or
homebound; depressed or hopeless; in a war zone in the Middle East or on the
streets of Ferguson, Missouri - God always hears and remembers the groaning of
those who are suffering.
And so, what do we hear in the
sound of the shofar blasts of Zichronot? We hear and remember what God remembers
about us: All of us have a spark of the Divine within us – all of us have
value. As a colleague said to me recently, “God is not out to get us: We are
okay, and we can make ourselves and this world better.”
In those shofar blasts, we can
remember what God remembers – that all the way back in the beginning of the
world, all human beings– Jews, Christians, Muslims, Black, White, Arab – were
created in God’s image. As the waves come rolling towards us, we are not
abandoned to our struggles, and therefore must not abandon each other. We are
not forgotten and therefore must not forget each other. The blasts of Zichronot wake us up to the
truth that we are loved and that we must extend that love to all beings.
The third and final section of
the shofar service is called “Shofarot,” which simply means “blasts of the
shofar.” On page 148 the liturgy describes the moment when our people were
gathered at Mount Sinai and heard God’s voice, revealing the Torah to us. “Your
sacred word came forth amid flashes of fire. There was thunder and lightning;
and, with the sound of a Shofar, You were manifest to us.” On page 149 we
read in the last paragraph, “The Eternal
will appear; God’s arrow will flash like lighting. The Eternal God will cause
the Shofar to be sounded, and stride forth with the storm-winds of the South. Thus,
O God, will You shield your people with peace.”
Here we have the traditional
notion of revelation and redemption – that in the past, God appeared to our
people and spoke to us directly, bringing us the Torah– the blueprint for
building a holy community and for healing our world. At Sinai, amidst the sound
of the shofar – we woke up to what God expects from us. And in the future, God
will appear again, accompanied by that shofar-sound – to herald the Messianic
age, a time of eternal peace.
This alone is a hopeful message
– the shofar wakes us up to the possibility of future redemption. It reminds us
that it won’t always be this hard. That the world can change for the better –
and we can be a part of that change by heeding the call of Torah in the voice
of the Shofar.
But there’s even more - I want
you to see something surprising on the next page (150). There we ask God directly,
to “Sound the great Shofar to proclaim our freedom; raise the banner for the
redemption of the oppressed; signal liberty for all who are in exile; bring
lasting joy to Zion and to Jerusalem, Your holy city.” The section ends with
the words, “We praise You the merciful
God who hearkens to the sound of the
Shofar.”
So, what is happening in this
final round of shofar blasts? Not only are we waking up to the possibility of
future redemption. But we are actually blowing the Shofar so loud and so hard
and so long that GOD will wake up too! So that GOD will wake up and lead us in
our efforts to bring freedom, joy and peace to the world.
You are not in control.
You are remembered, and loved.
Things can and will change –
and you can be a part of that.
“Wake up!”
This is what the shofar comes
to remind us, we who have been like slumberers, stumbling through the chaotic
landscape of this world.
I want to close with the words
of a poet who also lived through a time of terrible chaos and uncertainty. Walt
Whitman lived through the Civil War, the bloodiest conflict that has ever taken
place in our land. In the wake of those waves of suffering that rolled over
this land, Whitman wrote a poem called “The Mystic Trumpeter.” This poem would fit beautifully into the
liturgy of our shofar service. In the final stanza, he calls upon the trumpeter
– perhaps he is addressing the angel Gabriel, or God – to bring us hope and
joy, renewal and peace. He calls upon the trumpeter, asking for that day of
redemption to come, when all we will do is live and breathe in a world of
purity, health, wisdom and joy.
Please rise as I recite this
poem, and I invite Joe Gister to join me on the bimah with the shofar, so we
can hear it once tonight, as we prepare to hear it tomorrow…
Now trumpeter for thy close,
Vouchsafe a higher strain than
any yet,
Sing to my soul, renew its
languishing faith and hope,
Rouse up my slow belief, give
me some vision of the future,
Give me for once its prophecy
and joy.
O glad, exulting, culminating
song!
A vigor more than earth’s is in
thy notes,
Marches of victory—man
disenthral’d-the conqueror at last,
Hymns to the universal God from
universal man—all joy!
A reborn race appears—a perfect
world, all joy!
Women and men in wisdom
innocence and health—all joy!
Riotous laughing bacchanals
fill’d with joy!
War, sorrow, suffering gone—the
rank earth purged—nothing but joy left!
The ocean fill’d with joy—the
atmosphere all joy!
Joy! joy! in freedom, worship,
love! joy in the ecstasy of life!
Enough to merely be! enough to
breathe!
Joy! Joy! All over joy!
Tekiah Gedolah!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment