Kol Nidre: The Power of Questions
How many of you played Twenty Questions as children? Or maybe as parents trying to entertain children? Animal, vegetable, mineral. Questions that can only be answered yes or no. It was fun and it sharpened our ability to ask clearly defined questions. But the world does not usually fit into such nicely defined answers.
Yom Kippur is about asking questions. Lots of questions. More questions than the 4 Questions that are part of Passover. More than the 20 Questions of the game. This is about life. Some might be: “Why are we here? What meaning does any of this have? Why do we say the amidah so many times?”
Yom Kippur is a challenging holiday. As much physical labor as there can be for Passover, cleaning and cooking, there is lots of mental labor involved in Yom Kippur.
One of the most challenging parts of this season is the prayer that is known as Unetaneh tokef. In English we say “Who shall live and who shall die.”
Some groups change the words subtly depending on the holiday—as do we. On Rosh Hashanah we say, “May we be inscribed for a blessing in the book of life.” On Yom Kippur it is “May we be sealed for a blessing in the book of life.”
What is the difference here?
What is the difference between inscribing and sealing? The word for sealing is chatimah, the same word that we use to describe the end of a formulaic blessing, those that end, Baruch Atah Adonai, something. That phrase at the end of the prayer, in our prayer book usually where the little box shows up is the chatimah, the sealing.
Really? We believe that G-d is inscribing us and sealing us? We really believe that the power of our prayer is effective in determining who shall live and who shall die? What if someone who is good, who does teshuva, tefilah and tzedakah dies? We all know good people to whom this has happened. How do we explain that? Do we really think that G-d is sitting up there with a giant scroll of life deciding who shall live and who shall die? Some kind of making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out whose naughty or nice? G-d is Santa Claus?
I don’t think so. But there is a power in these ancient words attributed to Rabbi Amnon of Mayence during the Crusades when it seemed certain that many would die and by horrible torturous deaths. How could anyone make sense of this? Unetaneh tokef helped a generation to do that. When we wrestle with the text, it helps each generation to do that. There is an important Youtube setting of unetaneh tokef that is ripped from the headlines. Some by fire, showing forest fires, some by water, showing flooding, some by earthquake, some by thirst, some by hunger. Those still exist today.
So what are the questions for a day that is awesome and filled with dread?
Look around, it is painful. Some people who were here with us last year, are no longer year. Does that mean they were not good people? That they had not done enough tefilah, teshuvah or tzedakah? Hardly. The answer to that must be NO! So how can we make sense of this in our times? Ultimately I think it is about what kind of life are we choosing all the days of our allotted life.
Dr. Ron Wolfson wrote an interesting book, The Seven Questions You’re Asked in Heaven. Some of you, I know have been reading it this summer. Some of you read it when it first came out. We Jews don’t have nearly as well formed an idea of what heaven might be like as other religious traditions, so the title of this book intrigued me. We talk about Gan Eden, the Garden of Eden, as a type of Pardes, Paradise (both Hebrew words that have come into English). We talk about olam ha’ba, the world to come. But we don’t dwell on what that world will be like. We talk about the reward being in this world, not the next world. So if the reward is here and now, in this world how do we know if we are leading a good life, a meaningful life?
The Talmud actually has an entrance exam to heaven. In Shabbat 31a we learn what five of these questions are. And they may surprise you. When I was working on this sermon and asked people what they thought the questions might be it was usually something like “Were you a good person?” “Did you spend enough time with family?” “Did you observe all My commandments?” “Did you believe in G-d?” “Why didn’t you do more?” “Did you give tzedakah?” “Did you make the world a better place?” All good questions, but no, not a single one of those were on the list.
The first question would be: “Did you deal honestly with people in your business practices?” Really? As someone quipped, does that mean G-d is a Republican that he cares about business practices before anything else? Not really. It is about honesty. Were you honest? With everybody. Not just your family and friends. It is easy to be honest with your family and friends. It is easier to be dishonest with your business associates because you might not get caught. I visited a doctor recently who said, “I’ll be honest with you. Then he prescribed a treatment plan and added, “I am honest with everyone, not just because you are a rabbi.” That is how it should be. You should be honest with everyone and I appreciated his honesty. Honesty is also about balance. Think about the scales of justice. Lady Justice is supposed to be blind. There should be no distinction between rich or poor, black and white, someone who came over on the Mayflower or new immigrant when a case is heard before a court. It is also about balance in our own lives, between work and family, between our commitments to others and to ourselves as individuals. Be honest….how many of you still have your cell phones on vibrate because it is so hard to take even this little bit of time away? How many of you cannot put down your smart phones when you are on vacation? I confess. I know I’ve done it. It can be hard to disconnect!
Scales and ledger sheets, weights and balances, honest measures. The Torah talks about all of them as an assessment for honesty. This is about counting and accounting. About a reckoning, a bill. In modern Hebrew if you ask for a check at the end of a restaurant meal you ask for a cheshbon. During this 10 day period we evaluate ourselves with a Cheshbon Hanefesh, an accounting of the soul. How do we make our lives count? The musical Rent asks that question. How do we measure the year in a life? In daylights, in sunsets In midnights, in cups of coffee In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes How do you measure, a year in the life? How about love? Are we honest with those we love? So the question really is can we be honest in all our relationships?
The word truth in Hebrew is one of my favorites. Emet, Aleph, Mem, Tav. The first, the middle and the last letter of the Hebrew alef bet, honesty is all encompassing and another name for G-d. Emet. It is also related to the word Emumah, meaning faith and amen, may it be true. Emet is one of the 13 Attributes of the Divine that we chant over and over again, as part of our pleas for forgiveness. Being as honest and truthful as G-d leads to forgiveness. The first question really is then: Are we honest? Have we been honest with ourselves, with others, with G-d?
The second question is “Did you busy yourself with procreation?” Now this may be a difficult question for many who have struggled with infertility or who have lost a child at a young age or in utero. What the question is really asking is have you left a legacy. That legacy can be children, but it could be other things. It could be leaving a legacy of land for open space or helping to endow a chair at a university. It could be a business you and your family has built through generations or it could be a computer program, a piece of research that you developed. It is about the gift of your good name. It is about how you want to be remembered.
Note that this question is not, “Did you love your family?” or “Did you give your children everything?”. The Aramaic word is asakta, did you busy yourself. It is the same word as the blessing for studying Torah, la’asok b’divrei Torah. How do you busy yourselves, immerse yourselves with family? I think this is about both quality and quantity time. It is about the security that comes from knowing you are there. It is about them counting on you. It is about making sure that you tell your children and grandchildren that you love them and are proud of them over and over again.
Even the rabbis recognized what we teachers already know. Students become our children. Whether you teach in a classroom, coach, are a Girl Scout leader, mentor a younger employee at work, each of you has something to teach. Each of you has an expertise. So this question about legacy is about teaching your children, and your students diligently. Setting their teeth on edge. It is about teaching with passion and intentionality, about teaching with consistency and compassion. It is about being a good role model. Pirke Avot teaches: “Ours is not to complete the task, neither are we free to ignore it.” We are not free to ignore building our legacy—whether that is children or some other legacy. So the second question is “How are you creating a legacy?”
Question Three is about studying. Did you set aside time for Torah? Rabbi Ben Bag Bag, in Pirke Avot, (yes that really is his name) taught us to turn Torah over and over again because everything is in it. The daily service explains that these are the measure whose reward to is without measure….and it concludes that the study of Torah is equal to them all because it leads to them all. Very often however, we say we will study when we have time. And then we never have time. I know, I’ve been there too. So the Talmud demands setting aside some time to study every day. It is about disciplined learning. It is about accountability.
Here at Congregation Kneseth Israel we believe in creating a community of life long learning, a community of life long learners. A learners’ community as Joe Rosenfeld is fond of saying. Torah is not just for kids in Torah School. It is for all of us. This year there will be more and more emphasis on adult learning. Come dip your toe in, or immerse yourself. I promise there will be no exams. This is learning for learning’s own sake, just for fun. Try a class, a learner’s service, a Kiddush Roundtable, a Rosh Hodesh discussion. Learn Hebrew as an adult, study for an adult Bar or Bat Mitzvah, explore the possibilities of converting and becoming a member of the tribe. Membership, as the old American Express commercial said, has its privileges. Something else you want to learn? Come tell me what and when you want to learn and we will set up something.
Question Four is about living with hope. It asks, “Did you hope for deliverance.” This is a hard one. It is not about your accomplishments, it is about your attitude. Wolfson points out that there is a thin line between hope and fear. At this season of the Days of Awe, we need to understand this word fear better. Heschel described the awareness of the Divine as “radical amazement”. He felt it when he saw a sunset. You can sense it at the shore of an ocean, on top of a mountain or in a prairie cornfield in the late afternoon sun. A rainbow will do it for me, every single time. We Jews have a blessing for rainbows, for meteors, for hearing thunder, and first spring blossoms. That sense is yireh, awe mixed with gratitude. It happens during scary times too, liminal moments, childbirth, illness, death. The difference between fear and awe according to Rabbi Mike Comins who wrote Wild Faith is that with fear, like during a lighting storm we want to run. When we experience awe we want to stick around and marvel. So we want to experience awe.
Why is it that some people go through unspeakable tragedies and traumas and can maintain that hope and others come out bitter? Anne Frank wrote in her diary, “Despite everything I believe that people are really good at heart.” On a cellar wall in Cologne during the Holocaust, the following was penned: “I believe in the sun even when it isn’t shining, I believe in love even when I can’t feel it, & I believe in God even when He’s silent.” We want to experience hope. Some of you this year have dealt with life threatening situations. Some days it is difficult to find the courage to respond with hope. Recently I heard an interview with Valerie Harper who has a rare form of cancer. She said there is always the hope of spontaneous regeneration. In the meantime, she wants to live life to its fullest. That is living with hope. Hope of deliverance. Hope in G-d. That hope is a gift. Emily Dickinson said,
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune—without the words,
And never stops at all.
This fourth question then is about attitude and gratitude. Did you live with hope? Were you a hopeful optimist or a fearful pessimist? Was the glass half full or half empty?
The fifth question is a two-part question—Did you seek wisdom and did you understand one thing from another? What? I understand the wisdom part. That is different than book learning but what about the second part. I loved Wolfson’s example. How many of you know about grout? I do. My parents had a passive solar house with a tile floor. The concept was great but the floor was never effective and every year we had to regrout it. Every year when they were older and no longer able to do the repairs themselves, my brother and I would go to Meijer’s at midnight on the 4th of July to regrout the floor. We couldn’t do it during normal business hours because it would need to set and Meijers is open 24 hours. Really. It became part of the 4th of July ritual. Wolfson goes to Home Depot and he learns how to grout. By the time he was done with the salesperson, he left knowing he could do it, “equipped and empowered” and as he said, never once did he feel like he was asking a stupid question. Part of it was the welcoming attitude and part of it was the expert demonstration but as Wolfson said it was the salesperson’s “acceptance and validation of my queries.” Being told by the Home Depot salesperson, “Ron, that is a good question.” was tremendously affirming.
Wisdom comes with putting all your knowledge and all of your skill together. And then to put the wisdom to use. So often we get paralyzed trying to make a decision. Should we have Chinese or Mexican? By the time we decide, all the restaurants are closed. That’s spinning. Should we live in Boston or Elgin? Is a bigger example. What are the pluses and minuses, the pros and cons? Wisdom is about taking the knowledge and living, to be to stop spinning and to define your own priorities. Ultimately this question and wisdom itself is “Did you get your priorities right? Or what do you value most? The rabbis of the Talmud teach us, appropriately for this season, that we should repent the day before we die.” This was the very first piece of Talmud I learned as a ninth grade student. The statement is missing something. What? How do we know when we will die? So the rabbis answer, “We should repent every day.” (Pirke Avot 2:15) Wolfson says that is why “your should never do to bed angry with your spouse, your partner your children. NEVER. You should always kiss them goodnight. Always. That’s why you should ask for forgiveness and offer forgiveness immediately. A very good message for this season. Learning this is the root of wisdom.
We could end here with the five questions in the Talmud, but Wolfson in his book tracks down two more questions.
The Sixth Question comes from Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, the leader of German Orthodoxy in the 19th Century. He insisted on traveling to Switzerland. When his disciples asked why, he answered, “I will be answerable to many questions…But what will I say when…and I’m sure to be asked: Why didn’t you see My Alps.” We all have bucket lists, helped perhaps by the movie of the same name. It always amazes me that the average American only visits eight states. Having seen the Alps already, Giverny where Monet painted, Alaska before the glaciers melt, the bottom of the Grand Canyon so I can hike the whole thing, Sedona, Moab, UT for Passover with the Adventure Rabbi and have seder in the desert and Savanah to go to Juliette Low’s house. These are all on my list.
This question is really about enjoyment. Did you see G-d’s Alps? Did you see all of G-d’s creation? Did you eat and were satisfied? Did you partake in the all the pleasures that were permitted? It is about recognizing that we are worthy to enjoy life. Remember, the rabbis taught that even sex in the right context is permitted, enjoyable, holy (but not on Yom Kippur!). On Rosh Hashanah there is a tradition of eating a new food on the second night of Rosh Hashanah or putting on new clothing, just to provide the opportunity to recite the Shehechianu. Who sustains us and enables us to reach this moment. This very moment of joy, of pleasure, of happiness. You are entitled to have fun, to enjoy life, to take a break from work. It is OK to stop and smell the roses. They are part of G-d’s beautiful creation. This question is about being grateful for all that we have. It is about saying thank you, to G-d, and as Mark Siegle reminds us to the people in our lives, our family and friends, here in this community and beyond. Who do you need to thank? A third grade teacher? A mentor who helped you get started? A colleague you turned to for advice? A friend? A parent? A child? It begs the question what are you dying to do. Or maybe better said, what are you living to do? What is on your bucket list? Always wanted to try hang gliding? Go do it. Paint a landscape? Create a quilt? Learn Hebrew? Travel? See the world? Lie in a hammock and read a book? Enjoy all that the world has to offer.
The seventh question is from a story I tell often. Rabbi Zusiya was dying and crying. His disciples were surprised. What did the great Rabbi Zusiya have to fear? He answered that in the coming world they would not ask why he wasn’t Moses, they would ask, why was he not Zusiya. In the background I can hear the commercial for the US Army recruiters, Be all that you can be. But that is precisely what Zusiya is teaching us. We don’t have to be Moses. We don’t have to be Zusiya, We don’t even have to be perfect. We just have to be ourselves, the person we were meant to be, as good a person as we can be.
So it is about the questions:
- Are you honest?
- Are you leaving a legacy?
- Are you a life long, disciplined learner?
- Did you live with hope?
- When you look at life did you get your priorities right?
- Did you enjoy all the pleasures permitted to you and did you see G-d’s Alps?
- Were you the best person you could be? Not Moses? Not Zusiya but you?
You have 25 hours stretching ahead of you. And an entire lifetime. These questions are important ones to start wrestling with. Then when you get to the end of Yom Kippur and are sealed for another year, or you get to heaven and are asked you can answer, “Yes, I lived a life that mattered.” If you are sitting there worrying that you do not measure up, remember that the Gates of Repentance are always open. That is part of the reason to do this reflection now. Yom Kippur provides us the space and the opportunity to begin to repair the broken places in our lives. Yom Kippur gives us the ability to begin to recognize our shortcomings and take the first step to being the person you want to be. Not Moses or Zusiya, but you, uniquely you. May you be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life for a sweet new year. Ken yehi ratzon.