Yom Kippur 5767 Sermon

My friends – I’m going to do something today that I’ve never done before on Yom Kippur. Don’t worry; I’m not going to eat a bagel! I’m going to give a follow up sermon to the one I gave on Rosh Hashanah. After all, if movies, television series and novels can have sequels, why not sermons? And there is so much more to say….

Last week, on Rosh Hashanah, I spoke about how hope sustains us. Today I’d like to talk to you about where it comes from.

In these dark times, we’re hungry for hope. On Rosh Hashanah I suggested that hope is not wishful thinking but an active response to the world. It is what we do and how we live. Hope not only inspires action – sometimes our actions inspire hope in us and in others. I also suggested that Judaism is a religion of hope. It’s no accident that Israel’s national anthem is Hatikva, “The Hope.” That says a lot about who we are as Jews and how we see the world.

But why should a person be hopeful these days? Could it be that some people are optimistic while others are fatalists by nature? Is it simply that some people see the cup as half-full while others see it as half empty? What is it that gives some people the ability to express hope in the face of tragedy, while others are resigned to their Karma?

Hope, I’d like to suggest, is only half the equation. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum. And it is not just a matter of human nature. Hope grows out of a sense of faith. When we have something to believe in we have hope. When we have faith in God and we feel that we are not alone in the universe we become hopeful. Faith and hope are written large in all the words we recite and the prayers we chant on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and in the Jewish religion. If we take faith out of our religion, what is left?

In the Musaf service we chant, V’kol Ma’aminim, “We all believe.” V’kol Ma’aminim contains a litany of belief statements. We all believe that God is trustworthy, that God knows our hidden thoughts, and forgives. When we recite this passage, we are quick to pass over most of these statements; we might sing along as the cantor chant these words to a catchy tune but I’m not sure we really think about what it is we are saying. Do we really “all believe?” I suspect not. We are living in an age of doubt and uncertainty. We have more questions than answers, more doubts than affirmations.

Yet we want to believe, more than anything. In the aftermath of 9-11, the vast majority of people turned to their faith in search of comfort and strength. Some of you may remember that powerful evening in our sanctuary just a few days after September 11th five years ago, when people of all faiths gathered and cried together right here in our synagogue. It was a powerful spiritual moment – in the face of sorrow our faith sustained us

It is in those dark moments that we turn to our faith. In the 23rd Psalm we speak of God as a gentle shepherd, as the One who guides us along the right path. These are nice platitudes about God. It is only in the final half of this psalm that we address God directly. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for YOU are with me.” It’s in times of darkness that we find ourselves yearning to address God.

Dr Victor Frankl, a Viennese psychiatrist and Auschwitz survivor, tells the story of his most powerful experience in the death camps. Frankl’s wife had sewn one of his manuscripts into the lining of his coat before he was taken away. This was his life work. When he arrived at Auschwitz, however, his coat was taken away from him and he was given an old raggedy coat that belonged to an earlier victim. Instead of the many pages of his manuscript, Frankl reached into the pocket and found a single page torn out of a Siddur containing the Shema. At that moment Frankl understood that to survive one had to have a reason to exist, one had to have a purpose and a set sustaining beliefs. It was not his life work but his inner life that would give him meaning and faith and hope.

But many of us find ourselves at a loss for words in these dark times. We don’t have the language with which to speak about God, let alone to speak to God, and we lack the conviction with which to depend on our faith. We feel like orphans – we are all alone in the universe with no one to whom we can turn. Is it at all surprising that we also lack hope?

We believe and we don’t believe in God. Our faith seems to fail us but we yearn for a deep faith in something. I think of my own mother, 92 years old, frail and in a nursing home. She has lived a traditional Jewish life; she lit candles every Friday night, kept kosher both in and out of our home, gave of her time to help others and observed the Jewish holidays. But as she approaches the end of her life, she is deeply depressed. Her faith does not seem to be sustaining her. It is not giving her the solace or the strength she needs in facing the challenges of aging and death. Isn’t that what we expect of our faith?

How many of us feel this way? How many of us secretly believe God has failed us? This past year I was confronted by a number of devastating tragedies. Members of our congregation in their early to mid forties passed away from a series of illness and accidents. They left behind spouses and children and broken hearts. We felt our own mortality as we grieved for them as a community. No one knew what to do, or what to say. I suspect that many had at least a passing thought – where is God at a time like this? Why has God abandoned us? We’re embarrassed. We don’t have the words with which to express our faith or our doubts. No one has ever taught us or encouraged us to talk with or about God. Jews just don’t seem to do that!

Yet we want to believe in God. We recognize that those who have faith often exude confidence and hope; we want to feel like them. Even in the face of trials and tribulations they seem to have a rock that sustains them. Those who believe in a personal God often feel that God is big enough to accept their anger and hurt. They feel free not only to praise God but to yell at Him when they are angry. One of my Seminary professors, Dr Moshe Zucker, used to say that he was broigez with God. He lost most of his family in the Shoah. He taught me that one can be angry with God and still believe in God. “Some day,” Dr Zucker would say,” I’m going to appear before the Holy One and give Him an argument!”

There is something comforting about having such a powerful sense of God in one’s life. Yet few of us do. Many Jews today are not ideological atheist but they are functional atheist. They don’t deny God. It’s just that they live without any real sense of God’s presence in how they live and what they do. Believing in God should make a difference in how we live, how we see the world.

So where do we find the type of faith that can sustain us? Is it a choice we make? Or is it, like most of our convictions, something we find deep within ourselves, like inspiration or love? But what happens when we are not inspired or feeling particularly loving?

We were never taught how to talk about God. We reject a literalist interpretation of religious language as absurd or superstitious yet we have nothing to offer in its place. God is not an old man with a beard who sits on a throne in heaven. But neither is God an abstraction. We want our beliefs to feel real and authentic – not simply intellectual constructs or ideas. No one wants to pray to an idea; we want to believe that the God to whom we address our prayers is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.

We must walk a thin line. It demands thoughtfulness and sophistication, honesty as well as poetry. Real faith is not for the simple minded or the superstitious. It is thoughtful and self critical and demands much of us.

Within the spectrum of Jewish beliefs there is a great deal of room for interpretation. And there are no final answers to these questions. Faith has been defined as committing one’s entire life to something that one ultimately cannot prove. Faith, then, is a product of reflection and meditation, of exploration and soul searching. We not only arrive at a place of insight but we commit our lives to it as well. We choose to live by that faith because it gives us a reason to be and strength in facing the world around us.

Moses Maimonides, the great 12th century Jewish philosopher, composed a well known statement of Jewish beliefs which we usually refer to as Ani Ma’amin. It is an attempt to combine Jewish tradition with Aristotelian philosophy. For Maimonides, faith had to be based on sound reason and the best scientific knowledge of his day.

Today “faith” has a different meaning. Faith comes from the heart and not just the mind. Faith is not based on logic or reason – though it certainly shouldn’t contradict reason either. Faith is based on the existential truths of our lives. What has our life experience taught us? How have we integrated our knowledge of the world with our religious traditions into a system of basic faith beliefs? How have we turned our faith into a program of actions that is a blessing to us and to others?

We like to say that Judaism is a religion of deed and not religion of creed. But that is only partially true. Certainly Judaism places great emphases on action and behavior, but those behaviors have no meaning outside of the context of our beliefs. Why bother davening daily or eating kosher food or waiting for three stars in the sky at the end of Yom Kippur if these actions are not based on some type of system of faith?

When it comes to faith we are not going to agree. Historically Jews have never all been on the same page when it comes to theology. In fact someone once suggested that the only thing two Jews can agree about is what the third should be giving to tzedakah. Whether or not we agree, it is important for us to think about our own personal beliefs. We must ask ourselves – what do we believe about God? What does our tradition teach us – what meaning do these ideas have for us today?

We are not on our own in coming to these insights. The Bible and prayer book is filled with the expressions of religious luminaries. When we open the great literature of our tradition we encounter insights and inspiration that can help us in composing our own Ani Ma’amin. The Talmud, Midrash and the great medieval thinkers challenge us. Modern theologians ask us to take our contemporary experience into account in figuring out our beliefs. And our practice of Judaism shapes our beliefs. When we practice Judaism we are challenged to think about how Judaism fit into our lives. Mitzvot not only grow out of belief. They challenge us to think about our beliefs as well.

On Yom Kippur afternoon I hope to share with you my own attempt at creating an Ani Ma’amin statement. Before I sat down to write this sermon, I decided I needed to practice what I preach. So I wrote a statement of personal statement of beliefs. Of course my ideas about God and Judaism keep changing but I think it’s essential for each of us to think about our belief system and to ask what it means for our lives.

Like Victor Frankl we must reach into our spiritual pocket. What will we find there? What gives our lives meaning and purpose? What would we be willing to live for and to die for? Of course we love our family and our country. We may even say we love Israel. But are there also beliefs that give purpose and shape to our existence? This is an important a question for us to ask ourselves if we wish to find hope in our lives.

I’d like to end today where I began on Rosh Hashanah – with the 27th Psalm. This magnificent Psalm is a statement of faith and hope which we recite through-out this sacred season. I find myself carrying on a dialogue with the words of the psalmist as a recite this psalm each day. Do I agree with everything he says – No! But his words help to shape my own faith. Here is some of that dialogue.

“The Lord is my light and my help. Of whom shall I be afraid? The Lord is the strength of my life. Who shall I dread?”
“My light” and “my help” are said to be references to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We come to synagogue at this time of year looking for illumination and strength. But we also come with trepidations. We are uncertain about the future. Yet I believe that we are not alone. As long as God is present we can rise to all the challenges that the New Year brings.

“When evil doers draw near to devour me and foes threaten, they stumble and fall…Though wars are arrayed against me I remain certain.”
We know how harsh life can be. What happens when we face trials and tribulations? What happens when life overwhelms us? God can not change the things that threaten us but the knowledge and reassurance that God is present can give us strength and hope.

One thing I ask of the Lord, for this do I yearn. To dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to pray in his sanctuary safe from peril.
The synagogue reminds us how precious it is to have a faith to call home. Not that there are any guarantees in life. But the fact that we can return to this refuge and find comfort in the presence of God can be source of goodness and hope.

Though my father and my mother forsake me the Lord will gather me in and care for me.
There are times when we are reminded of the ones we have lost, of the dear souls who are no longer with us. At such moments our hearts break and we feel alone and abandoned. This is a place to which we can come to cry. If we open ourselves to God we can find comfort. Life will come and go but God will always be there.

Hope in the Lord! Be strong.
It takes courage to live a life of faith in today’s world. And it takes a brave person to live with hope. But the choice is ours. Maimonides said “Even though the Messiah may tarry, I believe…” We repeat these words. The world is not yet redeemed – it is broken and shattered. We know that there are no guarantees, no promises and no assurances, only the sense of certainty that living a life of meaning and faith can make a difference. We believe that we can find Your blessings not in what You give us but in what we give You. There is hope in the very knowledge of Your presence.

Let us hope in the Lord and take courage!
May our faith sustain us in these dark times and allow us to carry on….

Shanah Tova