October 9th: Shemini Atzeret
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
The following is Rabbi Ostrich’s D’var Torah for Rosh Hashanah Morning.
Our Torah portion describes a kind of dream experienced jointly by both Abraham and Isaac. Both follow the voices of authority in their lives, and both find themselves on top of Mount Moriah. “What are we doing here?” both must wonder. “Will this dream be a good dream or a nightmare?” The answers to these questions reverberate through the ages and our souls—and in the sound of the Shofar.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once remarked, “How strange to be a Jew and go off on God’s perilous errands.” It is strange perhaps, but it is also beautiful—that a people takes so seriously the idea of a relationship with the Divine, that a group believes itself capable of holiness and significance. Here is the rest of the quotation from his essay, The Earth is the Lord’s:
”Our life is beset with difficulties, yet it is never devoid of meaning. Our existence is not in vain. There is a Divine earnestness about our life. This is our dignity. To be invested with dignity means to represent something more than oneself. The gravest sin for a Jew is to forget what he represents…We are God’s stake in human history. We are the dawn and the dusk, the challenge and the test. How strange to be a Jew and to go astray on God’s perilous errands. We have been offered as a pattern of worship and as a prey for scorn, but there is more still in our destiny. We carry the gold of God in our souls to forge the gate of the kingdom. The time for the kingdom may be far off, but the task is plain: to retain our share in God in spite of peril and contempt. There is a war to wage against the vulgar, against the glorification of the absurd, a war that is incessant, universal. Loyal to the presence of the ultimate in the common, we may be able to make it clear that man is more than man, that in doing the finite he may perceive the infinite.”
When we gather together in holy convocation, one of our purposes is to share this noble hopefulness. Whether we are theistic or humanistic or mystical or here for an ethereal sense of family, we gather together on these holy occasions to reflect upon our sacred vision. Some would say that we gather to ask for God’s Presence. Others would speak more in terms of the wisdom of our Tradition or the ancestral memory of parents and grandparents praying together. Some speak in terms of the Jewish community. As Rabbi Lawrence Kushner once wrote, there is a “religious power of simply being seen and looking good” in the synagogue. “It is a way of appearing before God who we suspect is not beneath looking through the eyes of the community. Being seen by the congregation is like being seen by God. All those souls, together in that sanctuary, make something religious happen.” (Invisible Line of Connection, page 58-59).
I yearn for this spirit of our sacred and mysterious endeavor, and I look forward year after year to the gift of a renewed sense of sacred possibilities.
Many of our prayers speak of this dynamic—of the way that our relationship with the Presence fills us with holy potential, but one stands out to me, Sim Shalom from the morning service. As I read it, consider the process it describes.
“Grant us peace, goodness and blessing, grace, and lovingkindness, and compassion.
Bless us all, our Creator, with the light of Your Face…”
Many translations say, “with the light of Your Presence,” but the literal words are, “with the light of Your Face,” which I think is significant.
“For, with the light of Your Face, you give us, O Lord our God, The Torah of Life
And the love of lovingkindness, righteousness, blessing, compassion, life, and peace.”
The insight here is that God’s Face—as anthropomorphic as it may sound—that God’s Face gives us these particular affinities: an life-affirming approach and a deep love of lovingkindness, righteousness, blessing, compassion, life, and peace.
When I consider this imagery, I see a parent beaming at a child, and the child looking at the parent, absorbing the hopes and dreams and pride that the parent is visiting upon the child with such a gaze.
I know, from my perspective as a child, that that gaze was extremely important. It came not at every moment, but, when I was visited with that gaze, it was precious. That gaze inspired me to be better, to live up to my potential, to be the David that was possible.
This was also the gaze I would, from time to time, get from my grandparents or certain aunts and uncles—and from mentors. It was a gaze based on what that person who loved me and knew me saw within me, on what that person saw was a blessing that I could become.
We all know that the expectations of others can be both wonderful and oppressive—and one of our tasks is to determine whether the hopes of others are really for us. However, the fact is that each of us, no matter what our situation or potential, has blessings within, and, sometimes, that loving gaze from someone who knows us and who sees the best us—such a gaze can mean everything.
As for God’s motivations, look at the next phrase:
“It is good in Your Eyes to bless Your people Israel
at each moment and every hour with Your peace.”
When God visits us with the gaze of,
“the love of lovingkindness, righteousness, blessing, compassion, life, and peace,”
God is hoping for us to have a sense of holy purpose, one that will give us peace and completeness and awareness and security continually. God will be happy when we are happy and fulfilled, and the gaze of God’s Face can help us get there.
I would like you to think of the gazes you have received in your lives. There are certainly all kinds, from all kinds of people, but think of the ones that looked at you to inspire the best and most noble values—that called to you with the highest ideals in which you and the gazer believed. There is something about the people we love and admire looking upon us in noble expectation—as a reminder of our higher selves, as an inspiration to fulfill the deeper goals and aspirations. Those gazes, from people who love us and know us, transmit values and determination, and that, I believe, is what our exposure to God can bring.
One my teachers, Dr. Jacob Petuchowski, used to explain that there are two parts of Jewish worship. Prayer is when we talk to God, and Torah is when God talks to us. If you were to analyze the service, you would notice both components. The service is thus a conversation between us and the Eternal Holy One. One enhancement I would add to Dr. Petuchowski’s explanation is that, sometimes, there are excerpts from the Prophets and Psalms that—while they originally come from God, are being voiced by us—spoken by us to God. We are quoting God to God, showing that we have heard the Divine and are trying to frame our thoughts and prayers in language and values we have been taught.
We are called by many voices and many possibilities. Our lives are complex, and our opportunities are many. It is good to respond to many of these voices, but it is sometimes hard to resist those that do not represent the best that is in us. This is why it is so important and so deeply fulfilling to be reminded of the holy and noble that reside within us all. When we come to the synagogue and engage in our holy conversation with the Divine, we allow ourselves to bask in the gaze of the Holy and to remember our best and most noble selves.
Thus, while it can seem a little “strange to be a Jew and go off on God’s perilous errands,” it is also a precious and beautiful thing. God is with us, smiling and hoping, and realizing that, in doing the finite, we may perceive and actualize the infinite.