Category: Sermon

Wisdom from the Wilderness

On By scatteredleaves322In D'var Torah, Holidays, Sermon, SermonsLeave a comment

There’s a name for what we’re experiencing . That feeling of having our hearts broken so repeatedly by the news cycle. Flash floods, fires, mass shootings, wars within us, wars between us, and wars in the world. Wars that make us question who we really are as a people. One day you’re worrying about climate change, the next it’s a group project, AI taking over, what you’re going to do with your life, the next pandemic, your situationship, economic collapse, or drama within your friendgroup. There’s never enough time to process one crisis before another begins. Even when the crisis is no longer acute, there’s a pit in our collective stomach, and it’s not just because we’re Jews with stomach problems. There’s anxiety pulsing through our communities as we wonder what will happen next. The feeling is called “existential whiplash.”  An instagram post from a mental health service called Spring Health says that “existential whiplash” is the emotional strain of trying to keep up with daily life while everything around us feels uncertain or overwhelming. 

Our ancestors knew a thing or two about this feeling, and what it’s like to yearn for stability, while knowing that change is going to keep coming. They survived slavery, escaped Egypt, and crossed the Red Sea. They had a dramatic experience at Mt. Sinai. They reached the Promised Land.  In between these major events, they wandered in the desert – trying to live amid existential whiplash, just like us. The Hebrew word for desert is “midbar.” It also means “wilderness.” The word  midbar appears approximately 270 times in the Torah. It represents uncertainty, wandering, a feeling of lostness in a world churning  with change. 

We’ve spent a lot of time here too, bamidbar – in our own spiritual wilderness. Believe it or not, 2020 was only five years ago. It’s been a long five years, and it’s been utterly exhausting. But all that intergenerational trauma we’ve acquired – going all the way back to our ancestors in the midbar – comes with intergenerational resilience. We are still here.  Still moving forward. We’re even still complaining about it, much like our ancestors in the desert.  

Tonight, I’m going to share 7 lessons for our spiritual wilderness based on our ancestral experience, as well as a few lessons based on the literal wilderness. Some of our most powerful spiritual technologies mirror the interdependent systems of the natural world. In the wilderness, we have an opportunity to learn from that which is wild, around and within us. We will see what our ancestors and the natural world can teach us about the resilience we have right now – and the ways we can build it for the future.  

7 Lessons from the Wilderness 

Lesson 1: Build sanctuaries. “V’asu li mikdash, v’shohanti b’tocham” – God says. “Make for Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell within them.” The mishkan – the communal, portable sanctuary in the desert – was elaborate. Five Torah portions in Exodus discuss the building of this space, sometimes in excruciating detail. The mishkan teaches us that at times of uncertainty, we should build something beautiful. We should pour our energy into creating, especially co-creating something that will serve the community. 

What sanctuaries have you built in our wilderness? What does your mishkan look like? Your mishkan might be your dorm room, a friend’s car, or your favorite coffee shop. It might be the arboretum or another outdoor space where you feel at peace. When you can’t change the whole world, you can still create something beautiful. Something safe. Something meaningful to you and those around you. 

The commentators point out that “v’shohanti b’tocham,” means “that I may dwell within them.” Yes, we must build physical sanctuaries, and we do – and on another level, the text may be referring to the people themselves. “Make for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell within them,” the people. The mishkan, the dwelling place for the Divine – is within every one of us.  

This means you can both build and be a sanctuary – for yourself and others. When have you been a sanctuary for someone you care about this year? When have you been your own? What does it look like to know there is a safe and sacred space within you, one you can always return to? The ultimate mishkan – traveling temple – goes wherever you go, and is there for you no matter what. This is the first lesson of the wilderness: In times of existential whiplash, build sanctuaries. 

There are many examples of collaborative building in the wild that can be instructive for us. Bees build hives and make honey through a process called festooning.. These “festoons” create structural support and regulate the temperature of the hive. Within the hive, there are worker bees who build honeycomb, nurse bees caring for the young, and scout bees who search for optimal hive collections. Each bee contributes to the structure that enables the hive to thrive. 

This leads me to lessons 2 and 3. Lesson 2 is Everyone has something to offer. God instructed every person to bring gifts to the sanctuary, telling Moses, “You shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart is so moved.”  Everyone was asked to give from their heart, and every gift was accepted.  

What can you do to sustain yourself and your community?  Are you an expert problem solver? Someone with powerful listening skills? Are you creative? Are you the person who can always make your friends laugh? Think about what you can give, and give it with love. It might be exactly what your community needs. Lesson 2. Everyone has something to offer. 

Like bees, when we contribute our skills and strengths to our community, we also benefit from the skills of others. This creates a more capable community that allows people to flourish – even or especially in the wilderness. This is where lesson three comes in. Ask for help. In the mishkan, Kohanim were the priests, who made sacrifices on behalf of themselves and their communities. The Levi’im played music and managed the practical aspects of Temple worship. There were also specific roles for individuals. Miriam was the one who could always find water. Betzalel was an artist who designed that first mishkan. 

Lessons 2 and 3 are connected. If everyone has something to offer, you can help others – and others are here to help you, like the bees in their hive. We all have different skills to share. Who, in your wilderness, can you turn to for help? Who can you reach out to when you experience existential whiplash?  When your well has run dry, find a Miriam who can help you locate a new source of lifegiving water. If you can’t serve God by leading song, find yourself some Levites who can. 

Hasidic master Sefat Emet wrote, “Each one gave their own offering,  but they were all joined together by the Mishkan, and became one. Only then did they merit the Divine Presence.” Each person had something unique and precious to offer – but they could not experience the Divine Presence until they shared these offerings. We became a people united not by what we took, what we achieved, or what we conquered. We became a people united by what we gave to one another.

Ecosystems are interdependent. Beavers create habitats, and those habitats are shared with other life forms. Recent research suggests that trees of the same species are communal, and will form alliances with trees of other species. Some claim that forest trees live in cooperative, interdependent relationships, maintained by communication similar to an insect colony. We are both of and in the wilderness. No one can make it through the wilderness alone and fortunately, we don’t have to. Third lesson from the wilderness: Ask for help. 

One Jewish practice that speaks to lessons 2 and 3 is the act of praying with a minyan – ten people. Mourner’s Kaddish is one prayer we only say when we have a minyan. We show up to support the mourners so they can say this prayer during their time of vulnerability and grief. In my prayer services, we count the Jews who are in the building, not just the ones who are in our service, because we are here together for the same reason. We are here because we know we are interdependent, because it strengthens the community, and because we believe in showing up. 

In April, there was a 5.2 magnitude earthquake in Southern California. A livecam from the San Diego Zoo showed all the adult elephants making a protective circle around the two youngest elephants. This behavior is a natural instinct to protect the most vulnerable. An elephant minyan. I think about it when we pray Mourner’s Kaddish together. We can’t protect anyone from grief. But there is so much power in showing up, like the elephants – it makes the grief just a little more bearable, a little less lonely. 

When there’s existential whiplash, make the minyan.  When others ask for help, it’s ok to not always have the right words. Sometimes, showing up is the help. When people are vulnerable, when things are uncertain, when the ground itself feels shaky – count your people, leave no one behind, show up, and be counted yourself. 

Lesson 4: Practice mindful awareness – be present and look around. Our ancestors often found what they needed in the wilderness when they least expected it.

Jacob ran into the wilderness after deceiving his brother and his father. He fell asleep with his head on a rock, and he dreamed of a ladder with angels ascending and descending. Jacob awakened, saying “Mah norah hamokom hazeh!” God was in this place, and I didn’t know it. 

Moses was also bamidar when he saw a bush, burning, but not consumed in the fire. He had run away from Pharaoh’s land, struggling with his conflicting identities as a master in Pharaoh’s palace and a Hebrew, like those Pharaoh enslaved. God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, saying, “Take off your shoes. The place where you are standing is holy ground.”  It was existential whiplash. 

Moses and Jacob were in the wilderness – physically, emotionally, and spiritually – when they received these messages. The Israelites were in the wilderness when we received the Torah at Mt. Sinai. Midrash Rabbah Numbers 1:1 teaches that this was because the Israelites had to be “free and ownerless like the desert” in order to receive it.  The lesson is to be aware of your surroundings. God was in that place. The ground itself was vibrating with holiness. That which appears empty is full of potential. Make yourself free and ownerless like the desert. That which appears mundane may actually be sacred.  Lesson 4.  When facing existential whiplash, practice mindful awareness.  You never know what the wilderness of our moment might reveal.  

Lesson 5 is to forgive. Yom Kippur is the anniversary of the day God forgave the Israelites for one of the greatest sins of all-time – building and worshipping a golden calf. Moses went up Mt. Sinai to receive the Torah from God. The Israelites were afraid and uncertain as they waited. We’ve all been there. We turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms in the wilderness of the unknown, just like our ancestors did.  Even Aaron, Moses’s brother, a leader in the community, took part, inciting the group to not just build, but worship the false idol. 

We have all worshipped false idols in the last year. We have doomscrolled through the desert, worshipping headlines, statements, and trends, arguing in comments instead of taking responsibility for our errors. Your leaders, like Aaron, have also committed this sin. But the story of the golden calf and God’s forgiveness of our ancestors remind us how important it is to forgive, even if it means forgiving idolatry. 

Individuals can’t be perfect, communities can’t be perfect, and the world can’t be perfect.  Ecosystems can’t be perfect either –  even a slight shift in one element can create significant and damaging change across the system. Without grace for the flaws of individuals, communities, or the world, we lose interest in showing up to help each other. We instead cut ourselves and others out. Our communities suffer as a result, much like our ecosystems when something is missing. 

On Yom Kippur, we pray for God to forgive us, as God forgave us for the golden calf. But the only thing we can really do is forgive each other and ourselves. Adonai, Adonai, El Rachum v’Chanun, we chant, listing God’s 13 attributes of mercy – God, God, compassionate and merciful. Can we be compassionate with one another? Can we have mercy on ourselves? Can you forgive yourself for your own idolatry? Can you forgive your community? The world? Can you forgive God? It’s a tall ask. It’s not always possible and it’s not even always the right thing to do. But most of the time, it is – and we must try. Lesson 5. Forgiveness. 

Lesson 6 is to make space for grief. Miriam, Aaron, and Moses – all great leaders – eventually die in the wilderness, before the Promised Land. We’ll focus on Moses and Aaron first. Regarding Aaron’s death, the Torah says “All the house of Israel bewailed Aaron thirty days.” Regarding Moses’s death, we read, “The Israelites bewailed Moses in the steppes of Moab for thirty days.”  To this day, shloshim – 30 days – is one of the mourning periods after a death in Jewish tradition.  With their deaths, Aaron and Moses taught us how to grieve. 

Elephants revisit the remains of deceased herd members, touching and examining the bones, or standing vigil for extended periods. Some cry and refuse to eat after losing a companion. Dolphin mothers may carry their dead calves for periods of time, and other pod members may assist in carrying the body or guarding it. 

Loss happens in the wilderness. In ours, it may seem like everyone is grieving, all the time. But announcements of anguish for suffering communities does not reflect a full grieving process. Existential whiplash leads to “statement culture.” Everyone feels the need to say something about the most recent bad news. It’s often necessary, but it keeps real grief itself at a distance. We need to pause. We need to wail, like the Israelites cried for Moses and Aaron. We need to reflect and remember, like elephants revisiting their herd members’ bones. Make space to mourn. That’s lesson 6.  

Lesson 7 is to practice trust. God appeared to the Israelites as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The pillars  were with them at all times, reminding the Israelites that they were safe. That’s right. They had an emotional support pillar-of-cloud.  Still, as a people traumatized by a history of enslavement, it took them a long time to trust their safety, their leaders, and God. Even when the Israelites were on the verge of the Promised Land, they believed false risk reports, and acted out from a place of fear. They had to wait another 40 years before going into the land as a result.  Nonetheless, the pillars of cloud and  fire stayed with them; a Divine Presence. A reminder that they could learn to trust. 

When you are hypervigilant, or overly attuned to risk – what is your pillar? What shows you that you are safe, that you can trust the process, that you will be cared for, no matter how the future unfolds? Can you trust yourself? Your leaders? Your community? Lesson 7 is to “practice trust” because in times of emotional whiplash, it really does take practice. But our ancestors learned how. And so can we. 

I want to share one case study from the wilderness that shows what happens when we miss the mark in each of these lessons.  When Miriam died in the wilderness, “The community was without water, and they joined against Moses and Aaron. The people quarreled with Moses, saying, “Why have you brought God’s congregation into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die there? Why did you make us leave Egypt to bring us to this wretched place, a place with no grain or figs or vines or pomegranates? There is not even water to drink!”

Miriam was the one who made wells of water appear in the desert, so their concern about water was understandable – but by now, they had been bamidbar for a long time. God had provided what they needed, from manna to eat, to the Torah herself.  By whining for the Egypt they left behind, the Israelites abandoned the sanctuaries they built together.  With mindful awareness, the Israelites might have made space for Moses and Aaron to grieve for their sister. Instead, they panicked, quarreled, and cried for water. Ultimately, God told Moses to speak to a rock, and water would pour from it. In Moses’s rage, he hit the rock instead. 

It’s so relatable. The communal experience of water anxiety. The personal loss. The competing needs, everyone yelling over everyone else. And all of it happening all at once. It was existential whiplash. Instead of grieving, he had to make it stop. He had to fix it. Can anyone relate? Me too. With awareness, Moses might have said “I hear your concern for water. God will provide. Give me a few minutes to myself before I ask God for help.” Instead, he lashed out, hitting the rock in his rage. 

We are living in a wilderness, experiencing profound existential whiplash. The Israel / Palestine crisis, the climate catastrophe, rising antisemitism, lack of access to health care – the list goes on.  While the issues themselves may be new to us, the experience of wilderness is, for lack of a better term – precedented. We have been afraid and uncertain before. We know what happens when we act from a place of fear, building false idols that don’t really protect us. We know what happens when we jump into fixer-mode, without first making space for grief.  We are interdependent, like so many animals in the wilderness. When just a couple of wolves can’t trust the others, it threatens the health of the whole pack. 

We also know what it’s like to build and to be a sanctuary, for each other and for ourselves. We know how to make a minyan, how to lean on each other, and we know how to make offerings that come from the heart.  We know that every bee’s role is urgently needed for the health of the hive. We know how to see the sacred where we least expect it to find it. We can lessen the pain of existential whiplash by looking to the midbar – the wildernesses of our past, the wild world around us, and the wildernesses within, to discover what we need to thrive.  

To recap: 

Lesson 1. Build Sanctuaries. 

Lesson 2. Everyone has something to offer. 

Lesson 3. Ask for help. 

Lesson 4. Practice mindful awareness.

Lesson 5. Forgive. 

Lesson 6. Grieve. 

Lesson 7. Trust. 


A midrash teaches that midbar, wilderness, is linked to the word “midaber,” which means speech. We can use our speech, our words, to teach one another these lessons when we’ve forgotten. We can use them to write down our stories, so we can return to them in the next wilderness. We can use them to remind ourselves that our ancestors passed down their grit (along with all that anxiety and the stomach problems), and that we are stronger for it. We are always in the wilderness and there are always sanctuaries and we keep trying and learning and becoming. There are words for what we are experiencing – existential whiplash. And there’s a term for the antidote – it’s what happens when we learn from everything behind us, around us, and within us. It’s resilience.

Hovering: Rosh HaShanah 5785

On By scatteredleaves322In Communal Tragedy, D'var Torah, Holidays, Sermon1 Comment

Wow. What a year. I have to be honest, friends. I don’t know what to say about it. I don’t know what to say about the year we are leaving behind. I don’t know what to say about where we are now – with rockets flying in multiple directions, slogans screaming across Instagram, countless lives lost and relationships shattered since October 7th. I don’t know what to say about where we are going in this new year when there’s no resolution in sight. We eat apples dipped in honey, illustrating our hopes for a sweet new year. But it can be really hard to think or talk about sweetness when we are tasting bitterness at the same time. 

The beauty of Jewish holidays is that they are both commemorative and experiential. We are asked to remember something that happened in the past – AND we experience it in real time. At Passover we are told that we ourselves are coming out of slavery. Rosh Hashanah is a time when we both remember and experience renewal, rebirth, and creation. When God began creating the world, 5785 days ago in Jewish time, the earth was tohu vavohu, chaos and void. And choshech, darkness, was on the face of the deep. And Ruach Elohim, the spirit of God, m’rachefet, hovered on the face of the water.

What was God feeling in that moment, hovering over the darkness? Was God afraid of the void? Anxious amid the chaos? What did it take for God to find the courage to say “yehi or,” “Let there be light?”

We, too, have known darkness this year. We have also faced the depths. And right now, we, too, are hovering – m’rachefet – between darkness and whatever comes next. What is it like living in this hovering uncertainty? What will it take for us to risk looking forward at all, let alone looking forward with something like hope? I don’t know. But I do know we have examples in our tradition of other moments like this one, and we can learn from our ancestors. 

Our ancestors shared an experience of darkness, chaos, and confusion at Mt. Sinai, waiting for Moses to bring Torah down from the mountaintop. When Moses ascended Mt. Sinai, the Israelites didn’t know when he would return, and they were terrified. In their fear and anxiety, hovering beneath the mountain, they turned to a destructive but familiar coping mechanism, like so many of us have in those uncertain moments – they built a golden calf, a false idol. 

How many of us have turned to an unhealthy habit in moments of anxiety in the last year? Me too.

Moses came down from the mountain with the commandments on two luchot, two stone tablets, and when he saw the golden calf, he was so furious that he shattered them. Moses climbed the mountain again. Even though he was angry at the Israelites, he pleaded with God on their behalf. And God forgave them on the 10th of Tishrei – a day that we now experience and commemorate each year: Yom Kippur. Then Moses descended with new luchot. 

A midrash – which is Torah fanfiction – on this Torah portion tells us how our tradition treats the brokenness we experience in times of darkness and hovering. When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai the second time, with new tablets, the Israelites kept the broken ones. They placed the broken luchot, along with the new ones, in the holy ark.

Why keep this symbol of our own fear, this casualty of rage, this set of broken laws? Because brokenness and wholeness live side by side in the world and in our hearts. Because we had to be in the wilderness, hovering, waiting, lost and afraid, worshiping a false god before we could worship our One God from a place of trust. We kept the broken tablets because learning is part of becoming. We kept them alongside the new ones, because brokenness itself is holy. The broken tablets, carried along with the whole ones in the Aron HaKodesh, the holy ark, represent the resilience that carried us through the rest of the uncertain wilderness.

Rabbi Harold Kushner (z’l) raised an important point about this story “…The saga of the golden calf, God’s anger at the people, Moses’ intervention and God’s forgiveness raise an interesting question: When something breaks, something that was precious to us, is it ever possible to put it together again so that it’s as good as new?” 

So much shattering occurred over the last year. Trust was broken. Relationships ruptured. Communities crumbled. October 7th splintered us again and again. How can we repair? Is it even possible to build ourselves up again so that we and our communities are as good as new?

Rabbi Kushner continued, “It would be nice to believe that a God of second chances would make that possible, but the reality seems to be no, you can’t. If it’s broken and repaired, it will never be the same. The crack will always show. But what a God of second chances does is make it possible that you will end up with something in its place that will be even stronger and better than the original.” 

What would it look like for us to build something better? And what examples can our textual tradition offer for guidance? 

After God hovered in darkness, over the face of the water, God said “yehi or” “let there be light,” and went about the work of creating the world for us. When we finished hovering in the darkness at the foot of the mountain with the golden calf, we went about the work of creating a Mishkan for God, an elaborate and collaborative traveling sanctuary. Each person contributed something of their own to the creation of the Mishkan. The sages consider the golden calf incident to be one of the darkest moments of our history – despairing, leaderless, and chaotic. Our ancestors came through that darkness and said “yehi or,” “Let there be light.” And they created a mishkan. 

The truth is that there is always darkness, brokenness, and loss. And – we can always say yehi or – while we hover within the tohu vavohu, within the chaos. Kohelet says “To everything there is a season, a time for joy and a time to weep.” In his poem, “Kohelet Wasn’t Right,” Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai responds that no, these are not separate times. “In the days when each hour collides with the next,” he says, “we have no choice but to cry and to laugh with the same eyes, to mourn and dance at the same time.” We have to carry the broken tablets with the whole ones. We have to create light while the darkness swirls around us. When false idols have made us forget that we are One, we have to build a mishkan together. 

Does it sound impossible? That’s ok. It won’t happen perfectly, or all at once. Creation didn’t happen just one time – creation is always unfolding, all around and within us. 40 days and nights passed before Moses came back down the mountain with the new tablets after seeing the golden calf. It took time for the Israelites to return to the mishkan. Healing is a long and by no means linear process. We may continue hovering – m’rachefet –  over the depths for awhile.

In the meantime, we have ancestral tools, handed down in our hearts and in our liturgy, that can help us make incremental change. One of these tools is selichot – forgiveness. Rabbi Kushner wrote that “The crack in the first set of tablets was the loss of the dream of perfection. Now the challenge facing you is… can you replace that dream of perfection…with a more realistic one… that will make allowance for human frailty? … Can you give yourself and those around you permission to be human…? On Yom Kippur, so many years ago, God forgave the people who built the golden calf. He forgave us for being human beings, with hopes that we would learn to forgive each other as well.” 

Can you forgive yourself for the moments when the darkness was unbearable, the moments when the shattered pieces of your heart cut so deeply you couldn’t see the whole ones beside you, the moments when hovering was the only option because you couldn’t find light amid the chaos? Can you forgive your community for the moments when we failed to hold you in the way you needed to be held? Can you forgive God for God’s imperfect world? 18th century Ukrainian rabbi, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, taught that Moses was able to find the nekuda tovah – the good point, the Divine Spark – in the Israelites when he pleaded with God on their behalf on top of the mountain. Nachman teaches that this is what allowed the Israelites to move from building the golden calf to building the mishkan – all it took was one person seeing the good inside of them. Forgiveness is another way to say “yehi or.” Let there be light. 

5784 had darkness, chaos, confusion, and grief. We have been at the foot of the mountain with the golden calf.  At this exact moment, when we remember and experience the story of creation, we are m’rachefet – hovering – on the face of the depths. How can we say “yehi or,” like God, when God created from darkness? How can we say “yehi or,” like our ancestors who contributed to the mishkan after contributing to a golden calf? How can we build new tablets – while we hold onto the broken ones? We have looked at an ancestral tool, but we can and should draw on personal experience as well. 

Take a deep breath. Think back on some of your own, personal, darkest moments from this last year. What are the qualities you already had inside you, what are the roots you returned to, what did you discover that was grounding, replenishing, and brought you a little more light? What did you try? What was helpful for you?

Even in this dark year, you were able to find “yehi or” moments. Looking back on our year at Hillel, I can also see examples of times when we said “let there be light” as a community, not in spite of, or even because of, the chaos – but because it is what we do. It’s part of who we are. 

Yes, there was rupture within our community. And, over the twenty-five Bagel Brunches we shared on Sunday mornings, we ate 1,250 bagels in total. There’s an ongoing hostage crisis and war in the Middle East. There was anger, distrust, and antisemitism on campus. There was also Matzo Ball, a festive Hollywood themed semi-formal at Joe’s at the beginning of spring semester. We were anxious and uncertain, but we also celebrated Purim with 300 of our besties at the seventh annual Purim drag show. The news cycle was relentless and depressing. And we played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. We said “yehi or” when we piloted a wellness-themed Jewish Learning Fellowship, where students shared from their hearts and deepened their relationships. We said “yehi or” when we welcomed the angels, and each other, by singing Shalom Aleichem together before each Shabbat meal. With the darkness – light. With the brokenness – creation. With the hovering – a mishkan, a gathering space for sacred community. 

Contemporary scholar of kabbalah, Dr. Melila Hellner-Eshed, writes that “An envelope of bitterness encases the divine sweetness,” yet we can “reach the sweet, divine essence hidden within the layers of the world’s bitterness.” So we will dip our apples and our challah in honey for a sweet near year. We will practice forgiving ourselves and each other for our imperfections. We will rebuild relationships and repair our community. It won’t be the same as before, but it will be stronger. We will honor our brokenness and our wholeness. We will turn away from false idols and we will work together to create a better world. We will say “yehi or.” Say it with me: “Yehi or.” Let there be light. 

Shared with gratitude to Rabbi Bluth and Josh Feldman for helping me figure out what to say in a year when none of us really know what to say. Your friendship and mentorship means the world to me.

Multitudes: Yom Kippur 5784

On By scatteredleaves322In D'var Torah, Holidays, SermonLeave a comment

Sermon delivered at Illini Hillel on Yom Kippur – September 24, 2023

Believe or not, I used to think I was strictly an academic; I was working toward a history PhD, I loved studying, I was a strong writer and teacher, and I loved everything about history. But I couldn’t stand the graduate seminars, the posturing of my colleagues and professors, and the unrelenting stream of brutal criticism without a hint of positive feedback. I believed my advisor saw me as a failure, and, unfortunately, I began to agree with her. I was overworked, I’d lost my spark, and I was deeply depressed. I was also determined to keep at it. It was what I had always wanted, after all.

I only gave myself three hours off each week, and it was for Shabbat on Friday night. Every time I showed up at Hillel, one of the undergraduate interns asked how I was doing, and with a sigh of relief, I’d say “I’m so glad it’s Shabbat.” At the end of that year, I was given the “Shabbat Cheerleader” award at Hillel because I was always declaring my love for Shabbat. And I did love it, even when I felt miserable, alone in my work, and out of love with everything. I still have that award, a cardboard cut-out star with glitter around the edges, a reminder that, to paraphrase Achad Ha-Am, Shabbat has kept me more than I’ve ever kept Shabbat. When I thought of my identities, The “Academic” label wasn’t a lie, but it didn’t cover everything. I hadn’t yet internalized poet Walt Whitman’s famous statement: “I am large. I contain multitudes.” 

Things began to change for me at the last Shabbat of the Jewish year, on the cusp of my second year in grad school. I was with the local Jewish community at the beach on a beautiful Friday night – the Santa Cruz California fog had cleared, the stars were bright, and the ocean crashed and receded on the shore. Families gathered on blankets around the bonfire as Rabbi Paula Marcus led us in song.

“Return again, return again, return to the land of your soul. Return to who you are, return to where you are, return to what you are, born and reborn again.” It felt like an awakening. I remembered that on Yom Kippur we talk about tshuvah, returning to who we truly are, as the final step of atonement. This means we have endless potential, and it means that everything we need to be our best selves is already inside of us. 

There, with the sand and the sea, the song, the stars and the fire, a voice rose inside me, like smoke from a flame. It said “This is not who I am! I am not this miserable person. I am not a sad, cynical academic who fears my teachers and dreads my life every day. I’m not this person who cries on Sunday nights because I don’t want to face the week. This is not who I am!” And just like that, I realized that I had a choice. I didn’t have to get a PhD. There was more to me than being an academic. I promised myself that if I was still unhappy in December, I would consider other options. I went to bed grateful to have discovered this great epiphany – that I had choices. That I was free. That I contain multitudes.

We all have stories we tell ourselves about who we are. What stories are you telling yourself today? What stories have you told yourself this month? Until that moment by the ocean, I had been clinging to a single narrative, something I could believe about myself based on internal and external validation: I am a good student. I am an academic. I was sure I was following the best possible path for Heather the Good Student, and it became my entire identity. Everything else about me seemed unworthy of exploration. I couldn’t yet see the value in my empathy, my leadership and community building skills, or my growing passion for Jewish life. 

Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with “Good Student” as an identity. I want to celebrate all of you for your hard work as students today, and the work that brought you here. But here’s the thing – by this time, I was no longer shaping my story. My identity had begun to write the story for me. How much are you shaping your own story, and how much is it shaping you? Because my identity was writing the story for me, months after my beach epiphany, when I faced the reality of leaving this part of my story behind, I didn’t know who I was anymore. Without “Good Student,” what – or, rather, who – was left? I had a full-on identity crisis. It really felt like a loss. In addition to new anxiety about the future, I grieved the future I thought I’d have. I grieved the person I believed I’d always been. I didn’t know at the time that this little death would lead to a much bigger life

I’m standing here now as a rabbi and as living proof that identity crises are survivable. As it turned out, “Shabbat Cheerleader” was a more important part of my identity than I had ever realized. And thankfully, I’m not the first person in history to have had an identity crisis. Many characters face identity struggles in our Torah, but today I’m going to focus on one. Joseph – who spent parts of his life in a pit, a prison, and a palace. 

A quick recap, for those who haven’t seen Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat recently: Joseph was the youngest in the family, and he had the power to interpret dreams. He was also his father’s favorite, and his brothers were very jealous of him. His brothers cast him into a pit and sold him into slavery. Joseph’s brothers then lied to their father, Jacob, saying that a wild beast killed Joseph. Joseph worked hard as a slave in the palace and he eventually became a respected lead servant of Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s advisors, having earned their trust. Then Potiphar’s wife falsely accused him of sexual assault, and Joseph was thrown into prison. As a prisoner, Joseph made a name for himself by interpreting dreams. Finally he was called on to interpret Pharaoh’s own dream. Joseph’s interpretation inspired the Pharaoh to quickly prepare the country in advance for years of drought, preventing widespread famine in the coming season. 

Joseph’s family back home suffered during this famine, and his father sent his brothers to ask Egyptian leadership for assistance. By the time his brothers approached him, Joseph was the governor of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself, and Pharaoh had given him a new name: Tzofnat Paneach. According to some translations, Joseph’s new name meant “revealer of mysteries.”

This Joseph, this Tzofnat Paneach, whom the brothers entreated on his throne, was quite different from the Joseph who was their father’s favorite son, the Joseph they threw into the pit, and sold into slavery. This Joseph was even different from the Joseph who lived in the Egyptian prison. It’s no surprise that, although Joseph recognized his brothers, his brother’s did not see Joseph on the face of Tzofnat Paneach, the Egyptian governor.

Joseph tested his brothers, accusing the youngest, Benjamin, of stealing a silver cup that Joseph planted in Benjamin’s sack. Upon “discovering” this silver cup, Joseph threatened to enslave Benjamin. Fortunately, the brothers passed the test: Older brother, Judah, offered himself in Benjamin’s place, so that their aging father, Jacob, would not have to grieve the loss of yet another favored child.

When he learned that his father was alive, the Torah says, “v’lo yachol Yosef l’hitapek” – Joseph could not afak – contain – the secret of his identity. He asked everyone to leave besides the brothers, and he began to cry. “Ani Yosef,” “I am Joseph,” he told them. “Ha’od avi chai?”: “Does my father still live?” When he heard about his father, Joseph remembered where he came from  – he was not only Tzofnat Paneach, governor of Egypt. He was also Joseph, the Jewish son of Jacob and Rachel, the boy from the pit and the prison, the interpreter of dreams. If his father continued, then so did Joseph. He was still, after all, himself.

His brothers were frightened and could not answer him, worried that their brother would exact revenge. But Joseph was not angry – they passed the test and showed that they had changed. They, also, were not limited in their roles as jealous older brothers. 

“Come near me, I pray you, Ani Yosef,” he said again. “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.” He explained that they should not worry, saying God sent him to Egypt to ensure their safety during these years of famine. He told his brothers everything that had happened since they sold him into slavery, and Joseph sent them back home with food and other provisions, so the brothers could return with their father and the rest of the family.

“Ani Yosef,” “I am Joseph,” appeared twice within a few lines of this story. Why did he say his name more than once? Maybe the brothers were disbelieving, and Joseph wanted to prove his identity, explaining that he was, in fact, their brother, whom they sold into Egypt. Or maybe it was because Joseph was reclaiming this part of his own identity. It’s significant that Joseph could not afak, he could not contain Joseph, once he learned that his father was alive, even though he rose to power under a new name, Tzofnat Paneach.

It’s also significant that Joseph told his story as one of triumph, in which God had sent him to Egypt to save his family, instead of a story of victimhood, in which his abusive brothers sold him into slavery. Both of these things were parts of Joseph’s truth. Sometimes, trauma doesn’t have a purpose – it just sucks. Part of me wants Joseph to be really angry about what happened to him. And maybe he was. But in telling his story, Joseph had a triple revelation. First, he revealed his identity to his brothers, then he revealed that everything that happened was part of God’s plan, which was his way of making meaning from his trauma. But the resulting third revelation was the most powerful of all: Joseph revealed the truth to himself. After everything that happened, his father was still alive, and he was still Joseph as well as Tzofnat Paneach. 

Joseph had multiple defining traumatic experiences, none of which solely defined him. At different points in his story, we see him drawing on his identities as a dream interpreter, a son, a brother, a servant, and a leader. Though trauma was a part of his story, and it always would be, Joseph saw himself in multitudes. 

The new year has started, and I invite you to consider:  How will you tell the story of your multitudes this year? What parts of yourself can you, like Joseph, no longer afak, no longer contain? Close your eyes for a moment, take a deep breath – and say to yourself, silently. “I am me.” What does that feel like? What identities are you holding? Are any of your identities writing your story for you? Is something external writing your story that shouldn’t be?

Over time I’ve learned to practice drawing on my experiences and identities, leaning into one and then another. I’m a writer, a learner, and a Hillel professional. I’ve been a distance runner, a caffeine addict, a band geek, and a person traumatized by infertility and pregnancy losses. I’ve been a Shabbat cheerleader, a grief guide, a theater person, and a leadership educator. I’ve been a person facing chronic mental and physical illness, I’ve been a camp director, a healer, a college student co-op enthusiast, and a living historian (true story – ask me about shooting Revolutionary war era muskets!). I’ve practiced Conservative and Reform Judaism. I am a Renewal Rabbi. I’m a wife, a sister, a daughter, a mom, a community builder, and an educator. Each of these identities has been a significant part of my story at one time or another. And the most important outcome of my revelation that night on the beach is that I can be all of these things. Even the things that are outside of my control – illness and infertility, for example – do not define my whole self. I get to choose which part of myself I’m leaning into every day.

Two years ago at Yom Kippur I spoke about Simone Biles, celebrating her choice to step back from a successful gymnastics career to focus on her mental health. To recap, by 2020, Simone Biles was considered by many to be the greatest American gymnast with seven Olympic medals and 25 World Championship medals, making her the most decorated gymnast in the history of the Gymnastics World Championships. At the height of her career, during the 2021 Olympics, she withdrew from the finals, citing mental health concerns. 

Tonight I want to lift up the newest chapter of her story. Biles went back to gymnastics after a two year hiatus. She returned to this part of herself on her own terms, and she won an eighth National Championship at the end of August, breaking the record of Al Jochim, who won seven titles on national level, the last one in 1933. Biles said the most important thing she did for herself in the last two years was attend to her mental health needs. In a recent interview, Biles said, “There’s so much more in life than gymnastics. I love what I do. At the end of the day, yes, I am a gymnast. I’m really good at what I do. But I won’t be doing gymnastics forever. And there’s still things to look forward to, past gymnastics, where before I never thought so. So, now it’s just a part of what I do. And it doesn’t really define who I am as much anymore.” Biles is learning to honor different parts of her identity, deciding what parts of identity to prioritize, and she is celebrating her multitudes as she writes this next chapter. 

We are each made in the image of the Divine. This means that God is One, and God’s Oneness manifests in multitudes. The Divine is alive in everything! God is in the thunder and the wind, flower petals, and yes, even mosquitos. God is in the mountains and the minutiae of daily life. As the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, wrote, “God is garbed in everything. No place is devoid of the Divine.” God is garbed in each of us. God manifests in our multitude of identities, and all of them are holy.  If God-language doesn’t work for you, consider a teaching from another one of my rebbes, scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson: “The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.” Stardust, manifest in multitudes.

When I was on the beach on Shabbat all those years ago, sitting under the stars at a dark time in my life, I could not have imagined that I would be standing here tonight as your rabbi, telling you this story on Kol Nidrei. I left that graduate program, but I still love learning – as a matter of fact, I started looking for a professional development program about three months after I finished rabbinical school. I’m not a professional academic, but the academic in me will always love being a student. We don’t have to be a professional at any activity in order to love it. What do you love to do, even if it’s not part of your life plan? For some of us it might be playing an instrument, or a sport, travel, or cooking. And, because we all have “great multiple futures,” as my friend and mentor, Josh Feldman, says, our passions and past identities sometimes show up as part of our careers or lives in ways we can’t even imagine – being named the “Shabbat cheerleader,” for example. I’m sure the Joseph at the bottom of the pit couldn’t have imagined that he would become Tzofnat Paneach, a powerful leader in Egypt, or that he would forgive his brothers. But even in that position of power, he realized that he was still, after all, his father’s son. After winning her eighth championship following a two-year hiatus, Simone Biles acknowledged that gymnastics is part of who she is, but it no longer defines her. God is One, and yet God – and the stardust that we are made of – manifest in the multitudes of existence. 

We all contain multitudes. We are all expansive. We have so many pasts, presents, and futures to explore and inspire us on our journeys of becoming. Which parts of yourself will you return to in this season of returning? How will you honor your own wholeness? 

This year and in the years ahead, you will have many opportunities to explore who you are and who you might become. Hold nothing back. “Dare greatly,” as Brene Brown has taught. Don’t let one identity write your story for you. Think about the part of your story you’ve been resisting, and how you might stretch yourself to write it this year. Or let your t’shuvah this Yom Kippur be a return to an identity you’ve abandoned and would like to engage again. Experiment. Play. Be curious and courageous. Repair the world, and do the inner work you need to heal yourself. Embrace the magnificent multitudes of “maybes” that lie within you, and the “great multiple futures” that await you. It’s 5784 and the possibilities are endless. May the stories we tell this year remind us who we are, and celebrate the multitudes contained within us. 

A Chance Worth Taking: Yom Kippur Sermon, 5780

On By scatteredleaves322In Communal Tragedy, D'var Torah, Holidays, Poetry, Sermon1 Comment

I can see them, huddling together behind bookshelves or under the desks. I can hear their thoughts, their heart beats. Is this it? Am I going to die? What will my mom say at my funeral? Will the police come in time to save me? Will anyone save me?

I can see them, huddling together over cups of coffee in a campus coffee shop. I can hear their thoughts, their heart beats. Will I pass my chem final? What should I do when I graduate? What if I don’t want to go home? Where is home anyway? 

It was cold, the first real rain California had seen in a long time. My university campus was relatively quiet and sleepy. There were only a couple of days left before Thanksgiving, and people were mostly inside, studying for finals, buying plane tickets for winter break. Meanwhile, at another university, the students were wondering why it happened. A school shooting. It’s always another campus. It never happens here. Until it does.

I remember when it happened at Columbine. I remember how I suddenly felt cold in the middle of April, the kind of cold that makes you think you’ll never be warm again. When it happened at Virginia Tech, I kept refreshing the news websites, unable to look away from the rising body count. I thought about my friend who had died, young and unexpectedly, just two years earlier. The loss had shaken me to the core. When the death of one person can turn your world upside down, what does it mean to lose so many? What does it mean when 11 are killed in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, or 20 in an El Paso Walmart? How many worlds are destroyed when 49 people are murdered in an Orlando nightclub?

On the High Holidays, we pray Unetanetokef: “On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed, who will live and who will die, who when their time comes and who before or after their time, who by fire and who by water.” Who will die in a shooting this year? Who will take their own lives? Next time, will it happen here?  Even if we don’t believe that our fate is sealed in the book of life and death on Yom Kippur, this holy day still forces us to confront the reality that we just don’t know. What are we supposed to do with this uncertainty? Yom Kippur has a few suggestions about how to respond (Existential fear has been around for a long time, and for better or worse, Jews are really good at it).

First, Yom Kippur teaches us that we can’t hide from mortality. Yom Kippur is transgressive – we live a grief and death-phobic society, and the Jewish calendar gives us a day when we rehearse for our own deaths. On Yom Kippur, and in the days leading up to our own deaths, we make a confession, and we don’t eat, work, or have sex. Some people choose to wear white on Yom Kippur because Jews are traditionally buried in white shrouds. On Yom Kippur, we look directly at the thing that scares us the most, and we do it together. 

That’s the second suggestion Yom Kippur has to offer: Togetherness. When we pray al chet, we atone for sins committed by others in our community, even if we did not commit these sins ourselves. We don’t call out individuals – instead, we reduce shame by confessing together. We face the fierce uncertainty of life by supporting each other in atonement. 

According to Yom Kippur, liturgy, Teshuva, Tefilah, and Tzedakah lessen the severity of Unetanetokef. For some, this means that if you do these three things, you’re off the hook, and you’ll survive another year. For those who read Unetanetokef as an expression of uncertainty, these words deliver a different message. We don’t know if Teshuva (atonement), Tefilah (prayer, meditation, mindfulness), and Tzedakah (righteous giving), will save our lives this year. But we do know they make our lives better. And that’s what Unetanetokef actually says: “Teshuvah, Tefila, and Tzedakah transform this harsh decree.” We don’t know what’s coming next, but this will help in the meantime. 

There’s one more thing we can learn from this season. It’s a lesson from Sukkot, which thankfully arrives only five days after Yom Kippur. On Sukkot, we build, decorate, and live in unstable shelters that we tear down one week later. Five days after confronting mortality on Yom Kippur, the Sukkah is a powerful reminder to find beauty and meaning in the temporary. 

Gun violence has become an epidemic and our sense of safety has been shaken to the core. With every school shooting, I can see them, huddling together behind bookshelves or under the desks. Is this it? Am I going to die? Will the police come in time to save me? Will anyone save me?

We don’t know. We don’t know who is going to die this year. So we are going to face our fears, and we are going to face them together. We will make life better through teshuva, tefilah, and tzedakah. We will find beauty in the world around us, no matter how fleeting. We will march, we will vote, and we will organize. We will love harder and breathe deeper. We don’t know who will live and who will die, and we don’t know if any of our efforts will make an impact. But giving up is not an option, and we are going to try everything we can. Because we are a chance worth taking. 

Please rise for a Mourners Kaddish for those killed by gun violence this year. 

Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba
Life is a volley of bullets
b’alma di v’ra hirutei, v’yamlikh malkhutei,
Time is a bleeding wound
b’hayyeikhon uv’yomeikhon uv’hayyei d’khol beit Yisrael,
in houses of worship, schools, shopping malls
ba’agala uviz’man kariv,
It seems that no one is safe.
v’imru: Amen.

God, these words tumble from my tongue
Y’hei sh’mei raba m’varakh l’alam ul’almei almaya.
marbles in a bowl overturned
Yitbarakh v’yishtabakh v’yitpa’ar v’yitromam v’yitnasei,
I don’t want to praise, I
v’yit’hadar v’yitaleh v’yit’halal sh’mei d’kud’sha
just want it to stop. Words, bullets, headlines,
faster and faster, they run
b’rikh hu
and I am out of breath. 

L’eila min kol birkhata v’shirata,
God, I am voting, marching, organizing,
tushb’khata v’nekhemata,
I don’t know if anyone is listening, but God,
da’amiran b’alma,
We are a chance worth taking.
v’imru: Amen.

Time, blood, thoughts and prayers
Y’hei sh’lama raba min sh’maya,
are never enough, but I can’t seem to stop praying
v’hayyim aleinu v’al kol Yisrael,
even though I’m not sure
v’imru: Amen.
You are listening.

Oseh shalom bimromav,
May the One Who Makes Peace in Heaven
Hu ya’aseh shalom
Make Peace
aleinu, v’al kol Yisrael
Over us and over all Israel
v’al kol yoshvey tevel
and for all who dwell on earth.
We are a chance worth taking
v’imru: Amen.

The Way Home: Rosh Hashanah 5780

On By scatteredleaves322In D'var Torah, Holidays, Sermon, SpeechLeave a comment

When I was a sophomore at UC Santa Cruz, I was accepted into the Creative Writing concentration for my literature degree. I don’t know if it’s changed or not, but back then, most people didn’t get into the concentration until junior year, and some never got in at all. I was excited to workshop my poetry with other poets, and I couldn’t wait to learn with celebrated creative writing faculty.  My dream was to publish a novel or poetry collection one day, and I believed these workshops would help me make it happen. 

Kresge Bridge – Photo taken on Rosh Hashanah, 5780

The first course for the concentration started in winter quarter. It was a night class, and I remember the smell of damp redwoods on the bridge to Kresge college, the halos of lamplight in the fog. I also remember the faces of the women – they were all women – sitting around the table in that poetry workshop. One of them was always knitting, the clink of her needles punctuating her critiques. 

I did some of my best writing that quarter, but I also remember how awful it felt. How I looked up to the other writers in that workshop…and how I felt them looking down on me. I changed my words so many times attempting to win their praise. My reflective, narrative voice was too bland and status quo for the other writers. Even some of the poets I loved to read, like Mary Oliver, were written off as too predictable. 

Toward the end of the following quarter, I found myself in tears in the teacher’s office. I couldn’t explain what was wrong at first, but finally I heard myself say “I’ve changed my voice so many times, I can’t tell which voice is mine anymore.” 

Writing had always been home for me. It was my refuge, a place where I knew myself. When I felt lost, I could always write my way back. But after two quarters trying to impress the others in my workshop, home didn’t feel like home anymore. It was my house, but not my furniture, or it was like someone had come in overnight and rearranged everything, so that nothing felt familiar or true. It was worse than writer’s block. It was full on writer’s paralysis. My teacher was sympathetic and supportive. She recommended a workbook that I still love called The Artist’s Way. The exercises helped me find my true voice again, despite the noise of my nasty inner critic. The critic had always been part of me, and she probably always will be – but she had grown far louder over the course of those two workshops.

In fall of my junior year, I joined a different workshop group and I had a radically different experience. These writers lifted each other up, and focused on helping each other write from a place of authenticity, whatever that meant for each one of us. There was still plenty of critique, but it felt like something else entirely. My relationship with my voice began to heal, and writing felt like home again. I am still in touch with some of the writers from that workshop today. Shoutout to Facebook for the help with that. I’ve also become much closer with one of the women from the first two workshops, and I learned that I wasn’t the only one struggling to find my voice there. 

In the Rosh Hashanah Torah portion, Sarah expels Hagar from her home. Hagar and her son, Ishmael, are bamidbar. Bamidbar means both “wilderness” and “desert” in Hebrew. Whenever anyone in the Torah is bamidbar, it means they are about to learn something about themselves – something challenging, deep, and powerful. Where was Moses when he found God in the burning bush, and learned that he would lead the Israelites out of slavery? Bamidbar. Where were the Israelites before they arrived at Mt. Sinai? Bamidbar – for forty years! If you’ve ever seen your grandparents try to give directions without GPS, you might understand why it took so long! But I digress. We had to get lost before we could find ourselves. 

During the Days of Awe, we talk a lot about tshuvah. Over time, it’s come to mean “repentance” or “atonement.” But the word itself actually means return. This is the season of returning – returning to the spark of Divine Light that lives inside each one us. Finding our way through the wilderness of our lives so that we can return to who we truly are. 

Hagar was bamidbar when she ran out of water, when she laid her son Ishmael beneath a tree because she couldn’t bear to see him die. She was exiled from her home and she felt alone and afraid. Hagar was never going to get Sarah’s approval, just like I was never going to get the approval I so desperately wanted from other writers in that workshop. Vayik-fe-kach Elohim et Ayneha – and then, God opened her eyes. Hagar saw a well. The Torah doesn’t say that God created a well. Hagar saw the well. Maybe it had been there all along, but Hagar needed help to see it. Hagar was not alone after all, and with God’s help, she returned – she found her way out of the wilderness. Sometimes, we need someone else to help us see the well that’s right in front of us. 

It’s a new Jewish year and a new school year. You have new classes, new homes, and some of you are new to UCSC. You may see all these new beginnings as an opportunity to reinvent yourselves. Maybe you want to try on a different voice, and then another, and another. Change can be exciting and scary. Face the wilderness with curiosity. Join all those student groups. Take a class in a subject you’ve never considered. This is the moment to do it. And remember, each of us has to explore our own personal wilderness before we can find the way home, before we can return to who we are. 

And when you do feel lost, when home doesn’t feel like home anymore, when you’ve lost sight of yourself – when you are bamidbar, like Hagar, Moses, and so many others before us – remember that you don’t have to find your way back alone. You can turn to a teacher or a mentor, who might recommend the right book at the right moment. You can reach out to an old friend, a partner, a parent, or God. As the new years begin, I encourage you to make a list for yourself – a list of the people you can turn to when you need to return. The ones who will hear you when you call out from your wilderness. The ones who remind you to open your eyes – because the well has been there all along. 

Shana Tova, everyone. May every journey bring you closer to the home inside of you.