Tonight at sundown marks the last Shabbat of the Hebrew year 5786. For sentimental bean counters of days and their meaning like me, that seems like an important idea to share.

What if you light Shabbat candles for the last time tonight? Or say Kiddush? Or bless the bread — knowing it’s the last time you’ll ever do it?

Will the light from the candles burn differently? Will the wine from the cup draw you to paradise? Will the bread be enough for the journey to forever?

We may never pass this way again.

מִזְמ֥וֹר שִׁ֗יר לְי֣וֹם הַשַּׁבָּֽת׃

A psalm. A song. For the sabbath day.

ט֗וֹב לְהֹד֥וֹת לַיהֹוָ֑ה וּלְזַמֵּ֖ר לְשִׁמְךָ֣ עֶלְיֽוֹן׃

It is good to praise the Eternal,
to sing hymns to Your name, Most High,

לְהַגִּ֣יד בַּבֹּ֣קֶר חַסְדֶּ֑ךָ וֶ֝אֱמ֥וּנָתְךָ֗ בַּלֵּילֽוֹת׃

To proclaim Your steadfast love at daybreak,
Your faithfulness each night

עֲֽלֵי־עָ֭שׂוֹר וַעֲלֵי־נָ֑בֶל עֲלֵ֖י הִגָּי֣וֹן בְּכִנּֽוֹר׃

With a ten-stringed harp,
with voice and lyre together.

I remember the last time I saw my grandfather. He waved goodbye from his hospital room window to us as we stood in the steely cold February air on the street below in 1973. He rose from his weakness to bid farewell with strength. His love his family was steadfast. His faithfulness in the endeavor to what is right is now mine. In this last Sabbath of the year 5786, I sing this song to him. If I had a harp and lyre, it would sound even better.

כִּ֤י שִׂמַּחְתַּ֣נִי יְהֹוָ֣ה בְּפׇעֳלֶ֑ךָ בְּֽמַעֲשֵׂ֖י יָדֶ֣יךָ אֲרַנֵּֽן׃

You have gladdened me by Your deeds, Eternal;
I shout for joy at Your handiwork.

מַה־גָּדְל֣וּ מַעֲשֶׂ֣יךָ יְהֹוָ֑ה מְ֝אֹ֗ד עָמְק֥וּ מַחְשְׁבֹתֶֽיךָ׃

How great are Your works, Eternal,
how very subtle Your designs!

אִֽישׁ־בַּ֭עַר לֹ֣א יֵדָ֑ע וּ֝כְסִ֗יל לֹא־יָבִ֥ין אֶת־זֹֽאת׃

A brutish man cannot know,
a fool cannot understand this:

בִּפְרֹ֤חַ רְשָׁעִ֨ים ׀ כְּמ֥וֹ־עֵ֗שֶׂב וַ֭יָּצִיצוּ כׇּל־פֹּ֣עֲלֵי אָ֑וֶן לְהִשָּׁמְדָ֥ם עֲדֵי־עַֽד׃

though the wicked sprout like grass,
though all evildoers blossom,
it is only that they may be destroyed forever.

וְאַתָּ֥ה מָר֗וֹם לְעֹלָ֥ם יְהֹוָֽה׃

But You are exalted, Eternal, for all time.

My grandfather, Charles Haskell Bachman, was a quiet hero. I remember him “saying little and doing much.” As a physician in Milwaukee throughout the Depression and for decades after, his hands were the first of his instruments one noticed. They were healing hands: strong, gentle, the bones pronounced agility and precision. In an old 8mm film I have, he arrives like a god at my sister’s birthday party, picks her up in his hands with the choreographed confidence of a dance scene from a silver screen classic. I play the scene of his hands’ first gesture, over and over. Like the wind on a lake’s surface, we don’t really see what the hands are doing but the performance is a masterpiece a gesture of love. How very subtle his designs.

I learned more about him after he died than he ever told me. He genuinely was a man of few words. My fourth grade teacher Mrs. Bernstein read his obituary from the Milwaukee Jewish Chronicle to our class, written by a man who had grown up with my grandfather as his camp counselor on the tough streets of Lapham Park, where immigrants from different countries pushed each other around. “Charlie Bachman was our knight in shining armor.” He protected his crew. He kept the peace so the brutish, foolish men would not run amok.

When I reported this news to Dad, he told me that as a doctor, Grandpa would often not charge his patients for their care. It drove Grandma nuts. But I still cherish a letter written to him from a homeless man he cared for at the county hospital, an unfortunate worker whose desperation for care was met directly and with lasting impact by my grandfather’s kindness.

He served his country in the First World War, found his way around quotas and was one of two Jews to graduate from his medical school class in 1924, and then started his family. His brother Joe married Rose, who was his wife Barbara’s best friend. Whenever I saw the four of them together, it was as if their very existence was a secret language.

Thought the wicked sprout like grass: In a world where bad shit happens, Grandpa quietly countered that narrative.

כִּ֤י הִנֵּ֪ה אֹיְבֶ֡יךָ יְֽהֹוָ֗ה כִּֽי־הִנֵּ֣ה אֹיְבֶ֣יךָ יֹאבֵ֑דוּ יִ֝תְפָּרְד֗וּ כׇּל־פֹּ֥עֲלֵי אָֽוֶן׃

Surely, Your enemies, Eternal,
surely, Your enemies perish;
all evildoers are scattered.

וַתָּ֣רֶם כִּרְאֵ֣ים קַרְנִ֑י בַּ֝לֹּתִ֗י בְּשֶׁ֣מֶן רַעֲנָֽן׃

You raise my horn high like that of a wild ox;
I am soaked in freshening oil.

וַתַּבֵּ֥ט עֵינִ֗י בְּשׁ֫וּרָ֥י בַּקָּמִ֖ים עָלַ֥י מְרֵעִ֗ים תִּשְׁמַ֥עְנָה אׇזְנָֽי׃

I shall see the defeat of my watchful foes,
hear of the downfall of the wicked who beset me.

If I made a movie of his life, I’d include a scene — completely made up — of my dad returning from the war in 1946. Hitler defeated. My grandmother, whose town Kapulya was entirely wiped out of its Jews in August 1942, would be beside herself with unimaginable grief and exhausted reprieve from the carnage. Charlie, the Jewish father, embraces Monas, the first generation, son on the soil of a land that has welcomed this family. Like generations of Jews have placed their hands on the heads of their children as they bless them at the lighting of Shabbat candles, Grandpa brings close his son to welcome him home.

צַ֭דִּיק כַּתָּמָ֣ר יִפְרָ֑ח כְּאֶ֖רֶז בַּלְּבָנ֣וֹן יִשְׂגֶּֽה׃

The righteous bloom like a date-palm;
they thrive like a cedar in Lebanon;

שְׁ֭תוּלִים בְּבֵ֣ית יְהֹוָ֑ה בְּחַצְר֖וֹת אֱלֹהֵ֣ינוּ יַפְרִֽיחוּ׃

planted in the house of the Eternal,
they flourish in the courts of our God.

ע֭וֹד יְנוּב֣וּן בְּשֵׂיבָ֑ה דְּשֵׁנִ֖ים וְֽרַעֲנַנִּ֣ים יִהְיֽוּ׃

In old age they still produce fruit;
they are full of sap and freshness,

לְ֭הַגִּיד כִּֽי־יָשָׁ֣ר יְהֹוָ֑ה צ֝וּרִ֗י וְֽלֹא־[עַוְלָ֥תָה] (עלתה) בּֽוֹ׃

attesting that the Eternal is upright,
my rock, in whom there is no wrong.

Here, in this place, is where eternality and temporality meet.

The end of a week and the onset of Shabbat.

The close of the past year and the dawn of the new.

Grandpa’s hands reaching out to hold but to also transmit, planting seeds of righteousness, kindness, goodness and peace.

Like Jacob awaking from his sleep in the desert and proclaiming, “Surely the Eternal is in this place and I did not know it,” the end of one thing and the beginning of another is where forever is found.

It is always within our grasp.

In our daily prayers as Jews, we cite the Exodus from Egypt, our national liberation as a people from slavery to freedom. In the morning and the evening, we sing of going through the parted waters of the Red Sea, a miracle wrought by God, as the Torah teaches. We sing the words from Exodus 15, the song of the sea: “Who is like You, Eternal, among the celestials; Who is like You, majestic in holiness,
Awesome in splendor, working wonders!”

It occurs to me that we passed through this experience with our clothes dry; only the Egyptians who pursued us got wet and were drowned when the Red Sea closed upon them. This redemptive biblical act, this supernatural miracle, prompted our ancestors celebration. But as the midrash teaches, our expressions of joy were chastised by God who said, “The Egyptians are my children, too.”

War is brutal. We are all its victims, even those of us fortunate enough to emerge unscathed, not bloodied, “dry.”

Hatred and violence stain us all.

I thought of this today while reciting the morning blessings alongside the shore of Lake Superior, or Gichi Gami, the Ojibwe name, meaning “the great sea.” This far north in Minnesota, amidst the Superior National Forest and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area that our country shares with Canada, it’s impossible to deny that we are at most temporary visitors here on earth, stewards of immeasurable beauty, to be sure but far from entitled to take any of it as if it were ours.

“The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof.”

Here is the full text of Psalm 24:

לְדָוִ֗ד מִ֫זְמ֥וֹר לַֽ֭יהֹוָה הָאָ֣רֶץ וּמְלוֹאָ֑הּ תֵּ֝בֵ֗ל וְיֹ֣שְׁבֵי בָֽהּ׃

A Psalm of David. The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

כִּי־ה֭וּא עַל־יַמִּ֣ים יְסָדָ֑הּ וְעַל־נְ֝הָר֗וֹת יְכוֹנְנֶֽהָ׃

For He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.

מִֽי־יַעֲלֶ֥ה בְהַר־יְהֹוָ֑ה וּמִי־יָ֝ק֗וּם בִּמְק֥וֹם קׇדְשֽׁוֹ׃

Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord? And who shall stand in His holy place?

נְקִ֥י כַפַּ֗יִם וּֽבַר־לֵ֫בָ֥ב אֲשֶׁ֤ר לֹא־נָשָׂ֣א לַשָּׁ֣וְא נַפְשִׁ֑י וְלֹ֖א נִשְׁבַּ֣ע לְמִרְמָֽה׃

He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; Who hath not taken My name in vain, and hath not sworn deceitfully.

יִשָּׂ֣א בְ֭רָכָה מֵאֵ֣ת יְהֹוָ֑ה וּ֝צְדָקָ֗ה מֵאֱלֹהֵ֥י יִשְׁעֽוֹ׃

He shall receive a blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

זֶ֭ה דּ֣וֹר דֹּרְשָׁ֑ו מְבַקְשֵׁ֨י פָנֶ֖יךָ יַעֲקֹ֣ב סֶֽלָה׃

Such is the generation of them that seek after Him, that seek Thy face, even Jacob. Selah

שְׂא֤וּ שְׁעָרִ֨ים רָֽאשֵׁיכֶ֗ם וְֽ֭הִנָּשְׂאוּ פִּתְחֵ֣י עוֹלָ֑ם וְ֝יָב֗וֹא מֶ֣לֶךְ הַכָּבֽוֹד׃

Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; that the King of glory may come in.

מִ֥י זֶה֮ מֶ֤לֶךְ הַכָּ֫ב֥וֹד יְ֭הֹוָה עִזּ֣וּז וְגִבּ֑וֹר יְ֝הֹוָ֗ה גִּבּ֥וֹר מִלְחָמָֽה׃

‘Who is the King of glory?’ ‘The LORD strong and mighty, The LORD mighty in battle.’

שְׂא֤וּ שְׁעָרִ֨ים ׀ רָֽאשֵׁיכֶ֗ם וּ֭שְׂאוּ פִּתְחֵ֣י עוֹלָ֑ם וְ֝יָבֹ֗א מֶ֣לֶךְ הַכָּבֽוֹד׃

Lift up your heads, O ye gates, Yea, lift them up, ye everlasting doors; That the King of glory may come in.

מִ֤י־ה֣וּא זֶה֮ מֶ֤לֶךְ הַכָּ֫ב֥וֹד יְהֹוָ֥ה צְבָא֑וֹת ה֤וּא מֶ֖לֶךְ הַכָּב֣וֹד סֶֽלָה׃
‘Who then is the King of glory?’ ‘The LORD of hosts; He is the King of glory.’ Selah

The psalmist’s vision of God’s presence is usually vertical. God is up there; we are down here. God is understood as exalted; we in our humanity and imperfections, occupy the low ground. If we aspire to ascend, we are to have “clean hands and a pure heart,” which requires work, introspection, holding ourselves accountable, practicing humility.

Out on the lake yesterday in a kayak, the wind picked up and the water was cold. Pine trees balanced on cliffs at the shore’s edge where rivulets from glaciers millions of years ago carved paths into the deep upon which I paddled. To be aware of eternality, of the timeless span of lives and worlds is also to acknowledge how utterly temporary we are in the face of it all. And so if one is to live one life, then we ought to make it count.

The prophet Jeremiah, among the harshest critics of the people Israel, doggedly insisted upon calling out sin, demanding the people return to God. He said to them, “Hear this, foolish people, devoid of intelligence, that have eyes but can’t see, that have ears but can’t hear! Should you not revere Me, says the Eternal, should you not tremble before Me, Who set the sand as a boundary to the sea, as a limit for all time, not to be transgressed? Though its waves toss, they cannot prevail; though they roar, they cannot pass it.”

The Exodus in its how shall we say “dry result” was a onetime miracle, never to return again. Judaism, and here Jeremiah teaches it so succinctly, requires that we get wet — very wet — in order to cleanse ourselves of our crooked ways.

“Should you not revere Me, says the Eternal, should you not tremble before Me, Who set the sand as a boundary to the sea, as a limit for all time, not to be transgressed?”

You’re lucky to remain dry in so far as you do. That’s what Jeremiah is saying. The threat of being washed away ought to make us tremble. All we can ever really control is our own actions. This is Judaism’s message, especially at this time of year, of radical responsibility.

S.Y. Agnon cites a work called “Masae Yisrael” which describes the custom of the Jews of Kurdistan who at Rosh Hashanah would go to a river to recite their tashlich prayers, symbolically casting off their sins to the water. But then they would all jump into the water, fully clothed, and “swim around like the fish of the sea.” When asked why they did this they replied in a simple and direct manner. They did so saying, “by this act they are purified of all their sins, for the waters of the river wash away all their sins they committed during all the past year.”

Wade In the Water, as the spiritual demands.

Jump in. Do the work. It’s the only life you have.

In an extended commentary to the beginning of the third chapter of Pirke Avot, Rabbi Marc Angel cites an extraordinary text from Me’am Loez, the Ladino biblical commentary of Rabbi Yaakov Houli, from 18th century Jerusalem and then Turkey. Rabbi Houli points out that when Moses received the first set of the tablets of the Ten Commandments, it was amidst much fanfare like “thunder and lightning and the sound of the shofar.” But then, as we know, Moses descended Mount Sinai to discover that the people had gone astray, worshipping the idol of the Golden Calf.

Moses was furious. He shattered the tablets and God inflicted grave punishment upon the Jews.

When Moses went up the mount the second time, there was no sound and light show. God said to Moses, “‘Carve two tablets of stone like the first, and I will inscribe upon the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you shattered. Be ready by morning, and in the morning come up to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to Me, on the top of the mountain. No one else shall come up with you, and no one else shall be seen anywhere on the mountain; neither shall the flocks and the herds graze at the foot of this mountain.’ So Moses carved two tablets of stone, like the first, and early in the morning he went up on Mount Sinai, as the Eternal had commanded him, taking the two stone tablets with him.” (Exodus 34:1-5)

Rabbi Angel says that the Me’am Loez teaches us that some of the most enduring things in life are often done “by individuals in privacy, through their own exertions. Things done with much publicity may not be as permanent. We ought not judge the value of a person or an event based on external glitter and fame. Rather, we ought to realize that greatness and permanent value are found in obscurity, in seemingly small and unnoticed acts of kindness or spiritual thought.” (The Koren Pirke Avot)

As I, like many of you, carry the memories of my departed loved ones with me during these upcoming Days of Awe, I am thinking right now of my mother, of blessed memory, a person who throughout her life labored quietly, day and night, to support her children as she raised as and then later in life, to support herself right up until her death at age 79.

Raised by a single mom and then, as a matter of fate, she was a single mom herself. Mom was never not working: at her job, in the yard, on political campaigns and then, late at night with Carson and then Letterman to make her laugh at the end of the day, knitting, sewing, cross-stitching, weaving, always doing something. “She rises while it is still night, and supplies provisions for her household, the daily fare of her children…She oversees the activities of her household and never eats the bread of idleness,” as Proverbs 31 would have it.

I have two blankets she made for me when I went to college and several pieces of her folk art hanging on my walls. But the one piece I cherish each day is inside my tallis bag.

Here’s the story.

When I had decided to take seriously my being a Jew, I finally had my long delayed ceremony of becoming a bar mitzvah when I was in college. To celebrate the occasion, my mother made a beautiful cross stitch of the Priestly Benediction:

יְבָרֶכְךָ֥ יְהֹוָ֖ה וְיִשְׁמְרֶֽךָ׃

The Eternal bless you and protect you!

יָאֵ֨ר יְהֹוָ֧ה ׀ פָּנָ֛יו אֵלֶ֖יךָ וִֽיחֻנֶּֽךָּ׃

The Eternal deal kindly and graciously with you!

יִשָּׂ֨א יְהֹוָ֤ה ׀ פָּנָיו֙ אֵלֶ֔יךָ וְיָשֵׂ֥ם לְךָ֖ שָׁלֽוֹם׃

The Eternal bestow His favor upon you and grant you peace!

I kept this piece framed on a wall, among her other works of art.

Time ineluctably moved along and nearly thirty years later, my deep blue velvet tallis bag began to wear thin, just about the time that Mom succumbed to lung and brain cancer in the summer of 2012. When I returned to Brooklyn from Shiva in Milwaukee, I was showing a few pieces of cloth and other scraps from my mom’s sewing collection to my mother-in-law Helene (quite skilled with the needle herself, being the granddaughter of a tailor), we were struck by a moment of inspiration and homage.

Helene rebuilt the inside of my frayed tallis bag with some old Milwaukee Brewers cotton fabric and my mother’s cross-stitch, presenting me with this incredible gift as I rise to pray each morning.

The date, March 28, 1987, is when we had my service at the UW-Madison Hillel. (As a kid I used to beg my dad to have us join a synagogue but he always put it off. Better late than never, I guess; and always a good line to use on unruly kids in Hebrew school up til today: “Be careful! If you don’t go to Hebrew school now, you might grow up to become a rabbi!” That sets ‘em straight.) Rabbi Arthur Waskow was the scholar in residence in Madison that weekend so he led part of the service along with myself, fellow students, and our Hillel director Irv Saposnik. My teacher Richard Davis was there too, a Buddhist in his practice but always supporting his students on their journeys.

It was Shabbat HaGadol, just before Passover that year — and a perfect half year before Rosh Hashanah — a duality I have always held close in my understanding of Judaism and tried to convey to others each year at both Passover and Rosh Hashanah, Passover occurring on the 1st month of the Hebrew calendar and Rosh Hashanah occurring on the 7th: that our liberation as a people must always be understood in relationship with the commandment to examine our souls and correct our behavior. In the life of a Jew, we divide our year into two parts, exactly six months apart: one for personal and one for communal, even national, liberation. We cannot have one without the other.

I see Irv smiling at me about Waskow’s Jewish Renewal hijinx. I see Richard playing along, a teacher’s pride beaming from the pews. Mom was moving about, setting up the kiddush lunch with Aunt Donna, her childhood best friend who married Dad’s first cousin Bill.

Everyone named in this last paragraph is no longer alive but boy, do I still hear their voices, feel their guidance, and walk in their light.

Angel writes, “External glory, power and popularity do not necessarily correlate to internal worth. What is truly important is what we do through the sweat of our brow, quietly without seeking publicity or recognition. What is valuable and lasting in us are those things which are authentic, honest, and good in the eyes of God, and which bring goodness and kindness to our fellow human beings.”

Rabbi Meir says in Pirke Avot, “Do not look at the container but at what it contains.”

Like the inside of my tallis bag, what we carry inside us are quiet teachings of goodness, kindness and love.

Psalm 100

A psalm for praise.

Raise a shout for the LORD, all the earth;

worship the LORD in gladness;
come into His presence with shouts of joy.

Acknowledge that the LORD is God;
He made us and we are His,
His people, the flock He tends.

Enter His gates with praise,
His courts with acclamation.
Praise Him!
Bless His name!

For the LORD is good;
His steadfast love is eternal;
His faithfulness is for all generations.

Reciting this psalm each day at morning prayers is one of the hardest spiritual exercises that I undertake. It’s not in my character to be so cheerful, especially in the morning.

I have encountered this earthling before. Joyful, cheerful, rosy disposition all the time. Good grief. Even after coffee, I’m not really inclined to be so happy.

I’ve been reading since 3 am and the news isn’t good. Don’t get me wrong; I’m always up for a laugh but it’s the darker roast I prefer, if you catch my drift.

But what is also true is that my body has been working all night to keep me alive. Even the brain at rest is directing traffic, sending signals, keeping things moving so that when I awake, I am free to interpret what I see however I want. My body, my choice.

Winds blow; birds sing; some days the sun shines. In truth, the earth is already shouting out before most of us are conscious. Rather than “worship the Eternal in gladness,” one might just as easily translate the text as “labor in the Eternal gladly.” That’s the person delivering the paper to the front stoop; the crossing guard getting into position before the kids show up for school; the cops and the doctors and the ambulance drivers ready to intervene to keep those endangered alive and among us.

There’s a whole world of people making things happen that we don’t even notice most of the time and quite often, they’re having a good time doing it, even just knowing that it’s getting done without cynics like me rolling their eyes at their quiet joy.

Steadfast love is eternal. Faithfulness is for all generations.

Slow and steady wins the race. Lighten up once in a while. That’s the idea. At least that’s how I tried to read it today. I hope it helps.

I was on the radio again yesterday at WMPG and you can hear the archive of the show here and hear my narration.

Or listen on the embedded Spotify playlist here:

As you can see and hear, yesterday I focused on traditional cantorial settings for the Days of Awe and in particular focused a bit on the music of Cantor Mordechai Hershman, from Chernihiv, Ukraine, then Zhitomer, then Vilna in Lithuania, and finally Temple Beth El in Brooklyn, NY; Cantor Izso Glickstein, by way of the Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest and then ultimately Mishkan Tefila in Roxbury, MA, where his congregant Leonard Bernstein called him his “favorite cantor.” Finally, I played a number of cantorial choral pieces led by Cantor Gideon Zelermeyer at Congregation Shaar Hashamoyim in Montreal. I then pivoted in the last hour to Professor Galeet Dardashti, whom I had the honor of leading High Holy Days services with in Brooklyn and Manhattan for a number of seasons. Galeet sings and composes much of her music in the Persian/Iranian Jewish musical mode and a number of people called into the station to express their appreciation for hearing music they had never heard before. Listeners were especially moved by Galeet’s recordings for Monajat, where she blended her voice with her late grandfather Younes Dardashti, a famous singer of Persian classical music in 1950s and 1960s Iran in the decades before the Revolution. Finally, and in homage to Montreal, the penultimate piece was Leonard Cohen’s “Who By Fire,” and then because of the mention of the Akeda at the beginning of Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan closed the show.

I also blew the shofar again on the air, which, for college students on the University of Southern Maine campus on an early Sunday morning might not have been appreciated but from what I can tell, no one complained.

Three people called in on Sunday morning — it’s always good to hear from people, get some live feedback on how the show is landing. And all three callers were non-Jewish listeners, who expressed deep appreciation for what they were learning. They were drawn to the names of the cantors, their geographic origins and migrations, and the connections between the music they were hearing and the ideas in the music and the prayers that I was transcribing and interpreting in real time. They were such gratifying, however brief, conversations, and an important reminder that in an open, pluralistic society such as that in which we are fortunate to live in, there is always an opportunity for enlightenment coming from unfamiliar places.

Ben Zoma said: Who is wise? The person who learns from everyone, as it is said: “From all who taught me have I gained understanding” (Psalms 119:99).

Another person’s queries and curiosities open up for each of us new opportunities to see things in ways we may not have considered before. Two non-Jewish students from a local New Hampshire high school visited me with their teacher on Friday before services. Their interest in the Torah, it’s composition, and how it was made; their fascination with the shofar, it’s shape, it’s polished exterior, it’s ancient sound, mesmerized them. Their questions opened me up as well.

“From all who have taught me I have gained understanding.”

Once in the month of Elul, “the zaddik Rabbi Levi Isaac of Berditchev [18th c.] was standing at his window. A Gentile cobbler passed by and asked him, ‘And have you nothing to mend?’ At once the zaddik sat himself down on the ground and weeping bitterly cried, ‘Woe is me, and alas my soul, for the Day of Judgement is almost here, and I have still not mended myself!’ [Zichron la-Rishonim].” (Days of Awe, edited by S.Y. Agnon)

Let your curiosities teach you and let your self be taught by the curiosities of others.

Wisdom is everywhere, waiting to be discovered. Again and again.

During my teaching this week I found among a number of learners a palpable sense of unease (if not unease then a kind of objection) toward the operative Book of Remembrance metaphor, central to our observance of the Days of Awe.

אָמַר רַבִּי כְּרוּסְפָּדַאי אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן: שְׁלֹשָׁה סְפָרִים נִפְתָּחִין בְּרֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה, אֶחָד שֶׁל רְשָׁעִים גְּמוּרִין, וְאֶחָד שֶׁל צַדִּיקִים גְּמוּרִין, וְאֶחָד שֶׁל בֵּינוֹנִיִּים. צַדִּיקִים גְּמוּרִין — נִכְתָּבִין וְנֶחְתָּמִין לְאַלְתַּר לְחַיִּים, רְשָׁעִים גְּמוּרִין — נִכְתָּבִין וְנֶחְתָּמִין לְאַלְתַּר לְמִיתָה, בֵּינוֹנִיִּים — תְּלוּיִין וְעוֹמְדִין מֵרֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה וְעַד יוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים, זָכוּ — נִכְתָּבִין לְחַיִּים, לֹא זָכוּ — נִכְתָּבִין לְמִיתָה.

Regarding the Day of Judgment. Rabbi Kruspedai said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: Three books are opened on Rosh HaShanah before the Holy One, Blessed be God: One of wholly wicked people, and one of wholly righteous people, and one of middling people whose good and bad deeds are equally balanced. Wholly righteous people are immediately written and sealed for life; wholly wicked people are immediately written and sealed for death; and middling people are left with their judgment suspended from Rosh HaShana until Yom Kippur, their fate remaining undecided. If they merit, through the good deeds and mitzvot that they perform during this period, they are written for life; if they do not so merit, they are written for death. (Babylonian Talmud Rosh Hashanah 16b)

I could hear my late father’s voice, too: “Come on.” No one is wholly righteous and no one is wholly wicked. And regardless of what gets written down, the wicked trample the righteous on earth, prevailing over us all, unpunished. Where is this God of yours?

That’s the essential argument. It is the problem of theodicy, an ancient Greek word denoting how to square our ideas of God and justice. Rabbi Harold Kushner referred to this idea famously as “why bad things happen to good people.” Few answers, or responses, from the ancients til today, satisfy our desire and need for temporal justice.

In the words of the prophet Habakkuk:

עַד־אָ֧נָה יְהֹוָ֛ה שִׁוַּ֖עְתִּי וְלֹ֣א תִשְׁמָ֑ע אֶזְעַ֥ק אֵלֶ֛יךָ חָמָ֖ס וְלֹ֥א תוֹשִֽׁיעַ׃

How long, Eternal, shall I cry out
And You not listen,
Shall I shout to You, “Violence!”
And You not save?

לָ֣מָּה תַרְאֵ֤נִי אָ֙וֶן֙ וְעָמָ֣ל תַּבִּ֔יט וְשֹׁ֥ד וְחָמָ֖ס לְנֶגְדִּ֑י וַיְהִ֧י רִ֦יב וּמָד֖וֹן יִשָּֽׂא׃

Why do You make me see iniquity
Do You look upon wrong?—
Raiding and violence are before me,
Strife continues and contention goes on.

עַל־כֵּן֙ תָּפ֣וּג תּוֹרָ֔ה וְלֹא־יֵצֵ֥א לָנֶ֖צַח מִשְׁפָּ֑ט כִּ֤י רָשָׁע֙ מַכְתִּ֣יר אֶת־הַצַּדִּ֔יק עַל־כֵּ֛ן יֵצֵ֥א מִשְׁפָּ֖ט מְעֻקָּֽל׃

That is why decision fails
And justice never emerges;
For the villain hedges in the just man—
Therefore judgment emerges deformed.

Job’s friends asked of his suffering similar questions. And of course Abraham questions God’s decree over Sodom and Gomorrah by asking, “Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty?”

The Biblical texts leaving these questions unresolved, it was the first generation of rabbis in the Mishnah who attempted to offer solutions for the unexplainable. In the Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, edited by R.J. Zwi Werblowsky and Geoffrey Wigoder, the article on Reward and Punishment argues quite clearly that two maxims from Pirke Avot might satisfy. One should not “serve the Master with an expectation of reward” (Pirke Avot 1:3) and Rabbi Yannai’s maxim, “It is not in our power to explain either the prosperity of the wicked or the sufferings of the righteous.” (Pirke Avot 4:19).

The other master, Bob Dylan, puts it this way, “It is what it is and it’s murder most foul.” But foul as something is, it must not always remain as such.

Resurrection of the dead and the afterlife, two principles that were not really central to the theology of the Hebrew Bible but emerged in the rabbinic and mishnaic period of the Second Temple, evolve Judaism’s faith tradition to allow acceptance, if not cogent explanation for, the unpunished evil that often prevails here on earth.

While rejected by skeptics and non-believers, faith in divine redemption is an undeniably powerful belief for seeing those of us through who choose to believe. And it is not a passive waiting, we must argue, but a belief that requires of us action in the here and now. It’s why we believe in the law, in courts that adjudicate with honesty and fairness, and even, for those who commit crimes, it’s why we believe in repentance for deeds done, for rehabilitation, for reconciliation, and peace.

Accountability matters.

In the Talmudic paragraph above we read: “middling people are left with their judgment suspended from Rosh HaShana until Yom Kippur, their fate remaining undecided. If they merit, through the good deeds and mitzvot that they perform during this period, they are written for life; if they do not so merit, they are written for death.”

This is most of us here on earth. We agree to be held accountable. We agree to play by the rules. We are humble enough to be exposed to judgement, to consequences. And trusting in the mutuality of our covenantal bonds with one another — in faith traditions and civil societies, we seek to find a way.

My late grandmother, of blessed memory, lost her beloved husband Norman (my middle name) in a workplace murder by the hand of a mentally ill co-worker named Guy Pearce. She never dated or married another and in the midst of the Depression, raised two young daughters to be fine women who made families of their own. Every day of her nearly 100 years on earth, she knew, with perfect faith, she would one day see her beloved again. It was the strongest, most simple faith I have ever seen.

According to newspaper accounts of my grandfather’s murder in 1939, the last words he said before he was killed were: “What can I do for you, Guy?”

My grandparents are together in the afterlife. This is an article of faith.

There may be no reward in this world; but who am I to think they are not together now?

“When he says the lines of the confession that begin with the words al het (‘for the sin’), a person who strikes his heart [with his fist] at each line cannot yet be certain that the Almighty forgives him. If, however, a person’s heart strikes him over every sin, he will attain forgiveness from the blessed Lord.” —Hafetz Hayyim, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, 1838-1933

Imagine talking to your body and your body talks back. In reality, this happens all the time. Headaches, stomach aches, back pain, foot pain, pains in the neck — you name it. Our bodies tell us their troubles and therefore our troubles all the time.

We look at them, examine them, fret over them, join gyms and diet and sometimes even hire surgeons to improve them — or rescue them (and us) from dissolution.

Here the Hafetz Hayyim gives us a useful metaphor: we knock our hearts and our hearts knock back. This is the kind of biofeedback loop that the Almighty prefers.

In Stevie Wonder’s monumental Songs in the Key of Life, he performs this rhythmically inspired drum beat on his prayerful Have a Talk with God. And if anybody embodied movement with music and the ability to hear one’s heart knocking, it was Stevie Wonder.

A line from Pirke Avot comes to mind again in this Elul meditation. It’s attributed to Shammai:

שַׁמַּאי אוֹמֵר, עֲשֵׂה תוֹרָתְךָ קֶבַע. אֱמֹר מְעַט וַעֲשֵׂה הַרְבֵּה, וֶהֱוֵי מְקַבֵּל אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם בְּסֵבֶר פָּנִים יָפוֹת:

Shammai used to say: make your study of the Torah a fixed practice; speak little, but do much; and receive all men with a pleasant countenance.

The word קֶבַע connotes a consistency of time, a rhythm, a beat, something that keeps a unity of purpose to any endeavor. It’s what drummers do in a band. Bartenura cites Ezra the Scribe, saying “Since Ezra prepared his heart to expound the Torah of the Eternal and to do it and to teach the Children of Israel; as he prepared his heart to do, so too did he teach the Children of Israel to do. Maimonides is even more explicit in tying these ideas together. Make your study a regular habit AND say little and do much.

There is a rhythm to how we behave; how we move in the world. It’s a steady beat for ourselves to live better lives and it has the salutary effect on the generation after us.

Knock your heart for goodness and justice and kindness and peace. Listen for your heart to knock back at you the courage and inspiration to do more of each. Pass these words on to the next generation.

Amen.

I used to know an accountant who, upon hearing an idea that was particularly challenging he would say, “That’s a concept.” His expression of reactivity was to be neutralizing with his language.

We forget sometimes, especially in days such as these, that language need not embody so much passion, whether the expressions are wild with enthusiasm or burning rage. Not being reactive, we might say, is not the same as having no reaction.

Dispassionate thoughtfulness has its place. We need it as ballast, as rootedness, to steer us, guide us through. These days our navigation systems are multi-colored, track our locations, and endeavor to sell us stuff we don’t need. Or worse, and especially in war, our navigation systems are increasingly controlled by AI, machines trained to think, track and kill.

In my father’s prayerbook from his service in the Second World War, a book held in hand by soldiers who experienced life at its most extremes, the opening prayer for the evening service of Rosh Hashanah begins:

“Now, therefore, Lord our God, inspire awe of Thee in all Thy works, veneration of Thee in all Thou hast created, so that all Thy works may revere Thee and all created bow down before Thee. May they all become one fellowship to do Thy will with perfect heart. For Lord our God, we know that dominion is Thine, might is in Thy hand, power in Thy right hand, and that Thy name shall be revered by all Thou hast created.” (Jewish Welfare Board. Abridged Prayerbook for Jews in the Armed Forces of the United States, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1941.)

We are struck immediately by its humility; its simplicity; and its understandable aspiration for unity. “Perfect heart” not “a perfect heart,” as if the article “a” would connote individuality when the idea here is one of “fellowship” as the prayer notes.

In the introduction, the editors write of that the prayers “lift the soul above the immediate cares and interests of the daily round to the sphere of tenderness, purity and faith that is divine…They strengthen against temptation and give courage to spurn evil and hold fast to faith in the ultimate triumph of the good.”

Here the definite article stakes its place: “the good.”

I cherish this book. In my hands it is a deeply felt reminder of the shared purpose that the unity for doing good is not only aspirational but attainable. We know this to be true.

May our season of repentance awaken in us all this noble pursuit.

Two poems by Samuel Menashe, from his Collected Poems (Orono: The National Poetry Foundation, 1986.)

Descent

My father drummed darkness

Through the underbrush

Until Lightning struck

I take after him

The ways we live with our parents while they are here beside us and the ways we live with our parents even after they are gone. From an early age, I had an intuition that his heart would never hold out long enough for me to watch him grow old. He died at 58. I have made it to 63. We carry the struggles forward. Always seeking reconciliation with pasts our own and not our own. That’s how families work.

The darkness drumming. The lightning coming. The always-open-to-knowing.

And this one:

Lilacs

My father remembers a flower

From one year to another

And looks for it

Once again I discover

The wonderful love

Of my father

Who longs for lilacs.

For a long while, Dad had Old Spice and English Leather Soap-on-a-Rope for spiffing up; otherwise, his scent was Pall Mall cigarettes, black coffee, or a Johnny Walker Red after work as a television Ad Man.

In those last couple years 1980-1983, having been knocked down one too many times and selling shoes at the mall, he wore Lilac Vegetal after-shave. I was sixteen, seventeen, and found it an odd choice. But years later, long after he died, I found some pictures of him in Milwaukee, I don’t think it’s even yet 1930. He’s with his cousin Eileen, I’m pretty sure. She always adored him. The year before he died, we saw Eileen at Benjy’s on a Friday night where we had gone for dinner. She gave me a big kiss and said, “Monas is my favorite cousin. You know that, right?”

I look at this picture of the two of them and I imagine two kids intoxicated by lilacs in bloom, which, in a prairie town like Milwaukee in late spring, is a formidable reality. Redolence. Memory implanted.

In the image I see myself, my daughters, my nieces and nephews. The genes hold.

And yet each of us are who we are.

There are many versions of Dad that I carry with me in this season of repentance. Thanks to the poet Samuel Menashe, these are two new ones.

In the early morning hours of prayer, as our bodies, minds and souls awake to consciousness, the Siddur proscribes a set of three specific blessings: Gratitude for the body’s ability to function; the commandment to study; and an acknowledgment of the gift of the breath of life — נשמה — neshama — which we state animated us from the beginning, is taken from us when we die, but then is returned to us in the hereafter.

In the middle blessing, for Torah study, we recite passages in the three forms of revelation from God to Israel: a passage from the Five Books of Torah; a passage from the Mishnah; and a passage from the Talmud. It is a sequence of learning that spans nearly two thousand years, which Judaism represents as a doctrine of faith to be an expression of God’s ongoing communication with us, through text and interpretation. This is the Written and the Oral Law and as such this broader body of sacred language serves as the moral, ethical literary foundation stones of Jewish civilization.

I was struck this morning by a rather silly thought that then, throughout the day, became a delightful thought and at the end of the day became a poetic thought.

I hope you enjoy it.

Here is the text, from the middle blessing.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּ֒שָֽׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ לַעֲסֹק בְּדִבְרֵי תוֹרָה:

Blessed are You, Eternal our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who sanctified us with commandments and commanded us to be engaged in the words of Torah.

וְהַעֲרֶב נָא יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ אֶת־דִּבְרֵי תוֹרָתְךָ בְּפִֽינוּ וּבְפִי עַמְּךָ בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל. וְנִהְיֶה אֲנַֽחְנוּ וְצֶאֱצָאֵֽינוּ וְצֶאֱצָאֵי עַמְּךָ בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל כֻּלָּֽנוּ יוֹדְעֵי שְׁמֶֽךָ וְלוֹמְדֵי תוֹרָתֶֽךָ. לִשְׁמָהּ. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה הַמְלַמֵּד תּוֹרָה לְעַמּוֹ יִשְׂרָאֵל.

Eternal our God, please make the words of Your Torah pleasant in our mouths and in the mouths of Your people Israel. And may we and our descendants and the descendants of our descendants and the descendants of Your people the House of Israel, all know Your Name and be students of Your Torah for its own sake. Blessed are You, Eternal, Who teaches Torah to the people Israel.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר בָּֽחַר בָּֽנוּ מִכָּל הָעַמִּים וְנָֽתַן לָֽנוּ אֶת־תּוֹרָתוֹ: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה נוֹתֵן הַתּוֹרָה:

Blessed are You, Eternal our God, Ruler of the Universe Who chose us from among all the peoples and gave us the Torah. Blessed are You, Eternal, Giver of the Torah!

יְבָרֶכְ֒ךָ יְהֹוָה וְיִשְׁמְרֶֽךָ: יָאֵר יְהֹוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶֽיךָ וִיחֻנֶּֽךָּ: יִשָּׂא יְהֹוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶֽיךָ וְיָשֵׂם לְךָ שָׁלוֹם:

May the Eternal bless you and guard you. May the Eternal shine the Divine countenance upon you and be gracious unto you. May the Eternal turn the Divine countenance toward you and grant you peace. (From Numbers 6:24-26)

אֵֽלּוּ דְבָרִים שֶׁאֵין לָהֶם שִׁעוּר הַפֵּאָה וְהַבִּכּוּרִים וְהָרְ֒אָיוֹן וּגְמִילוּת חֲסָדִים וְתַלְמוּד תּוֹרָה:

These are precepts for which no fixed measure is prescribed: leaving the corner of a field unharvested, the offering of the first fruits, the appearance-offering, performing deeds of kindness, and the study of Torah. (From Mishnah Peah 1:1)

אֵֽלּוּ דְבָרִים שֶׁאָדָם אוֹכֵל פֵּרוֹתֵיהֶם בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה וְהַקֶּֽרֶן קַיֶּֽמֶת לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא, וְאֵֽלּוּ הֵן כִּבּוּד אָב וָאֵם וּגְמִילוּת חֲסָדִים וְהַשְׁכָּמַת בֵּית הַמִּדְרָשׁ שַׁחֲרִית וְעַרְבִית וְהַכְנָסַת אוֹרְ֒חִים וּבִקּוּר חוֹלִים וְהַכְנָסַת כַּלָּה וּלְוָיַת הַמֵּת וְעִיּוּן תְּפִלָּה וַהֲבָאַת שָׁלוֹם בֵּין אָדָם לַחֲבֵרוֹ ובֵין אִישׁ לְאִשְׁתּוֹ וְתַלְמוּד תּוֹרָה כְּנֶֽגֶד כֻּלָּם:

These are precepts, the fruits of which man enjoys in this world, while the principal reward is preserved for him in the World-to-Come. They are: honoring father and mother, performing deeds of kindness, early attendance in the House of Study morning and evening, providing hospitality to guests, visiting the sick, participating in making a wedding, accompanying the dead to the grave, concentrating on the meaning of prayers, making peace between fellow men and between husband and wife— and the study of Torah is equal to them all. (From Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 127a)

At a bare minimum, these brief passages ensure that we study — if only for a moment — each day. But even in their brevity, their devoted succinctness, they promise redemption, a rather lofty, daring, bold, and perhaps even subversive suggestion.

The World to Come is right at your fingertips. You can have it if you want it, each day, now.

It’s this line that struck me first as almost silly, if not playful:

אֵֽלּוּ דְבָרִים שֶׁאָדָם אוֹכֵל פֵּרוֹתֵיהֶם בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה וְהַקֶּֽרֶן קַיֶּֽמֶת לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא

These are precepts, the fruits of which man enjoys — the force of the Hebrew here is “eats,” “consumes,” as one would be expected to do with fruit: delicious, juicy, healthy fruit! — in this world, while the principal reward is preserved for him in the World-to-Come.

Do it! It actually tastes good!

What tastes good? Look at the words that follow. What a marvel.

“Honoring father and mother, performing deeds of kindness, early attendance in the House of Study morning and evening, providing hospitality to guests, visiting the sick, participating in making a wedding, accompanying the dead to the grave, concentrating on the meaning of prayers, making peace between fellow men and between husband and wife.” (Or husband and husband, wife and wife, you catch my drift.)

Taking part in the basic weaving of life’s social fabric is so good it’s delicious. It tastes good to do good. It tastes good to show honor to parents, to show up to learn, to welcome guests; it tastes good to visit the sick, to celebrate commitments of others’ love; it tastes good to be present when one is in mourning, to take seriously the words we offer and to make peace among our fellow humans. It all tastes delicious!

I wondered if the Sages who wrote this prayer were subversively undermining the self-servitude of Epicureanism, and if, even today, we might find relevance to the way people, through the social media driven glossification of culinary consumption center themselves on, well, themselves, and not something or some One greater.

The Sages allowed for taste, to be sure. But taste in service to a higher goal.

Silly becomes serious.

And from there to the poetic.

This Is Just To Say

By William Carlos Williams

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

What if the temptation to do good was so irresistible that we couldn’t wait to do it? Commandments, like plums in the icebox, so sweet, so cold.

It’s darker now at just before 5 am when I awake each day. A sure sign of summer’s end. The shortening days bring to mind — how could they not? — Rabbi Tarfon’s useful reminder of how much there is to do in so little time:

רַבִּי טַרְפוֹן אוֹמֵר, הַיּוֹם קָצָר וְהַמְּלָאכָה מְרֻבָּה, וְהַפּוֹעֲלִים עֲצֵלִים, וְהַשָּׂכָר הַרְבֵּה, וּבַעַל הַבַּיִת דּוֹחֵק

Rabbi Tarfon said: the day is short, the work is plentiful, and the laborers are lazy and the reward is great … and the master of the house is pressing. (Pirke Avot 2:15)

Even with the ease of summer, one still couldn’t get done what one needed to get done. That is why Rabbi Tarfon also said:

הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמֹר, וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חוֹרִין לִבָּטֵל מִמֶּנָּה. אִם לָמַדְתָּ תוֹרָה הַרְבֵּה, נוֹתְנִים לְךָ שָׂכָר הַרְבֵּה. וְנֶאֱמָן הוּא בַעַל מְלַאכְתְּךָ שֶׁיְּשַׁלֵּם לְךָ שְׂכַר פְּעֻלָּתֶךָ. וְדַע מַתַּן שְׂכָרָן שֶׁל צַדִּיקִים לֶעָתִיד לָבֹא:

It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it; If you have studied much Torah, you shall be given much reward. Faithful is your employer to pay you the reward of your labor; and know that the grant of reward unto the righteous is in the age to come. (Pirke Avot 2:16)

This is not theological kicking the can down the road. This is the assurance that standing on the sidelines doing nothing is not an option. And lest you think that there is a big prize waiting for you at the end of the day, sorry. Keep grinding. “The grant of reward unto the righteous is in the age to come.”

Earlier in the summer, “Dawn appeared and touched the sky with roses.” In these waning weeks of summer, she pushes through, having labored all night against the darkness. “The silence of a shooting star lights up a purple sky; and as I wonder where you are, I’m so lonesome I could cry.” Homer and Hank Williams talking in my head as I rise into the still, steel gray morning. The Jew covers his head, the body with the tallis, then the straps of tefilin, and the prayers begin.

The scholars who assembled our prayerbook were acutely aware of the reality of troubled sleep; of the unconscious, churning soul. The last prayers, addressing the fear of the night beseech God for protection from the angels Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael. So that when we awake, we are also acutely aware of having been saved from the pit, drawn from the well, brought forth to life renewed.

מִזְמ֡וֹר שִׁיר־חֲנֻכַּ֖ת הַבַּ֣יִת לְדָוִֽד׃

A psalm of David. A song for the dedication of the House.

אֲרוֹמִמְךָ֣ יְ֭הֹוָה כִּ֣י דִלִּיתָ֑נִי וְלֹֽא־שִׂמַּ֖חְתָּ אֹיְבַ֣י לִֽי׃

I extol You, O LORD,
for You have lifted me up,
and not let my enemies rejoice over me.

יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהָ֑י שִׁוַּ֥עְתִּי אֵ֝לֶ֗יךָ וַתִּרְפָּאֵֽנִי׃

Eternal, my God,
I cried out to You,
and You healed me.

יְֽהֹוָ֗ה הֶעֱלִ֣יתָ מִן־שְׁא֣וֹל נַפְשִׁ֑י חִ֝יִּיתַ֗נִי מִיׇּֽרְדִי־בֽוֹר׃

Eternal, You brought me up from Sheol,
preserved me from going down into the Pit.

זַמְּר֣וּ לַיהֹוָ֣ה חֲסִידָ֑יו וְ֝הוֹד֗וּ לְזֵ֣כֶר קׇדְשֽׁוֹ׃

You faithful of the Eternal, sing to God,
and praise God’s holy name.

כִּ֤י רֶ֨גַע ׀ בְּאַפּוֹ֮ חַיִּ֢ים בִּרְצ֫וֹנ֥וֹ בָּ֭עֶרֶב יָלִ֥ין בֶּ֗כִי וְלַבֹּ֥קֶר רִנָּֽה׃

For God is angry but a moment,
and when God is pleased there is life.
One may lie down weeping at nightfall;
but at dawn there are shouts of joy.

וַ֭אֲנִי אָמַ֣רְתִּי בְשַׁלְוִ֑י בַּל־אֶמּ֥וֹט לְעוֹלָֽם׃

When I was untroubled,
I thought, “I shall never be shaken,”

יְֽהֹוָ֗ה בִּרְצוֹנְךָ֮ הֶעֱמַ֢דְתָּה לְֽהַרְרִ֫י־עֹ֥ז הִסְתַּ֥רְתָּ פָנֶ֗יךָ הָיִ֥יתִי נִבְהָֽל׃

for You, Eternal, when You were pleased,
made [me] firm as a mighty mountain.
When You hid Your face,
I was terrified.

אֵלֶ֣יךָ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֶקְרָ֑א וְאֶל־אֲ֝דֹנָ֗י אֶתְחַנָּֽן׃

I called to You, Eternal;
to my God I made appeal,

מַה־בֶּ֥צַע בְּדָמִי֮ בְּרִדְתִּ֢י אֶ֫ל־שָׁ֥חַת הֲיוֹדְךָ֥ עָפָ֑ר הֲיַגִּ֥יד אֲמִתֶּֽךָ׃

“What is to be gained from my death,
from my descent into the Pit?
Can dust praise You?
Can it declare Your faithfulness?

שְׁמַע־יְהֹוָ֥ה וְחׇנֵּ֑נִי יְ֝הֹוָ֗ה הֱֽיֵה־עֹזֵ֥ר לִֽי׃

Hear, Eternal, and have mercy on me;
Eternal, be my help!”

הָפַ֣כְתָּ מִסְפְּדִי֮ לְמָח֢וֹל לִ֥֫י פִּתַּ֥חְתָּ שַׂקִּ֑י וַֽתְּאַזְּרֵ֥נִי שִׂמְחָֽה׃

You turned my lament into dancing,
you undid my sackcloth and girded me with joy,

לְמַ֤עַן ׀ יְזַמֶּרְךָ֣ כָ֭בוֹד וְלֹ֣א יִדֹּ֑ם יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱ֝לֹהַ֗י לְעוֹלָ֥ם אוֹדֶֽךָּ׃ {פ}

that [my] whole being might sing hymns to You endlessly;
Eternal my God, I will praise You forever. (Psalm 30)

There is an acknowledgement by the psalmist of the directional nature of our faith, the verticality of religious experience while we are, well, horizontal. Exaltation — a raising of attitude — in gratitude for being drawn up from below. The eternality of death — the mortal truth we all must face — pulls at us from the Pit; a bed of nighttime weeping can become, in the morning, “glad song,” which is how Robert Alter translates it.

The great Hebraist Alter notes regarding his translaion of the second verse, “I shall exalt You, Lord, for You drew me up, and You gave no joy to my enemies,” that [d]eath, then, is imagined as a deep pit from which the speaker has been drawn up by God. In this fashion, at its beginning the poem announces itself as a thanksgiving psalm.”

We awake to thanksgiving. We awake to thanksgiving. We are filled with gratitude, upon rising each day — whether the sun is shining or clouds are gathering — and are ready to do what we are commanded to do. Our lives matter. Every moment of our lives can make a difference for good, for justice, for compassion, for peace.

After all, as the psalmist says:

“What is to be gained from my death,
from my descent into the Pit?
Can dust praise You?
Can it declare Your faithfulness?

Alter: “Man cannot fulfill his vocation of celebrating God is he is engulfed by death. It is living human beings whom God needs to sing praises. It looks as though the giving of praise to God is imagined as a replacement of the pagan idea in which the sacrifices were thought of as food necessary to the gods.”

Yes. Perfect. Exactly.

There is a marvelous teaching from the Talmud (Avot d’Rabbi Natan 4) about the generation that was in mourning over the destruction of the Second Temple.

It happened once that Rabban Joḥanan b. Zakkai was coming out of Jerusalem, followed by Rabbi Joshua, and he beheld the Temple in ruins. ‘Woe to us,’ cried R. Joshua, ‘for this house that lies in ruins, the place where atonement was made for the sins of Israel!’ Rabban Joḥanan said to him, ‘My son, be not grieved, for we have another means of atonement which is as effective, and that is, the practice of lovingkindness, as it is stated, For I desire lovingkindness and not sacrifice’. (Hosea 6:6)

Our faith, our dedication to the Other and others, meets our cries of fear from existential aloneness.

We rise up each morning, renewed to serve.

“…For Yamim Noraim is not only the modern, popular expression for the days of Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur; it is the accurate term for the season which puts the fear of God into us. For this is the Judgement period; and when a man begins to think of his blunders and vulgarities and appalling occasions of bad conduct the past twelvemonth term, it’s enough to fill him with terror. The willy nilly sins against God and the sins against man and the sins against every animate and inanimate creature into which we are catapulted (let alone those we carefully plan) simply because no human being is infallible, have a way of parading before our memories and in our dreams with such sinister clarity that it is a supernatural triumph we are not unrelieved in despair.” —Judah Goldin, from his introduction to S.Y. Agnon’s Days of Awe

I would be most fortunate, over the course of my entire rabbinic career, if I could ever craft a paragraph about any Jewish idea as succinct, moving and penetrating as that.

Dr. Judah Goldin (1914-1998) was a scholar of ancient rabbinic literature whose career spanned from Duke University, the University of Iowa, Yale University and finally the University of Pennsylvania. Throughout the course of his illustrious lifework, he was a pioneer in the field of Jewish Studies in secular American liberal arts universities, along the likes of Harry Wolfson at Harvard and Salo Baron of Columbia University. These were giants.

To this day, Goldin’s scholarly work on Pirke Avot, the Mekhilta, the Living Talmud and Avot d’Rabbi Natan, remain central to our understanding of early rabbinic thought. His wife Grace, a photographer and poet who died in 1995, is credited in some accounts with having a poet’s influence on his engaging prose.

That last bit reminds of the time when, as a young rabbinical student, I was invited by Professor Jan Rosenberg, a congregant in Brooklyn and sociologist, to give a lunch and learn talk to faculty and students about Rabbi Milton Steinberg at Long Island University. Steinberg’s son David, who at the time was President of L.I.U. Rabbi Milton Steinberg, who served Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City from 1937-1950, died at age 46 of a heart attack. A prolific writer, towering intellectual and Zionist activist, Steinberg’s work was integral to my own decision to enter the rabbinate — especially his works As a Driven Leaf — here the link is Park Avenue Synagogue’s Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove beautiful sermon using Steinberg as a text, Basic Judaism, and A Partisan Guide to the Jewish Problem. Even in the 1980s, the urgency of his message burned bright still, forty years, a generation, later.

Upon completing my talk (which I had nervously practiced and poured over with my own wife) President David Steinberg graciously thanked me and said, “You have transported me back in time, to my father’s sermons in the sanctuary at Park Avenue on Shabbat mornings. My father could speak without notes for an 60-90 minutes easily each week. But if he was getting on too long, my mother, who sat in the back of the sanctuary, we quietly remove the watch from her wrist, dangle in gently aloft, to signal to my father that it was time to wrap up.”

Ah! The holy of holies! How the sausage is made! Was I just invited into the rarified insight of a fraternal order? Or had I gone on too long, leaving not enough time for people to eat their lunches and get to the discussion? I’ll never know.

“For this is the Judgement period; and when a man begins to think of his blunders and vulgarities and appalling occasions of bad conduct the past twelvemonth term, it’s enough to fill him with terror.”

But the story of the watch, of that swinging, swaying time, remains.

Let the memories come in this season. They have so much to teach us. Let your dreams disturb you. Listen to them. Talk to them.

In the Babylonian Talmud Brachot 57b, we have one of the most entertaining and insightful discussions about dreams and their enduring value and meaning. And following the discussion of dreams and how to interpret them, the Sages delineate a number of other symbolic occurrences and categories with meaning.

חֲמִשָּׁה וְשִׁשָּׁה וַעֲשָׂרָה סִימָן: חֲמִשָּׁה אֶחָד מִשִּׁשִּׁים, אֵלּוּ הֵן: אֵשׁ, דְּבַשׁ, וְשַׁבָּת, וְשֵׁינָה, וַחֲלוֹם. אֵשׁ — אֶחָד מִשִּׁשִּׁים לְגֵיהִנָּם. דְּבַשׁ — אֶחָד מִשִּׁשִּׁים לַמָּן. שַׁבָּת — אֶחָד מִשִּׁשִּׁים לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא. שֵׁינָה — אֶחָד מִשִּׁשִּׁים לַמִּיתָה. חֲלוֹם — אֶחָד מִשִּׁשִּׁים לַנְּבוּאָה.

The numbers five, six, and ten are mnemonics for the categories to follow. The Gemara says: There are five matters in our world which are one-sixtieth of their most extreme manifestations. They are: Fire, honey, Shabbat, sleep, and a dream. The Gemara elaborates: Our fire is one-sixtieth of the fire of Gehenna; honey is one-sixtieth of manna; Shabbat is one-sixtieth of the World-to-Come; sleep is one-sixtieth of death; and a dream is one-sixtieth of prophecy.

A text such as this teaches us an immeasurable lesson on the proportionality of certain experiences. Fire. Honey. Shabbat. Sleep. Dreams. Each inimitable, really. Each radically unique. Each possessed of 1/60 a measure of direct communication with the Source of Life.

Stay in each approximation of prophecy, if you can. Wring from each revelation we are fortunate to receive the meaning you need. And in this case, if someone is waving a watch at you, stay right where you are.

Great music is a necessary element in the season of the Days of Awe. The sound of the Shofar; the lulling, melancholy pleadings of Avinu Malkeinu; the deeply humbling admissions of falling short in fulfilling our vows in Kol Nidre. Music is our guide, our divine messenger, even; its words and melodies becoming a unified hermeneutic for conveying to us what this moment of standing before God, awestruck and judged, might possibly mean.

The Ten Days of Repentance have many moments of anguish, perhaps none more dramatic than we are all admitted into the terrifyingly dramatic existential reality of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur: Not everyone will survive the Divine Decree. In the year ahead, lives will draw to a close, just as new life will emerge. None can escape this ultimate reality. We are mortal. We sin. We fail. And in this necessary debasement, we offer ourselves hope to find a new path of return, prayer and acts of justice and charity, to lessen the decree.

King Saul was not so lucky.

In the Bible’s Book of Samuel, as the newly anointed King Saul slowly deteriorates and loses his mind, God grows impatient, decides it’s time for regime change. He implores the prophet Samuel to travel to Bethlehem and seek the counsel of Jesse, a trusted farmer, shepherd and father to eight sons, the youngest of whom, David, will become king and progenitor of the messianic line in Judaism.

וַיֹּ֨אמֶר שְׁמוּאֵ֣ל אֶל־יִשַׁי֮ הֲתַ֣מּוּ הַנְּעָרִים֒ וַיֹּ֗אמֶר ע֚וֹד שָׁאַ֣ר הַקָּטָ֔ן וְהִנֵּ֥ה רֹעֶ֖ה בַּצֹּ֑אן וַיֹּ֨אמֶר שְׁמוּאֵ֤ל אֶל־יִשַׁי֙ שִׁלְחָ֣ה וְקָחֶ֔נּוּ כִּ֥י לֹֽא־נָסֹ֖ב עַד־בֹּא֥וֹ פֹֽה׃

Then Samuel asked Jesse, “Are these all the boys you have?” He replied, “There is still the youngest; he is tending the flock.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send someone to bring him, for we will not sit down to eat until he gets here.”

וַיִּשְׁלַ֤ח וַיְבִיאֵ֙הוּ֙ וְה֣וּא אַדְמוֹנִ֔י עִם־יְפֵ֥ה עֵינַ֖יִם וְט֣וֹב רֹ֑אִי
וַיֹּ֧אמֶר יְהֹוָ֛ה ק֥וּם מְשָׁחֵ֖הוּ כִּי־זֶ֥ה הֽוּא׃

So they sent and brought him. He was ruddy-cheeked, bright-eyed, and handsome. And GOD said, “Rise and anoint him, for this is the one.”

וַיִּקַּ֨ח שְׁמוּאֵ֜ל אֶת־קֶ֣רֶן הַשֶּׁ֗מֶן וַיִּמְשַׁ֣ח אֹתוֹ֮ בְּקֶ֣רֶב אֶחָיו֒ וַתִּצְלַ֤ח רֽוּחַ־יְהֹוָה֙ אֶל־דָּוִ֔ד מֵהַיּ֥וֹם הַה֖וּא וָמָ֑עְלָה וַיָּ֣קׇם שְׁמוּאֵ֔ל וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ הָרָמָֽתָה׃

Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of GOD gripped David from that day on. Samuel then set out for Ramah. (I Samuel 16:11-14)

So skilled at the lyre and as the author of Psalms, David, a talented lyricist, is vaulted to the inner court of Saul’s diminishing kingdom. He is brought in to soothe the mad king.

וְהָיָ֗ה בִּֽהְי֤וֹת רֽוּחַ־אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶל־שָׁא֔וּל וְלָקַ֥ח דָּוִ֛ד אֶת־הַכִּנּ֖וֹר וְנִגֵּ֣ן בְּיָד֑וֹ וְרָוַ֤ח לְשָׁאוּל֙ וְט֣וֹב ל֔וֹ וְסָ֥רָה מֵעָלָ֖יו ר֥וּחַ הָרָעָֽה׃
Whenever the evil spirit of God came upon Saul, David would take the lyre and play it; Saul would find relief and feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him. (I Samuel 16:23)

At one time or another in our lives, we have all been comforted by deeply conveyed music, composers and lyricists whom we call upon — whether living or dead — to transport us, transform us, even entwine their ideas with our own and, with grace, ease our anguish and pain.

We have our lists. They are often regurgitated back to us by the algorithmic digital muses of our streaming services. Where I volunteer as a deejay at WMPG in Portland, the real radio hosts still spin vinyl and politely decline, as a necessary bulwark against our musical atomization, the compressed audio layers of MP3s.

I hosted this morning. And as I did last Elul, I blew the shofar to open and close the show. Listeners appreciate it.

But today, inspired by the verses above from Samuel, I took to heart the Bible’s description of David, “He was ruddy-cheeked, bright-eyed, and handsome. And GOD said, “Rise and anoint him, for this is the one,” playing with the conceit that David was the first rock star, and composed my playlist of meditations for Elul accordingly.

If God chose David son of Jesse from Bethlehem to soothe Saul, then for today, I chose from among my favorites: J. B. Lenoir from Monticello, Mississippi; Leonard Cohen from Montreal, Quebec; Paul Simon, born in Newark, N.J. but raised in Queens, New York; Ehud Banai, Jerusalem, Israel; Aaron Neville, New Orleans, Louisiana; and Bob Dylan, born in Duluth and raised in Hibbing, Minnesota, to soothe and comfort you.

And inspired by the words of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer from our High Holy Days Mahzor, I played the Shofar, once at the top of the show at 6:30 am and then again round about 8:00 am toward the close of the show.

וּבְשׁוֹפָר גָּדוֹל יִתָּקַע וְקוֹל דְּמָמָה דַקָּה יִשָׁמַע וּמַלְאָכִים יֵחָפֵזוּן וְחִיל וּרְעָדָה יֹאחֵזוּן וְיֹאמְרוּ הִנֵּה יוֹם הַדִּין לִפְקֹד עַל צְבָא מָרוֹם בַּדִּין כִּי לֹא יִזְכּוּ בְּעֵינֶיךָ בַּדִּין וְכָל בָּאֵי עוֹלָם יַעַבְרוּן לְפָנֶיךָ כִּבְנֵי מָרוֹן כְּבַקָּרַת רוֹעֶה עֶדְרוֹ מַעֲבִיר צֹאנוֹ תַּחַת שִׁבְטוֹ כֵּן תַּעֲבִיר וְתִסְפֹּר וְתִמְנֶה וְתִפְקֹד נֶפֶשׁ כָּל חָי וְתַחְתֹּךְ קִצְבָה לְכָל בְּרִיָּה וְתִכְתֹּב אֶת גְּזַר דִּינָם

And the great shofar is sounded, and a still, small voice shall be heard. And the angels shall be alarmed, and dread and fear shall seize them as they proclaim: behold! the Day of Judgment on which the hosts of heaven shall be judged, for they too shall not be judged blameless by you, and all creatures shall parade before you as a herd of sheep. As a shepherd herds his flock, directing his sheep to pass under his staff, so you shall pass, count, and record the souls of all living, and decree a limit to each persons days, and inscribe their final judgment.

I will admit that it is terrifying to be judged. So we should have some good music to ease the way.

I hope you enjoy a listen.

Below is the archived stream from WMPG’s website as well as the embedded playlist from Spotify.

Sunday Simcha on WMPG — August 23, 2026.

There is a basic principle of rabbinic Judaism in the era of the Mishnah (200 BCE-200 CE), particularly with the matter of determining law, that in matters of debate between Hillel and Shammai, Hillel’s opinion prevails.

The most well-known among these examples is regarding the order in which one is to light the Hanukah candles.

Beit Shammai says: On the first day one kindles eight lights and, from there on, gradually decreases the number of lights until, on the last day of Hanukkah, they kindle one light.

And Beit Hillel says: On the first day one kindles one light, and from there on, gradually increases the number of lights until, on the last day, they kindle eight lights. (BT Shabbat 21b)

As principles go, it’s a slam dunk here. After all, should it not be the goal of any religious or spiritual practice to increase rather than decrease the light?

And yet I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Shammai, who, according to this principle, always loses. Surely he had what to say.

Indeed, he does. And his words in this case are words to live by:

שַׁמַּאי אוֹמֵר, עֲשֵׂה תוֹרָתְךָ קֶבַע. אֱמֹר מְעַט וַעֲשֵׂה הַרְבֵּה, וֶהֱוֵי מְקַבֵּל אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם בְּסֵבֶר פָּנִים יָפוֹת

Shammai used to say: make your study of the Torah a fixed practice; speak little, but do much; and receive all people with a pleasant countenance. (Pirke Avot 1:15)

The preponderance of rabbinic commentators to this verse cite the incident in Genesis, soon after Abraham circumcises himself at age 99 (yes, you read that correctly) and is recovering in his tent during the hottest part of the day, when three visitors approach.

וַיִּשָּׂ֤א עֵינָיו֙ וַיַּ֔רְא וְהִנֵּה֙ שְׁלֹשָׁ֣ה אֲנָשִׁ֔ים נִצָּבִ֖ים עָלָ֑יו וַיַּ֗רְא וַיָּ֤רׇץ לִקְרָאתָם֙ מִפֶּ֣תַח הָאֹ֔הֶל וַיִּשְׁתַּ֖חוּ אָֽרְצָה׃

Looking up, he saw three men standing near him. As soon as he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them and, bowing to the ground,

וַיֹּאמַ֑ר אֲדֹנָ֗י אִם־נָ֨א מָצָ֤אתִי חֵן֙ בְּעֵינֶ֔יךָ אַל־נָ֥א תַעֲבֹ֖ר מֵעַ֥ל עַבְדֶּֽךָ׃

he said, “My lords, if it please you, do not go on past your servant.

יֻקַּֽח־נָ֣א מְעַט־מַ֔יִם וְרַחֲצ֖וּ רַגְלֵיכֶ֑ם וְהִֽשָּׁעֲנ֖וּ תַּ֥חַת הָעֵֽץ׃

Let a little water be brought; bathe your feet and recline under the tree.

וְאֶקְחָ֨ה פַת־לֶ֜חֶם וְסַעֲד֤וּ לִבְּכֶם֙ אַחַ֣ר תַּעֲבֹ֔רוּ כִּֽי־עַל־כֵּ֥ן עֲבַרְתֶּ֖ם עַֽל־עַבְדְּכֶ֑ם וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ כֵּ֥ן תַּעֲשֶׂ֖ה כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר דִּבַּֽרְתָּ׃

And let me fetch a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourselves; then go on—seeing that you have come your servant’s way.” They replied, “Do as you have said.” (Genesis 18:2-5)

In his eagerness and devotion to serve others, to express his commitment to hospitality, to love his neighbor, Abraham transcends himself.

In our noisy, individuated world, Shammai reminds us of the singular importance of being present. Consistently present in our learning; consistently present in our encounter with our neighbors.

Twenty years ago an artist on the Lower East Side once said to me, “You know you’re a New Yorker when you can identify what a storefront was three owners ago. I approximate that to be, on average, at least 12 years.” I breathed a sigh of relief. It was my 13th year in New York. Mazel Tov.

But I have always taken that to mean that we must notice our surroundings, know who is doing what, know who is responsible to whom, in order to count ourselves as being present. And that requires consistency of observation, making the study of our surroundings a “fixed practice,” as it were; and, in “receiving all people with a pleasant countenance,” maintaining our presence and our gaze long enough to simply say “hello,” each day.

I was in Astoria yesterday with my daughter Audrey, dipping in to Mediterranean Foods and just walking around, catching up. At the cash register in the market, a woman behind us in line noticed our haul — olives, oils, Greek Mountain Tea and honey — and said, “Were you all just in Greece?” and we told her about our family visit in the summer of 2019 to Athens, the Peloponnese, and Cythera (“Now I would have reached home safely, but as I was rounding Cape Malea, the north wind and waves and the ocean currents beat me away, off course, past Cythera.”)

It reminded us of our first night in Athens after a long flight, arriving travel battered and hungry but it was late and most places were closed. A lone cafe was still opened and they welcomed us in with salads, spreads and fresh bread. The only other customers were a mother and daughter, speaking Greek. The daughter noticed us, walked over to our table and said, “Are you from New York?” She told us that she was from Athens but lives in Buffalo and comes home every summer to Athens to visit with her mother. She gave us tips for our days in Athens and then went back to her time with her mother. They paid their bill and left us alone to enjoy the end of our meal and prepare for our next day’s visit, our ascent to the Acropolis.

We asked for our check and it was delivered with a fresh plate of loukoumades, deep-fried, crispy, sweet and delicious. “This is from your friend,” the waiter said. “She says to say, ‘Welcome to Athens.’”

It was a magical moment and I dare say “Abrahamic” in its commitment to transcend the self in order to welcome guests.

Chewing the fat over the year ahead, Audrey and I caught some shade on comfortable metal bench outside a barbershop in Astoria. I thought about what the barbershop was before it was a barbershop, and what it was before that. We finished our celery and lemon juices, made plans for another visit, and stood up to take our leave. I poked my head into the barbershop to thank them for the use of the bench and the hairstylist looked up, smiled, and with her clippers in her hand said, “You’re welcome. Anytime.”

During my years as executive director of the Bronfman Center at NYU, I used to have lunch with Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg on occasional Tuesdays. The routine was always the same. I’d be sitting in my office and the phone would ring. He’d say, “This is Yasser Arafat. Bring me a sandwich.” Then I’d laugh and say “Hello Rabbi, how are you?” And he’d say, “I’m a creaky old Jew. I’ll have a tuna sandwich and a soft drink.”

And thus I was dispatched to his office, where he would be preparing to teach his course, or going over edits for a book he was readying for publication. Some days when I would arrive, I’d see my friend Matt Weiner, then a graduate student and now Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University.

One early afternoon I arrived to find Arthur fully wrapped in tallis and tefilin, tardy to but nevertheless in fulfillment of his morning obligations to God. “Aren’t we a bit late for that?” I teased. “Sha, quiet,” he said, “I just want to put my tallis over my head and talk to the Ribono Shel Olam (the Master of the Universe.).”

שִׁמְעוֹן בְּנוֹ אוֹמֵר, כָּל יָמַי גָּדַלְתִּי בֵין הַחֲכָמִים, וְלֹא מָצָאתִי לַגּוּף טוֹב אֶלָּא שְׁתִיקָה

Shimon, his son, used to say: all my days I grew up among the sages, and I have found nothing better for a person than silence. (Pirke Avot 1:17)

This text never gets old.

I came, tuna sandwiches, chips, pickles and soft drinks in hand and I posed a question.

“I have to give a talk later this afternoon and I’m at a loss as to what to say,” I began, looking for an in to get some wisdom that I might borrow from my teacher.

He waved me away. “If you’re studying every day, you’ll always have something to say.”

For Arthur, it was the gentlest of rebukes; and thankfully, has been my practice ever since, now going on nearly 30 years.

בֶּן בַּג בַּג אוֹמֵר, הֲפֹךְ בָּהּ וַהֲפֹךְ בָּהּ, דְּכֹלָּא בָהּ. וּבָהּ תֶּחֱזֵי, וְסִיב וּבְלֵה בָהּ, וּמִנַּהּ לֹא תָזוּעַ, שֶׁאֵין לְךָ מִדָּה טוֹבָה הֵימֶנָּה:

Ben Bag Bag said: Turn it over, and turn it over, for all is therein. And look into it; And become gray and old therein; And do not move away from it, for you have no better portion than it. (Pirke Avot 5:22)

Don’t ever not be learning.

In the Iggeret HaRamban, Nachmanides writes:

וֶהֱוֵי זָהִיר לִקְרוֹת בַּתּוֹרָה תָּמִיד, אֲשֶׁר תּוּכַל לְקַיְּמָהּ. וְכַאֲשֶׁר תָּקוּם מִן הַסֵּפֶר – תְּחַפֵּשֹ בַּאֲשֶׁר לָמַדְתָּ אִם יֵשׁ בּוֹ דָבָר אֲשֶׁר תּוּכַל לְקַיְּמוֹ. וּתְפַשְׁפֵּשׁ בְּמַעֲשֶֹיךָ בַּבֹּקֶר וּבָעֶרֶב, וּבָזֶה יִהְיוּ כָּל יָמֶיךָ בִּתְשׁוּבָה.

Take heed to study Torah constantly, so you will be able to fulfill its commands. When you arise from your learning reflect carefully on what you have studied, to find a lesson in it that you can put into practice. Examine your actions every morning and evening, and in this way every one of your days will be spent in returning (to God).

Maimonides said in his Laws of Torah Study that everyone is obligated to learn without exception. “Rich or poor, healthy or ill, young or old.” For believers, to not study is to neglect the word of God. How could one dare to do such a thing?

In Rabbi Avrohom Chaim Feuer’s translation of the Iggeret HaRamban, he reminds us of the Talmudic teaching of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair that the doing is the ultimate purpose of the learning. “Torah leads to introspection; introspection leads to swift action.”

I cherish this memory of my teacher Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg. It’s as if I hear his voice on occasion, under my tallis, wrapping my tefilin, studying a text. He is prodding me forward, still.

Who was a teacher you cherished? What were their lessons? Remind yourself. Talk to them. “Turn it over and over and over.” Keep learning from them.

Amen.

I woke up twice in the middle of the night last night and each time was in a completely different part of the bed from where I started. I had drifted off to sleep reading the Israeli poet Aharon Shabtai’s new volume of poetry, Requiem and Other Poems, published by New Directions. The translation and introduction are by Peter Cole, a formidable and important to these painful, deeply moving pieces, written in the aftermath of October 7.

This must be why I slept so fitfully. Who was the angel who wrestled Jacob? What marks did they leave on the overturned earth of their nighttime struggle?

“The horror, the calamity, the disgrace, the rubble of folly and religion’s stupidities, the dimness of vision and violence of despair won’t be repaired by an officer a bomb or a plane, and not by still more blood,” is how the opening poem “Tikkun,” begins. He continues, “Only wisdom of the heart could mend it, only the surgeon, the doctor, the good teacher, the teachers, the medic — an Arab, a Jew — only the quiet traveler riding a bicycle, someone carrying a sandwich and walking along a street, someone opening their eyes, someone who speaks with compassion, someone listening someone learning and wise someone waiting and thinking someone guiding someone down a path of kindness, affection, the painter, the poet, disciples of peace — only the gardeners of peace.”

We need the poets and the painters and the gardeners of peace. Politics has failed us so miserably.

In the first primordial garden, the midrash says, God took dust of the earth, עפר — afar — and from this first earth, as it were, formed the first human. A prototype of clay, inanimate until given the Divine animating breath of life by God: the dust acquires a soul, נפש, life.

וַיִּ֩יצֶר֩ יְהֹוָ֨ה אֱלֹהִ֜ים אֶת־הָֽאָדָ֗ם עָפָר֙ מִן־הָ֣אֲדָמָ֔ה וַיִּפַּ֥ח בְּאַפָּ֖יו נִשְׁמַ֣ת חַיִּ֑ים וַיְהִ֥י הָֽאָדָ֖ם לְנֶ֥פֶשׁ חַיָּֽה׃

the Eternal God formed man from the dust of the earth. He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. (Genesis 2:8)

The early sages of the rabbinic tradition were fascinated by this idea and wrestled with its meaning. The Hellenistic milieu dominated the ancient world at the time of the formation of rabbinic Judaism and the early midrashic literature has some fascinating debates among the rabbis about the relative virtues and dangers of the Greco-Roman worldview. It is, afterall, a world of many gods, not just One. It is a world of empire and domination, of oppression and destruction, but also a world of literature, art, cultural and technological advancement, each an expression of the inexorable force of the unhindered progress of an ever-striving human civilization.

At four a.m. I found myself in the dust not of wrestling between Jacob and the angel but the primordial dust of Creation. Here on the 7th day of Elul we are one week closer to Rosh Hashanah which the tradition teaches is the Birthday of the Universe in which all creatures stand in judgement before the God who brought them into existence. And we humans, the only creatures animated by the Divine breath, are made with the intent of consciousness, awareness and the necessary discernment to be able to judge ourselves and, as creatures of both dust and Divine breath, have the humility be judged as well.

In this painfully divided world, when it is too easy to retreat to the familiarity of our own proving grounds of self-defense and self-protection, perhaps we need to be wrestling with more than our own conscience but taking to bed with us the words of the poets, the painters, the gardeners, the disciples of peace.

We need to know what they say. We need to see what they see. We need to imagine what can be grown, not destroyed.

In his introduction to Requiem, Peter Cole writes, “Translating the elemental force of Shabtai’s poems during this monstrous war has provided both sentence and solace: sentence because Shabtai confronts us not as what Heschel called a “singing saint” or “moralizing poet,” but as “assaulter of the mind,” and with what we regularly prefer not to see. And yet, there is that solace, because his poems are powered by a hard-won leverage and fiendish sympathy that give at least this translator hope for all that poetry can still do — in any language, and even in the bleakest dark.”

We need to imagine what can be grown.

Each morning, with my tefilin bound to arm and head, here is where my daily prayers really take off:

Psalm 30

מִזְמ֡וֹר שִׁיר־חֲנֻכַּ֖ת הַבַּ֣יִת לְדָוִֽד׃

A psalm of David. A song for the dedication of the House.

אֲרוֹמִמְךָ֣ יְ֭הֹוָה כִּ֣י דִלִּיתָ֑נִי וְלֹֽא־שִׂמַּ֖חְתָּ אֹיְבַ֣י לִֽי׃

I extol You, Eternal,
for You have lifted me up,
and not let my enemies rejoice over me.

יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהָ֑י שִׁוַּ֥עְתִּי אֵ֝לֶ֗יךָ וַתִּרְפָּאֵֽנִי׃

O my Eternal God,
I cried out to You,
and You healed me.

יְֽהֹוָ֗ה הֶעֱלִ֣יתָ מִן־שְׁא֣וֹל נַפְשִׁ֑י חִ֝יִּיתַ֗נִי (מיורדי) [מִיׇּֽרְדִי־]בֽוֹר׃

Eternal, You brought me up from Sheol,
preserved me from going down into the Pit.

זַמְּר֣וּ לַיהֹוָ֣ה חֲסִידָ֑יו וְ֝הוֹד֗וּ לְזֵ֣כֶר קׇדְשֽׁוֹ׃

O you faithful of God, sing out,
and praise that holy name.

כִּ֤י רֶ֨גַע ׀ בְּאַפּוֹ֮ חַיִּ֢ים בִּרְצ֫וֹנ֥וֹ בָּ֭עֶרֶב יָלִ֥ין בֶּ֗כִי וְלַבֹּ֥קֶר רִנָּֽה׃

For God is angry but a moment,
and when pleased, there is life.
One may lie down weeping at nightfall;
but at dawn there are shouts of joy.

וַ֭אֲנִי אָמַ֣רְתִּי בְשַׁלְוִ֑י בַּל־אֶמּ֥וֹט לְעוֹלָֽם׃

When I was untroubled,
I thought, “I shall never be shaken,”

יְֽהֹוָ֗ה בִּרְצוֹנְךָ֮ הֶעֱמַ֢דְתָּה לְֽהַרְרִ֫י־עֹ֥ז הִסְתַּ֥רְתָּ פָנֶ֗יךָ הָיִ֥יתִי נִבְהָֽל׃

for You, Eternal, when You were pleased,
made me firm as a mighty mountain.
When You hid Your face,
I was terrified.

אֵלֶ֣יךָ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֶקְרָ֑א וְאֶל־אֲ֝דֹנָ֗י אֶתְחַנָּֽן׃

I called to You, Eternal;
to my Sovereign I made appeal,

מַה־בֶּ֥צַע בְּדָמִי֮ בְּרִדְתִּ֢י אֶ֫ל־שָׁ֥חַת הֲיוֹדְךָ֥ עָפָ֑ר הֲיַגִּ֥יד אֲמִתֶּֽךָ׃

“What is to be gained from my death,
from my descent into the Pit?
Can dust praise You?
Can it declare Your faithfulness?

שְׁמַע־יְהֹוָ֥ה וְחׇנֵּ֑נִי יְ֝הֹוָ֗ה הֱֽיֵה־עֹזֵ֥ר לִֽי׃

Hear, Eternal, and have mercy on me;
Eternal, be my help!”

הָפַ֣כְתָּ מִסְפְּדִי֮ לְמָח֢וֹל לִ֥֫י פִּתַּ֥חְתָּ שַׂקִּ֑י וַֽתְּאַזְּרֵ֥נִי שִׂמְחָֽה׃

You turned my lament into dancing,
you undid my sackcloth and girded me with joy,

לְמַ֤עַן ׀ יְזַמֶּרְךָ֣ כָ֭בוֹד וְלֹ֣א יִדֹּ֑ם יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱ֝לֹהַ֗י לְעוֹלָ֥ם אוֹדֶֽךָּ׃ {פ}

that my whole being might sing hymns to You endlessly;
My Eternal God, I will praise You forever.

I love the demand, the almost physical energy behind the questioning of God for the psalmist’s inner turmoil. The urgency speaks to me as one cognizant of suffering through certain chapters of life with incredulity.

Why is this happening?

My rabbinic study partner through our time in school used to say, “If it happens to you, you deserve it,” which surely can’t always be true but nevertheless serves as a goad to action. Like a shepherd urges on the flock, as they say.

The image felt so powerful this morning. “You have made me as a mighty mountain, yet you hide your face from me, I am terrified!”

These upcoming Days of Awe can be fearful indeed. The words “who shall live and who shall die” from the U’netaneh Tokef prayer are words that shake me to the core, more and more with each year as I move toward the heart of my sixties. No more fooling around, truly.

And so when the psalmist talks back at God — “What is to be gained from my death,
from my descent into the Pit? Can dust praise You? Can it declare Your faithfulness?” — there is fight in there that we can relate to as well.

You created us with purpose, the psalmist implies. When you are hidden and I suffer, I demand you show your presence! Console me! Protect me! We need each other to do your will!

I was at the mikveh yesterday, bringing two people into Judaism from very different places in life. One, a woman in her early thirties, an educator engaged to a Jewish man who came to the decision to be a Jew from her own searching and falling in love with the tradition. The other, a man in his mid-seventies, a generation ahead of the young woman and battle scarred by life but not with an ounce of discernible cynicism. “I learn by doing,” he told the three rabbis sitting around the table, letting us know that like Israel stood at Mount Sinai and received the Torah with the words, “We will do and we will listen — נעשה ונשמע — he was prepared to take upon himself the blessed obligations of being a Jew. We experience life, we live life, and from that living and by the way we live, we walk a path of uplift, of good deeds, and hope.

Let our experiences urge us forward. Let us learn from it all. And most important, let us keep doing acts of kindness, goodness and love.

“Heed, my son, the discipline of your father and do not forsake the guidance of your mother.” (Proverbs 1:8)

Thus begins a medieval text known as Iggeret HaRamban, Nachmanides Letter, a moral code - a mussar letter, an ethical will — from the great rabbinic scholar who was born in Gerona, Spain in 1195 before settling in Acre, on the northern coast of the Land of Israel, where he died in 1270. His reputation was held in the highest esteem by all to such a degree that King James of Aragon ordered Nachmanides to hold a religious disputation before the king and his court in Barcelona in 1263 in order to defend Judaism against the supersessionist claims of Christianity. (The scholar Nina Caputo of UW-Madison has a graphic historical work on this issue which is terrific.)

“Heed, my son, the discipline of your father and do not forsake the guidance of your mother.”

There is a long tradition of mussar letters in the Jewish tradition which one can understand in the context of Biblical figures imparting words of instruction before their deaths (there is a midrash that says all of Deuteronomy is Moses’ final oration to the people); to elaborate descriptions of death scenes of the sages in the early rabbinic era; to works like the Iggeret HaRamban, a concise essay meant to provide timeless instruction not only to the scholar’s children but to subsequent generations who continually read the text for its challenging and inspiring insight about the discipline of living a life of meaning.

I first encountered the text tucked into the back seat pews of an Orthodox synagogue in Long Island where I was attending a wedding that must have been thirty years ago, the work squeezed in among prayerbooks, Torah commentaries, and various community announcements. Small volumes of the book were behind each seat, begging to be taken, so I did. I now regularly buy a few copies a year and leave them places or give them as gifts, a trail of jewels by which one can find one’s way home.

That’s enough context.

The Ramban writes, “Accustom yourself to always speak all of your words calmly, to every man and at every time. In doing so you will prevent your anger from flaring, which is a bad attribute in a man which may cause him to sin. And accordingly said our Rabbis, may their memories be a blessing: (Nedarim 22a) “Anyone who gets angry - all of Gehinnom holds sway over him, as it says: (Ecclesiastes 11:10) ‘And remove the anger from your heart, and take away the bad from your flesh’, and ‘bad’ can only mean Gehinnom, as it says (Proverbs 16:4): ‘And the sinner, he too, will have his day of bad’.”

As someone who was raised by an angry and rageful father, this opening line has always terrified me. My father Monas was warm, brilliant, funny, loving and devoted. He also simply could not control his anger. This lack of control destroyed his marriage and his professional life as an advertising executive and, as I have written about many times before, was the ultimate cause of his poor health and cardiac arrest at age 58. I revered him and miss him every day. He did not write me this letter but whenever I read it at least once each year, I imagine sitting beside him in shul, while a cantor and rabbi drone on, turning the Ramban’s words over and over and over. We analyzed a lot of box scores, Pop. But never Nachmanides, alas.

When you will have freed yourself from anger, the quality of humility will enter your heart which is the best of all good traits, as is written (Proverbs 22:4), “The reward for humility is fear of God, wealth, honor and life.” Dad died poor. It always felt like a judgement, both external and self-inflicted.

And here is the hardest part of Nachmanides opening statement:

Through humility you will also come to fear God. It will cause you to always think about (Pirkei Avot 3:1) “where you came from and where you are going,” and that while alive you are only like a maggot and a worm as after death, and before Whom you will eventually stand for judgment, the Glorious King, as it is written (I Kings 8:27) (Chronicles II 6:18) “Even the heaven and the heavens of heaven cannot contain You” -- “How much less the hearts of people!” (Proverbs 15:11). It is also written (Jeremiah 23:24), “Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Eternal.”

But what about the guidance of my mother? Nachmanides demands we reckon with their Torah, their teaching, as well. My dear mother. Not an unresolved anger but an unimaginable sadness and sense of loss; a father murdered when she was only six; raised with the blessed fortitude of single mother in the 1930s and 1940s, in the turmoil of the Great Depression and World War; privileging always the value of showing up. Yet somehow, like my father’s consumption by anger, she was always a wandering refugee of her own father’s absence. It made her, as loving as she was, at times hard to reach.

Ah, cursed heredities! Days of Awe: you demand of us confrontation!

At this time of year it’s not just God I think of when I hear the words and the melody to Avinu Malkeinu. I think of my my mom and dad. How they brought me into this world as my creators; how they raised, taught, and, when necessary, ruled over me; but unlike the Source of Life, how they were ground down, with both triumphs and loss, into the necessities, the unavoidable rules of mortality.

While it is true that Rosh Hashanah is the “birthday of the world,” the day when God created the universe, a day of Shofar blasts and honey cake and back from summer and it’s-so-great-to-see-everyone-at synagogue-again; as a holy day it’s really the antechamber to our Day of Atonement, to Yom Kippur, to the culmination of Ten Days of Repentance, when we are genuinely faced with the drama and the ultimate terror of the question, “Who shall live and who shall die?”

And so I must remind you, reader, that there is a Yizkor, a memorial prayer, on Yom Kippur, not on Rosh Hashanah. Here on the 5th day of Elul, we are anticipating, not without a small measure of neurosis, loss.

Rosh Hashanah, in a way despite its joy, sacrifices something of itself — like Abraham placing Isaac on the altar — cedes the territory of celebration, to Yizkor, to memory, on Yom Kippur. And which ones if not the hardest ones, now, with grace, softened by time to make way, like parted waters, for memories of rootedness, upbringing, acceptance, tutelage, and love.

It took me twelve years of Yizkors after Mom died to allow her back in with the fulness and generosity that she deserved. As a young smartass, I was so angry at her for not doing the work of self-awareness. She was, of course, always there for me. Just not in the way I thought I needed, until I realized, all these years later, that my blessed mother always did the best she could. I love you, Ma. Pretentious schmuck that I am, I repent for this now, genuinely.

Looking at that marvelous map of the Milky Way galaxy, who is not humbled by the miraculous vastness of it all?

Both Mom and Dad possessed a shared language, comprising, in essence, the same reaction to the absurd vastness, the frustrating absence of an as yet, full explanation — by science or theology — of our origins as a species.

Mel Brooks did it for Dad.

David Letterman did it for Mom.

In short, as a family we learned to laugh.

Here’s a good Jewish joke, courtesy of Rabbi Avraham Chaim Feuer, who wrote the commentary to the ArtScroll Series work of the Ramban’s letter, called A Letter for the Ages. Both my parents, of blessed memory, who had no patience for false religious pieties, would have loved this. God willing, one day, we will read this together. According to Rabbi Feuer, it comes from Rabbi Natan Tzvi Finkel, the Alter of Slobodka. (I’ve stood on the site of the Slobodka Yeshiva, by the way. Are you listening Michael Berkowitz?)

“The son of a good family who stole apples from a cart did not become a thief overnight. The deed has its roots in previous generations. Perhaps his very pious grandfather hid behind the bimah of the synagogue in the name of humility, the but act contained a trace of deception because he was acting more pious than he really was. His scholarly son went a step further and stole insights of learning from other scholars and reciting them in his own name. The grandson, in turn, became an apple thief.”

Mom and Dad hated hypocrites. They would be heartbroken by the greedy and destructive pieties of our day.

When I pray in this season, I bring them under my tallit, my prayer shawl, with love and devotion and laughter.

I am humbled by the lives they lived.

I am humbled by the lessons they learned and conveyed to me, in word or by my observation.

I am humbled by the sacrifices they made, by living the lives they were granted, as best they could.

I will honor them in this season, with Yizkor lights, with prayers of remembrance, and, as our God created the world in which we live, I will honor them with love.

A couple years ago, I started adding the recitation of Psalm 146 to my morning prayers, a reading that follows Psalm 145, known as the “Ashrei,” (which means “fortunate, happy” as in “Happy are those who dwell in Your house, may they continue to praise You, Selah. Fortunate is the people for whom the Eternal is their God.”

I recited it by singing it in the same melody traditionally used for Ashrei, thereby extending the spiritual mood, as it were, in the way that when one leaves a live musical performance, a particular song stays in your brain. With songs and lyrics especially, the message of the song lingers like benificent mists.

“The golden throne of Dawn was riding up the sky as Circe concluded, and she strode across her island…” wrote Homer in the Odyssey’s 12th book. Odysseus tells his men, “My friends, the revelations Circe shared with me should not be kept a secret, known to me alone. I will share them with you, and we can die in knowledge of the truth, or else escape. She said we must avoid the voices of the otherworldly Sirens; steer past their flowering meadow.”

Though also sung in the morning, Ashrei into Psalm 146 is not that. Sounds of music in any form may indeed linger on and pull us back, again and again; but these morning prayers are meant not to lull or even seduce; rather, they are meant to spur to action, to ennoble and embody wakefulness and Divine service.

I was invited into a Spotify playlist group recently, one part of a couple dozen people who take turns adding one song each day as a contributory gesture for our friend’s daily recitation of Kaddish for his beloved father who died this summer. Its eclecticism is bound together by a shared love for our friend and his father, expressed as a kind of digital chorus dee-jay trust circle. You never know what you’re going to hear and even if you don’t like it, you know in your heart that the spirit with which it was given is being received with gratitude and love.

Earlier today, before the golden throne of Dawn was riding up the sky, I opened my phone and saw that today’s contribution to the Kaddish playlist was Leonard Cohen’s “If It Be Your Will,” from his 1984 record, Various Positions.

The prayer of a person — especially if that person is Leonard Cohen — who can confess their brokenness is a prayer like no other.

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before

I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you

From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice

Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And to draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light

In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will
If it be your will

Singing and chanting our prayers as we Jews do is an edifying experience, to be sure. But it is an uplift, as it were, a raising up, with a higher purpose, a more devoted service. The golden throne of Dawn rides high, yes. But beyond rests the Throne of Thrones, the Foundation, the Creator of the Universe.

I feel good when I pray but cannot help but ask: Is that the point? Or is it rather to sing oneself into doing good? To be drawn in with song to then be inspired to do our will as if we were doing God’s will? It’s a difficult tension between the autonomy of the self and our willing surrender to service.

Rabban Gamliel taught in Pirke Avot 2:4 “Do God’s will as it were yours, so that God may do your will as if it were God’s. Set aside your will for the sake of God’s, that he may set aside the will of others for the sake of yours.” The natural consequence of the I-Eternal Thou relationship described here, Rabbi Marc Angel writes, “suggests that a natural consequence of the I-Eternal Thou relationship is the harmony that develops between oneself and the Almighty.”

It feels good to sing Psalm 145 and find myself striving to be in harmony with God. But with Psalm 146, I am reminded that the real benefit of song in this context is the directional nature of the words. They lead us somewhere, with hope, to do good.

Psalm 146

הַֽלְלוּ־יָ֡הּ הַֽלְלִ֥י נַ֝פְשִׁ֗י אֶת־יְהֹוָֽה׃

Hallelujah.
Praise the Eternal, O my soul!

אֲהַלְלָ֣ה יְהֹוָ֣ה בְּחַיָּ֑י אֲזַמְּרָ֖ה לֵאלֹהַ֣י בְּעוֹדִֽי׃

I will praise the Eternal all my life,
sing hymns to my God while I exist.

אַל־תִּבְטְח֥וּ בִנְדִיבִ֑ים בְּבֶן־אָדָ֓ם ׀ שֶׁ֤אֵ֖ין ל֥וֹ תְשׁוּעָֽה׃

Put not your trust in the great,
in mortals who cannot save.

תֵּצֵ֣א ר֭וּחוֹ יָשֻׁ֣ב לְאַדְמָת֑וֹ בַּיּ֥וֹם הַ֝ה֗וּא אָבְד֥וּ עֶשְׁתֹּנֹתָֽיו׃

Their breath departs;
they return to the dust;
on that day their plans come to nothing.

אַשְׁרֵ֗י שֶׁ֤אֵ֣ל יַעֲקֹ֣ב בְּעֶזְר֑וֹ שִׂ֝בְר֗וֹ עַל־יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהָֽיו׃

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Eternal their God,

עֹשֶׂ֤ה ׀ שָׁ֘מַ֤יִם וָאָ֗רֶץ אֶת־הַיָּ֥ם וְאֶת־כׇּל־אֲשֶׁר־בָּ֑ם הַשֹּׁמֵ֖ר אֱמֶ֣ת לְעוֹלָֽם׃

maker of heaven and earth,
the sea and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever;

עֹשֶׂ֤ה מִשְׁפָּ֨ט ׀ לָעֲשׁוּקִ֗ים נֹתֵ֣ן לֶ֭חֶם לָרְעֵבִ֑ים יְ֝הֹוָ֗ה מַתִּ֥יר אֲסוּרִֽים׃

who secures justice for those who are wronged,
gives food to the hungry.
The Eternal sets prisoners free;

יְהֹוָ֤ה ׀ פֹּ֘קֵ֤חַ עִוְרִ֗ים יְ֭הֹוָה זֹקֵ֣ף כְּפוּפִ֑ים יְ֝הֹוָ֗ה אֹהֵ֥ב צַדִּיקִֽים׃

The Eternal restores sight to the blind;
The Eternal makes those who are bent stand straight;
The Eternal loves the righteous;

יְהֹוָ֤ה ׀ שֹׁ֘מֵ֤ר אֶת־גֵּרִ֗ים יָת֣וֹם וְאַלְמָנָ֣ה יְעוֹדֵ֑ד וְדֶ֖רֶךְ רְשָׁעִ֣ים יְעַוֵּֽת׃

The Eternal watches over the stranger
and gives courage to the orphan and widow,
but makes the path of the wicked tortuous.

יִמְלֹ֤ךְ יְהֹוָ֨ה ׀ לְעוֹלָ֗ם אֱלֹהַ֣יִךְ צִ֭יּוֹן לְדֹ֥ר וָדֹ֗ר הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ׃ {פ}

The Eternal shall reign forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Hallelujah.

We are moved by the words not only in our hearts — the poetry and melody create this environment for reckoning our souls with God. But rooted in the poetry of the psalm is the clear call to action: to bring justice to the oppressed; to give food to the hungry; to free captives held in repression; protect the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the least advantaged among us.

As Leonard Cohen still sings, from beyond the grave:

From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice

In our Torah readings for Rosh Hashanah, we encounter the story of God’s call to sacrifice his son Isaac. This difficult text has challenged generations of readers, scholars, sages and philosophers to parse its concise and troubling if not outrageous test of God for his beloved Abraham.

But Isaac is the subject of this meditation — specifically Isaac’s perceived silence in the face of the command God makes to Abraham.

Isaac’s silence draws us in. Even his name in Hebrew, meaning “he will laugh,” is not a reference to his own but to his father amusement, if not disbelief, that he will even come into the world. There is a quiet passivity to much of life. He is acted upon more than he acts.

As the younger of two brothers he is mocked and “made sport of” by his older brother Ishmael. And while he speaks at the Akedah —

וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יִצְחָ֜ק אֶל־אַבְרָהָ֤ם אָבִיו֙ וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אָבִ֔י וַיֹּ֖אמֶר הִנֶּ֣נִּֽי בְנִ֑י וַיֹּ֗אמֶר הִנֵּ֤ה הָאֵשׁ֙ וְהָ֣עֵצִ֔ים וְאַיֵּ֥ה הַשֶּׂ֖ה לְעֹלָֽה׃

Then Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he answered, “Yes, my son.” And he said, “Here are the firestone and the wood; but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”

his language is inquisitive and brief, indicating his observation that something profound is happening.

Whis father Abraham answers —

וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ אַבְרָהָ֔ם אֱלֹהִ֞ים יִרְאֶה־לּ֥וֹ הַשֶּׂ֛ה לְעֹלָ֖ה בְּנִ֑י וַיֵּלְכ֥וּ שְׁנֵיהֶ֖ם יַחְדָּֽו׃

And Abraham said, “God will see to the sheep for His burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them walked on together.

his response is silent assent.

How do we read this, knowing that Isaac will be placed on an altar, that his father will hold the knife of sacrifice over him, without feeling terror to our core?

Even in the Midrash, a tempting angel appears, expressing shock that Abraham would dare kill his own son and after not being able to persuade Abraham from the sacrifice, the angel turns to Isaac to also dissuade. But father and son are united in their devotion. They are ready to pay the ultimate price of service — the father giving up his most precious child; and the son, doing the will of his father and his God.

This agony is not unique to the Torah; rather, nearly every culture since the beginning of time has faced the willing sacrifice of children, sometimes tragically, sometimes necessarily, when nations go to war,

There are the extreme examples. Children who die in war-torn regions. Young soldiers — like those in the first wave on Normandy Beach in 1944 — knowing with certainty that they would likely die. The silent sacrifice, the minimal questions, the terse response — these are especially overwhelming.

And then in the infinite fragilities of human experience, imagine the limitless ways that a child may suffer, even willingly, for a parent’s need to answer a higher call. For better or worse, all of us are wounded in one way or another. In its obvious universality, we find humility and understanding; even at times, with grace, acceptance.

Shimon ben Gamliel used to say, “all my days I grew up among the sages, and I have found nothing better for a person than silence.” (Pirke Avot 1:16)

If we follow the Torah narrative closely, we notice that Abraham returns to Beersheva from Mt. Moriah alone. He and Isaac do not descend together. Their relationship has been rent, like the clothing of one in mourning. They never speak to one another again though Abraham does expend every effort to find a wife for his son, the matriarch Rebecca, whose strong will and strategic cleverness make her a far more central character in driving the plot of Genesis forward. Rebecca nurtures Jacob while Esau spurns the birthright and Rebecca ensures that Jacob receives an old, blind Isaac’s final blessing before he dies. These are certainly choices we may argue with but its undeniable that without Rebecca’s strength of character, the passive and scarred Isaac may never have chosen to continue the covenanted call that God made to Isaac’s father Abraham.

It is a matter of stunning poetic beauty that the first time we encounter Isaac after the sacrifice is moments before Rebecca is brought to him. If he had heard of his father’s efforts, the Torah does not say. True to his character, he is a passive bystander to his own life.

Or so it seems. In Genesis 24:62-63 we read —

וְיִצְחָק֙ בָּ֣א מִבּ֔וֹא בְּאֵ֥ר לַחַ֖י רֹאִ֑י וְה֥וּא יוֹשֵׁ֖ב בְּאֶ֥רֶץ הַנֶּֽגֶב׃

Isaac had just come back from the vicinity of Beer-lahai-roi, for he was settled in the region of the Negeb.

וַיֵּצֵ֥א יִצְחָ֛ק לָשׂ֥וּחַ בַּשָּׂדֶ֖ה לִפְנ֣וֹת עָ֑רֶב וַיִּשָּׂ֤א עֵינָיו֙ וַיַּ֔רְא וְהִנֵּ֥ה גְמַלִּ֖ים בָּאִֽים׃

And Isaac went out walking in the field toward evening and, looking up, he saw camels approaching.

What is this “went out walking in the field?” Rashi says that Isaac was praying, alone in the field, at the liminal hour between late afternoon and early evening. Rashi’s prooftext is from the opening verses of Psalm 102 —

תְּ֭פִלָּה לְעָנִ֣י כִֽי־יַעֲטֹ֑ף וְלִפְנֵ֥י יְ֝הֹוָ֗ה יִשְׁפֹּ֥ךְ שִׂיחֽוֹ׃

A prayer of the lowly man when he is faint and pours forth his plea before the LORD.

יְ֭הֹוָה שִׁמְעָ֣ה תְפִלָּתִ֑י וְ֝שַׁוְעָתִ֗י אֵלֶ֥יךָ תָבֽוֹא׃

Eternal, hear my prayer;
let my cry come before You.

אַל־תַּסְתֵּ֬ר פָּנֶ֨יךָ ׀ מִמֶּנִּי֮ בְּי֢וֹם צַ֫ר־לִ֥י הַטֵּֽה־אֵלַ֥י אׇזְנֶ֑ךָ בְּי֥וֹם אֶ֝קְרָ֗א מַהֵ֥ר עֲנֵֽנִי׃

Do not hide Your face from me
in my time of trouble;
turn Your ear to me;
when I cry, answer me speedily.

He is not silent. He pours out his heart. He is not passive. He is troubled, he cries, like the Shofar his voice is broken, his soul is pained. He is demanding that God listen and, most important, respond. “Answer me speedily.”

Isaac silence speaks volumes of anguish.

According to the classical sources, in a history of Alexander the Great, the phrase first appears as “altissima quaeque flumina minimo sono labi (the deepest rivers flow with least sound).” Shakespeare said something similar in Henry VI: “Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.”

Throughout Elul, as we look ahead to Rosh Hashanah and the new beginnings offered to us through the wisdom of the Torah readings, consider your own inner turmoil and that of others. Consider when to be silent and when to pour out your heart and to whom. Consider that in our willingness to both hold on to our anguish long enough to understand it and then express it, cry it out, work through it, there is sublime value in forging new paths, digging new wells of inspiration, and seeing past horizons of grief to the regenerative, fertile possibilities of new life in a new year.