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Rabbi Karp's Sermons ... High Holy Day Prep: It's A
Mitzvah There
is a story that there once was a yeshiva student who approached his rebbe,
Rabbi Mordecai of Nadvorna, a few weeks prior to Rosh Hashanah, and asked
for permission to be dismissed from his studies.
“Why are you hurrying?” Rabbi Mordecai asked.
“I have been invited to lead the services back home in my
village. Therefore, I must go
home to study the High Holy Day prayer book and put my services in
order,” was the student’s reply. Rabbi Mordecai looked at the young man and said, “The
prayer book is the same as it was last year.
But it would be better for you to study your deeds and put yourself
in order.”[1] Two
weeks from tonight we will be gathering in this sanctuary, and there will
be a few more people here than there are on this Shabbat, or most
Shabbatot for that matter. We
all will be pouring into this room to celebrate the High Holy Days.
And celebrate we will! Before
the service begins, this room will be filled with sounds, joyous sounds,
the sounds of the merry reunion of our congregational community.
People will be running into people they haven’t seen in a while -
perhaps since last Yom Kippur. There
will be a good spirit that will fill this place.
It is the spirit of friendship, camaraderie, and love.
It will truly be one of the high “family” moments in the life
of our congregation. Indeed,
our people will be here to celebrate the High Holy Days! But
while we will be here to celebrate the High Holy Days, how many of us will
be truly prepared, or even somewhat be prepared, to OBSERVE the High Holy
Days? “Celebrate”?
Yes! But
“Observe”? That’s another matter. Rabbi
Mordecai clearly understood that distinction.
He knew that there was a dramatic and important distinction between
“doing” the holy days, and observing them. I
used to believe that the difference lie in whether or not one prepared for
the High Holy Days. There
were those who prepared themselves for this sacred occasion and those who
just walked in on Rosh Hashanah Eve.
But I do not believe that any more.
Now I believe that practically everyone prepares for the High Holy
Days, at least in some way. It
used to be a much practiced custom that Jews would buy new clothes in
preparation for the High Holy Days. You
might say that Rosh Hashanah Eve was the Jewish version of the Easter
Parade. People would come to the synagogue, decked out in their brand
new finery, and everybody would turn to everybody else and say “Titchadeish!”,
“Wear it well!” Today,
while we still come to Rosh Hashanah services dressed in our finest,
because we have been blessed with affluence, we may not wait for Rosh
Hashanah to buy new clothes. Thank
God, most of us don’t need to wait till then! Yet
there are other ways people prepare themselves for the High Holy Days.
With our mobile society, these holy days have become a special
traveling time for Jews. Not
traveling in terms of going away on vacation - at least not for most of
us. But traveling in terms of gathering with family.
If at all possible, people like to share the holy days with those
they love. More and more
often I hear people say, “I’m not going to be here for Rosh Hashanah;
I’m not going to be here for Yom Kippur, because I am going to
such-and-such a city to be with my relatives.”
And on the flip side, there are so many folks from out of town who
wind up in our sanctuary on one or both of the holy days, as they come to
visit their relatives. Personally,
the Cantor and I are thrilled that Shira will be coming in from college
for Rosh Hashanah. And
even if people aren’t buying new clothes or traveling or expecting to
receive special visitors, I still know that many are preparing for the
High Holy Days. How do I know this? Because
people talk about the coming holy days.
More Jews talk about the coming of the High Holy Days than they
talk in anticipation of any other Jewish holiday, including Pesach and
Hanukkah, that is if you exclude the discussions concerning the
acquisition of gifts. And
if they are talking about the High Holy Days, they must be thinking about
them, and if they are thinking about them, then they are, in some way,
preparing themselves for them. Yes,
I believe that almost every Jew, at least in some way or another, prepares
for the High Holy Days. And
that brings us back to Rabbi Mordecai, and the distinction which he was so
wisely making. For Rabbi
Mordecai was saying to his student, “there is preparation, and there is
preparation, and it is not enough for us just to prepare for the High Holy
Days. We need to concern
ourselves with how we prepare for the High Holy Days.”
It is essential that there be spiritual preparation as well as
physical preparation. I know
that personally, I feel Rabbi Mordecai’s challenge most profoundly.
After all, as a rabbi, I spend an exorbitant amount of time in the
physical preparations for the High Holy Days.
I organize service participants.
I create service outlines. I
work with the Cantor on music. I
work with our staff on the physical preparations of our building.
I review the prayer book. I
write sermons. The list goes on and on and on!
It is too easy for me to get so wrapped up in those physical
preparations that I ignore preparing myself spiritually.
To say that those physical preparations are time consuming is an
understatement. They are time
devouring, leaving little left for anything else, including my family,
nevertheless my spiritual preparation! But
we who lead the services are not alone in this challenge.
Rabbi Mordecai’s student and I are not unique.
Most Jews also suffer from an inability to strike an appropriate
balance between their physical and their spiritual High Holy Days
preparations. Indeed, for
most Jews there simply is no balance, for the spiritual side is completely
ignored until they walk into the sanctuary on Rosh Hashanah Eve.
And that truly is a great misfortune for our people, for without
spiritual preparation, we are only capable of deriving a fraction of the
benefit of the High Holy Days. Indeed,
for many, the primary benefit of the High Holy Days is simply seeing
people, and getting together. But
there is so much more there for us, to enrich our lives, and we are
completely blind to it. The
High Holy Days are all about enriching our lives.
More than about Jewish reunion; more than about receiving a Jewish
identity booster charge, the High Holy Days are about our lives and how we
live them on a day to day basis, and how we can live them better.
How God can become a part of our lives.
How those Jews of the past, great and small, and most important of
all - those who were closest to us - taught us important lessons for
living the future. How living
in a community - a community which we so readily celebrate by coming
together in joy - carries with it significant personal responsibilities,
each one of us to the other. How
not one of us has yet achieved perfection, and therefore will sometimes
make a mistake, not exercise the best judgement, will sin.
How needy we all are when it comes to forgiveness.
How impossible and illogical it is for us to expect to receive
forgiveness when we are unwilling to grant forgiveness.
How each and every one of us possesses the power to change; to
change our world, to change our lives.
How in order to change, we must muster the courage to confront that
part of ourselves which embarrasses us; which we don’t wish to lay claim
to but we know all too well is there.
How our lives need not be lived on a treadmill, but how we can take
control of our lives and alter them for the better, with God’s help and
guidance. All
this, and so much more, are there for us, waiting for us, on the High Holy
Days. But if we are not spiritually prepared, we barely and rarely
perceive of it. We lose it,
and in losing it, we lose the heart and soul of those most sacred days. The
ancient rabbis clearly understood the essential nature of such
preparation, and they also understood that most Jews could not do it on
their own without guidance. Therefore,
they set aside the entire month prior to Rosh Hashanah, the Hebrew month
of Elul, as a time for spiritually preparing ourselves, and they likewise
created mechanism which would help us to do so.
Let me share some of those mechanisms with you, and perhaps there
may be one among them that will move you spiritually. It
is a old custom to blow the shofar not just on Rosh Hashanah, but daily,
during services, for the entire month of Elul.[2]
Obviously, since our congregation does not hold daily services, as
a congregation we cannot observe this practice.
However, as individuals, we can adapt it for our lives.
That does not mean that we have to daily blow a shofar, although I
have heard a rumor about a young man in our congregation who has been
taking a shofar to public school and blowing it every day, to the
consternation of his classmates. But
what we can do is to remember that the purpose of the shofar is to awaken
within us a sense of a higher duty to both God and our fellow human
beings. In that spirit, we
can choose an activity that we can do daily, that will accomplish that
same end. Perhaps it is
setting aside some money for tsedakah on a daily basis.
Perhaps it is listening to a tape or a cd of Jewish music on a
daily basis. Perhaps it is
logging on to a Jewish or a charitable website on a daily basis.
The bottom line is that we can create our own alternative shofar. Another
custom is, in the spirit of repentance, to set aside one hour every day to
reflect upon our actions during the past year and how we can mend them.
Part of this custom is to actually keep a diary of those
reflections, especially an accounting of our sins.[3]
Such reflection and journal keeping can be a powerfully emotional
experience. A few years ago
here at the Temple we did a High Holy Day preparation adult education
course which involved journal keeping, and voluntary sharing, and it was
deeply, deeply moving. I
think perhaps more so in this day and age than in others, for today our
pace of life is so fast and so demanding that we never give ourselves the
opportunity to stop and actually think about what we are doing and what we
have become. Another
series of customs involves fasting. There
were, and I suspect still are, those who actually fast from the first of
Elul all the way through Yom Kippur.
A variation on this custom is that of eating less and engaging in
Jewish study more.[4]
This is very much in the spirit of Yom Kippur, for Yom Kippur is a
day when we turn a deaf ear to the demands of our bodies and focus on the
demands of our souls. While
fasting for 40 days might be considered extreme, the alternative of eating
less and studying more is a powerful combination, and a healthy one as
well. For who among us could not stand a little less eating and a
little more Jewish studying. Along
the lines of fasting, there are those who fast from speech.
They make a point of severely limiting the amount of their secular
conversations for the month.[5]
While a total fast from speech is impractical in our world today,
still the idea of becoming very careful about what we say is an excellent
one. Indeed, when we think
about it, most of our sins we commit with our mouths rather than our
hands. While
this list goes on, so must this Shabbat service.
But before I conclude this list, let me add to it two obvious, and
important, opportunities for spiritual preparation; opportunities that our
community makes available year in and year out.
Of course I am talking about our Selichot and Kever Avot services. Selichot
services are held on the Saturday night prior to Rosh Hashanah.
Traditionally, they are supposed to take place at midnight, but we,
like most congregations in America, have moved up the time to accommodate
you. Our service is held at
10:00 p.m., usually preceded by an oneg and a program.
The service itself is very moving and a wonderful prelude to the
High Holy Day services. In
fact, I consider it my favorite High Holy Day service.
It really is effective in putting one in the mood. This year’s program, which begins at 8:00 p.m., promises to
be an excellent one. We will
be viewing and discussing the award winning film, “The Quarrel.” It is about two Holocaust survivors, once closest of friends,
but now bitterest of enemies, who encounter each other one day in a park.
One has become a deeply religious person and the other has turned
his back on God. In an
attempt at reconciliation, they vow to spend the day together and see if
they can work out their differences. The
Kever Avot services take place in the community cemeteries.
It is a tradition to visit the graves of our ancestors prior to the
High Holy Days. Originally,
the purpose of these visits was to pray at those graves, asking our
ancestors to intercede with God on our behalf this Yom Kippur.
While that purpose may not have meaning for many contemporary
liberal Jews, still the act of visiting the graves is an important one. It is important for us to actively remember those we loved
and who now are gone. The
High Holy Days should be a time of memory and reflection.
As we look to the future, we should acknowledge the past and our
debt to it, especially our debt to those special people who helped molde
our lives; who helped to make us who we are today.
We must always remember that we are but one link in our Chain of
Tradition; our Jewish Chain of Tradition; our family Chain of Tradition.
We are linked to those who came before us as well as to those who
will come after us, and we are responsible for connecting that past to
that future. The Kever Avot
services themselves are brief and poignant. They will take place on Sunday, September 24th, at
10:30 a.m. at Mt. Nebo; at 11:30 a.m. at the Hebrew Cemetery in Rock
Island; and at 1:00 p.m. at the Tri City Jewish Cemetery on Fairmont
Avenue. As
we approach these High Holy Days, let us heed the good council of Rabbi
Mordecai of Nadvorna. Let us
prepare ourselves spiritually. Let
us study our deeds and put ourselves in order, and let us do so before we
enter the sanctuary on Rosh Hashanah eve. AMEN [1].
LIKKUTE MAHARIAH, as reported in DAYS OF AWE by S. Y. Agnon, p.
38. [2].
Rema, Orah Hayyim, No. 581, as reported in DAYS OF AWE by S. Y.
Agnon, p. 17. [3].
Yosef Ometz, as reported in DAYS OF AWE by S. Y. Agnon, p. 18. [4].
Hayye Adam: Nagid u-Metzaveh, as reported in DAYS OF AWE by S.
Y. Agnon, p. 19. [5].
S. Y. Agnon, DAYS OF AWE, p. 20.
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