It’s Yom Kippur, and I have a confession.  I buy Powerball tickets, and I buy them regularly.  I don’t buy a lot.  I buy one at a time, but I buy them every time I fill up my car with gas.  Why do I buy them?  For the same reason everybody else buys them.  I want to win that jackpot.  Whether it be a mere 12 million dollars or 260 million dollars, I want to win that jackpot.  I want to wake up one morning and find myself an instant millionaire, for God knows, I’ll never become a millionaire working for you!

I even have some plans in place for what I will do with the money when I win.  First off, I will take 10% of the gross - not the net, but the gross - and set up my own charitable foundation.  Then, of course, there is eliminating our family’s debt load, paying off Shira’s college education, setting up nice trust funds for our children, and it goes without saying, entering into serious conversation with our attorney, our accountant, and our broker as to how to best manage this new found wealth.  Interestingly enough, I have no plans for any major lifestyle changes.  I plan to continue working.  I have no thought of moving from our present home.  I do plan to fix it up some, but not dramatically.  In fact, aside from new cars for the Cantor and myself, I have no plans for any major personal acquisitions, with the possible exception of a large screen TV.

Now, I understand that I may not win that Powerball jackpot right away.  I understand that the odds are far greater that I may be killed in an auto accident driving from my house to the gas station to buy the ticket than they are that I will win, but I can be a patient man.  I can wait till I win the big one.

It’s nice to think about such things, and I know that I am not alone in having such fantasies.  All of us who plop down a dollar or more for these tickets - and there are many of us - fantasize about what would happen if we won.

Why do people buy Powerball tickets?  The answer is simple.  The answer is obvious.  They do so in search of happiness.  Their common dream is of how much better their lives would be if they no longer had to worry about acquiring money; if they knew that their bills always would be paid on time and in full; if they knew that if they wanted to purchase something, they could just go out and do it, and still have plenty of cash left over.

How often we tend to equate finding happiness with acquiring material wealth.  That should not be surprising, considering that we live in such a consumer driven society.  Everywhere we turn, we receive messages that we would be happy if only we owned this, if only we possessed that, if only we purchased such-and-such a product, which we can buy on time, for very little down.  We would be happy if only we owned the right car, wore the right clothing, lived in the right house in the right neighborhood, acquired the right electronic do-dads, ate in the right restaurants, went on the right vacations.  And who deter­mines what is “right”?  Who determines what will make us happy?  Some disembodied voice behind tantalizing pictures of whatever it is they are selling, or some puffed up “expert” on fashion or food or travel.

So we ache, feeling diminished, because most of us cannot afford to even begin to purchase all the things that they tell us we need in order to obtain happiness.  We work as hard as we can at whatever it is we do to earn money, but it isn’t enough.  So we go out and buy Powerball tickets on the very outside chance that that big winner could be us After all somebody eventually has to win, so why not us?  Don’t we deserve to be happy?

In the end, somebody does win the Powerball.  Instant millionaire.  And do you know what they dis­cover?  They discover something that most people with significant wealth already know.  They discover that contrary to the commercial messages which literally inundate our lives, money - no matter how much you possess - cannot buy you happiness.  It can buy you comfort.  It can buy you leisure.  It can buy you pleasure - momentary pleasure, not lasting pleasure - but it cannot buy you happiness.  For true happiness can never be found in a fancy car or a stately home; it can never be found in high fashion clothing or exotic vacations.  These are not the substance from which true happiness is made.  For even the best of new cars eventually becomes an old clunker; today’s desirable neighborhoods can become tomorrow’s ghettos; and what is high fashion today becomes passe, or even gauche, in but a blink of an eye.  No, they are not the substance.  At best, they can serve as merely accessories, enhancing what is already a happy life.

The problem with material possessions is that they are transitory, while happiness, at least in the ideal, is hoped to be of a far more lasting nature.

So where can happiness be found?  It can be found only within ourselves.  Happiness is something that flourishes from the inside out, and not from the outside in.  As it says so beautifully in that wonderful rabbinic text, PIRKE AVOT, the Teachings of our Sages, “Who is rich?  The one who is happy with what one has.”^[1]  So if we are searching for true happiness - and who among us isn’t? - then we have to take a serious look at our lives and determine what really counts, what is really important to us.  And if we do that, and we do it honestly and sincerely, I suspect that most of us, if not all of us will, in the end, arrive at the same answer.  And that answer will not be possessions.  It will not be social status.  It will not be professional achievement.  That answer will be relationships.  Where is true happiness to be found?  It is to be found in the relationships of our lives.

The human being is a social creature.  We have always been so.  Do we not read in the book of GENESIS, shortly after the creation of Adam, that God says: “It is not good for man to be alone; I will make a fitting helper for him.”^[2]?  From Adam to us, our lives are unfulfilled unless we live them in the company of others.  And it is in the company of others that we find our greatest joys; we find the true meaning of happiness.

Our relationships are most certainly the strength of our lives, and in a perfect world, they would serve us solely as a source for all that is good.  But we do not live in a perfect world, and we, ourselves, are far from perfect.  As a result, the imperfections that surround us, and the imperfections we carry within us, conspire against us and against our relationships.  They interfere with our relationships.  They taint them.  They contaminate them.  And sometimes, they destroy them.  We surrender to our passions, and find ourselves saying things and doing things to others which are hurtful, or if not exactly hurtful, at least create a greater distance between us.  We are imperfect beings, and because of our imperfections, sometimes we lose sight of just how important our relationships are to us - just how central they are to our own sense of well being and happiness - and we proceed to dismantle them.

When we do this, according to our Jewish tradition, we are engaged in sin.  For in the Jewish tradition, sin is not so much a matter concerning evil as it is a matter concerning relationships.  Indeed, sin is all about relationships; relationships gone awry.  It is important to note that in the MISHNAH, one of the foundation documents of Jewish law, the sins we commit are divided into two categories: Sins that are “bein adam lechavero” - sins against other human beings - and sins that are “bein adam leMakom” - sins against God.^[3]  When we consider that division, then it becomes clear that according to our tradition, all of our sins, whether they be against our fellow human beings or against God, involve relationships.  Per­ceived in that framework, all of our sins are violations of the relationships in our lives; violations of our relationships with other human beings or violations of our relationship with God.  And we are all guilty, for there is not one of us who has not, at one time or another, diminished a relationship, damaged a relationship, destroyed a relationship.  Each of us carries our own memories of other times when we were closer to other people from whom now we are distanced, not just in miles, but more importantly, in spirit.  Once they brought us joy, but somewhere along the line that joy was replaced by pain, and if not pain, then perhaps aggravation or irritation, or maybe just loss of interest.  And I would not be surprised if many of us carry similar memories of our fading relationship with God.

Some of our memories of lost relationships may be painful memories, and we carry them like open wounds.  But most of them we have practically forgotten.  There was hurt or disappointment at the time, but we have moved on with our lives.  Yet while we have buried our feelings in a corner of our soul, still they are there, hidden but heavy.  And we may not even recognize how much they bring us down.  Yet our dismantled relationships are in illness of the soul, and as such, deter us from the happiness we seek.

In fourteenth century Spain, there lived a teacher of Judaism by the name of Isaac Aboav.  He understood very well how sin was an sickness of the soul.  Here is what he had to say about it: “If one were to be physically ill and yet not aware of one’s illness and think oneself well or were to be aware of one’s illness and yet not be willing to seek medical attention, but rather distract oneself with pleasure, that illness would worsen and would without doubt cause death.  The same is true with illnesses of the soul.  There are people who are not aware of their illness and imagine that they are healthy, even though they cannot distinguish between right and wrong... Just as with sickness of the body, one may imagine the sweet to be sour and the sour to be sweet, and reject the kind of food and drink which will preserve health and pursue the kind of food and drink which will cause further illness.  Likewise it is with the sickness of the soul.  One may imagine what is evil to be good and what is good to be evil.  One may reject what would do good for one’s soul and choose what would work evil to the soul.”^[4]

When we choose to carry our bitterness and animosity towards others, or when we choose to keep it, but stash it away in some dark corner of our soul, we are doing just as Isaac Aboav described.  We are perpetuating, indeed exacerbating, the illness that has stricken our soul.  We are claiming sweet to be sour and sour to be sweet.  And as long as we continue to do this, we can never find full happiness.  For we will always be mired in the pain of the past, even if we are not consciously aware of it.  You know, it is a funny thing about the unresolved pains of the past.  We think they are put away and forgotten.  For years they do not trouble us.  But then something happens.  It doesn’t have to be something big.  It can be some­thing small.  But that something, big or small, has the power to trigger a force within us; a force which awakens old pains and opens old wounds.  Sometimes we shock ourselves by the intensity of our feelings.  For we had convinced ourselves that these things really didn’t matter to us anymore, when in reality, they still do.  What is unresolved is unresolved.  It is lurking within, awaiting resolution.  The book is never closed on the matter until we go through the process of creating closure.

Creating closure.  That is what teshuvah, repentance, enables us to do.  All too often we mistakenly think of teshuvah, of repentance, as some sort of somber, self-flagellating exercise; as a torture for the soul in punishment for the sin committed.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  Teshuvah is not a torture for the soul, but rather a release.  It is a lifting of the burdens, a cleaning out of the dark places.  If the soul is sick from sin, then teshuvah is its potent medicine.  And if our sins stand as a barrier on our road toward finding happiness, then teshuvah is the dynamite with which we blast them away.  Far from being a burden, teshuvah lifts burdens.  It is not a source of the somber, but rather a cause for rejoicing.

If sin is a matter of relationships gone awry, then teshuvah is a matter of relationships healed.  Teshuvah literally means “Return” or “Turning.”  Sin has caused our lives to veer off in a wrong direction, but through teshuvah, we can turn around and return our lives to the proper path.  Since sin is a matter of relationships, teshuvah cannot be a private, solitary endeavor.  It must be a reaching out to others; a making of peace.

We can cast away our relationships so casually, over issues which seem so monumental at the time of conflict, but which, in the scope of the big picture of our lives are really quite petty.  Sometimes they are so petty that quickly our memories of the cause of the rift become blurred, and all we are left with is the rift itself.  Yet possessing those feelings of animosity and alienation, how could we ever hope to be happy?  Teshuvah calls upon us to seal that rift; to make contact once more with that person and strive to overcome that which divides us and to rekindle, as best we can, all those feelings of years past which drew us together; which brought both of us countless moments of joy.

Many years ago, when the Cantor and I lived in Lincoln, Nebraska, we were very close to a particular family.  The wife was on the rabbinic search committee that offered me the pulpit, and served for many years as an officer of the congregation.  She helped us find our first home and helped us move in.  She met the movers when we had not yet arrived in town.  And there were many times that we were there for them as well.  But as those of you who are involved in the running of our congregation know, temple life is a fickle thing.  There are just so many issues that come up, and just so many traps into which people can fall, losing perspective, sacrificing friendships.  And so it was with us.  I don’t even remember the issue.  How important could it have been?  But I do remember its consequences, for it definitely cooled our relationship.  Not long afterward, the Cantor, baby Shira, and I left Lincoln, and moved to northern California.  That very same year, another dear friend of ours - a dear mutual friend of both couples - was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died; a young man with a wife and two beautiful children.  So the Cantor and I returned to Lincoln for the funeral.  The night before the funeral, there was a gathering at the home of this couple.  The Cantor and I went, nervous about the whole thing, considering the bad blood that was between us.  But no sooner did we walk through the door, than they looked at us and we looked at them, and in the shadow of our mutual grief, we knew that whatever it was that drove us apart wasn’t worth the price.  And we fell into each other’s arms.  And it felt good.  It felt very good.  It may not have been Yom Kippur, but it definitely was a moment of teshuvah.

However, we should not require a tragic loss or a mutual crisis to inspire us to seek healing for our wounds.  The pleasure, the joy, the pure happiness of the healing experience itself should be motivation enough.  We should hunger for these moments.  Granted, there is a certain amount of risk taking involved in acts of teshuvah.  We may extend our hand, only to have it slapped away.  But even then, that should not frighten us, for there is something purely liberating in knowing that if it were up to us, the relationship would be healed; in knowing that we stand ready to heal the relationship, as soon as the other party is open to the possibility.

I opened this sermon with a Powerball fantasy.  Let me close it with a people fantasy.  In my life, there have been many people whom I have known who have brought me great joy.  Many of them continue to be in my life, and many not.  Of those who are not, granted, some have passed away.  As for the others, many have been the victims of the miles between us and the different roads we have taken.  With so many of them, I have simply lost touch.  And then there are those who one day were friends, and one day were not.  I have often fantasized of how neat it would be to rent a ballroom, and throw a party, and invite all of them - old friends, new friends, lost friends, former friends.  How neat it would be to greet each one of them, and hug them, and reminisce with them, and laugh with them, and recreate with them the magic of what is or once was our relationships.  For me, that would be the happiest moment of my life; to be with the people who, at one point or another, brought joy to my heart.

On this Yom Kippur, may each and every one of us resolve to heal the wounds that keep us from those we love, or once loved.  May the pursuit of teshuvah become a passion in our lives, and through it, may we literally sprint down the road toward our own universe of happiness.

AMEN