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GROWING OUR STORIES
As we celebrate the creation of the world,
this Rosh HaShanah, I think of a rap song
that I hear frequently on the radio. It goes
Hey Young World!
And I think of the lyrics written by a
French-Israeli singer-songwriter, Yael Naim.
The lyrics, which are part of an ad for a Mac
computer, go:
I'm a new soul/ I came to this strange
world/ hoping I could learn a bit about how
to give and take./ But since I came here,
felt the joy and the fear/ finding myself
making every possible mistake./ I'm a young
soul/ In this very strange world
My colleague Rabbi Yael Ridberg pointed
out that these lyrics are a modern day
piyyut, High Holy Day poetry.
Young World, Young Soul
We talk about certain people having "old
souls" but actually we are a young species,
not very mature. Each one of us plunks down
here on earth for a fraction of eternity.
We're not experienced at living a life. It's
not like you get to live through a life once
and then do it again better. This is what ya got.
Life is challenging. Do you know how to
use your precious time on earth in a wise
way? Do you know how to soothe yourself?
Inspire yourself? Comfort another? Navigate
the losses and the new stages? Do you know
how to make peace in the Middle East or get
every child in Philadelphia a decent high
school education?
We are young, new at this work of being
human. We barely know ourselves, let alone
know how to interact with others. When we
finally glean a bit of experience and wisdom,
things change and there's a new challenge.
As Jewish human beings, one of the ways we
manage on this journey of life is by carrying
stories that hold and direct us. Some of
these stories are the great myths of our people:
Jacob wrestled with his shadow side; I
wrestle with my shadow side. Miriam boldly
chose to lead; her courage bolsters mine;
David stood up to the giant, I gain strength
in facing giant challenges. Writ large in the
Torah characters are all the human emotions
that we grapple with: passion, jealousy,
rage, ambition, love, anger, grief, fear,
hope. Like those characters, we each get
stuck in narrow places, our own
mitzrayim and we each seek a promised
land.
Because we are people of faith, we see
meaning in our lives. We express this sense
of meaningfulness through stories that frame
our behavior, our journeys. We live in the
footprints of our Torah ancestors and
especially of our personal ancestors, weaving
their story lines into our own life stories.
It's not just me in isolation, living a life,
I am connected to a larger framework of
meaning, to a chain of purposeful generations.
There's comfort and wisdom in living within a
bigger story.
Members of modern society are impoverished
by letting our stories slip from us. Torah
study is one of the great exercises of
Judaism. It's not just the old text that is
relevant, it's what we do together by
grappling with the text that matters. Making
it our own, delving deeply and wresting
meaning for our lives from it. One of my
goals for this year is to support people who
want to do more Torah study. If you are
interested in meeting with one or more of
your peers to do regular Torah study, please
let me know.
We're in sad shape when we lose access to
our stories. But there's also another
pitfall. What happens when the story gets
rigid? When reality outgrows the story? The
story is never the truth. It is a way of
pointing toward the truth, of helping us
access the truth, but when the story becomes
an obstacle to the truth, how do we change
the story?
Our ancestors had to give up the story
that they were doomed to be slaves in Egypt
in order to discover freedom on the other
side. Choosing stories that call us into the
future is a big responsibility.
Right now, there are two different
Creation stories battling for pre-eminence in
the world today; these stories affect our
daily political discourse. Usually when you
talk about Creation people, people think of a
polarization between the scientific view and
the biblical view but that's not the conflict
I'm thinking of. Both sides of the poles I'm
about to mention, work with scientific
and biblical interpretations. The
Bible is a mythic tale about how God set
things in motion and evolution is true, all
the evidence is there. But there are two
diametrically opposed stories about the inner
mechanism of all this.
One story says that creation followed a
path of survival of the fittest, with each
individual and each species vying for
resources and triumphing through aggressive
dominance. This story sees evolution as a
process that pits one against another in a
competitive, zero-sum environment.
The other story says that evolution is the
unfolding of God-essence, not in the sense of
a person directing things, but in the sense
of momentum in this world toward greater
organization, complexity, diversity, and
higher consciousness. Cells work together to
form organs, organs work together to form
higher level, more competent creatures, high
level creatures form societies. The evolution
from amoeba to sentient being is one of
increasing awareness and potential for
co-operation, increasing ability to transcend
the conditions of the environment, increasing
potential to be caring, wise, interdependent.
There's a long way to go; we are probably at
a very early stage of evolution. We are a
young species and yet, the story that frames
our existence matters.
In the debates about health care raging in
the news, these two stories of creation are
vying one with the other. Is this a dog eat
dog world where undocumented immigrants don't
deserve health care and neither does anyone
else who can't afford it? Or is this a story
of inclusiveness and humanity in which our
most generous instincts flourish and we are
all in this together? What story do we choose?
Judaism empowers us to choose our stories
and to evolve our stories. We are not passive
recipients of a static past, but rather
active co-creators of the unfolding story.
We need the flexibility to renew our stories.
I
have an indestructible pet hermit crab.
This hermit crab sheds its exo-skeleton every
now and then and it also moves from shell to
shell, finding new shells that suit it for a
season. This ability to grow into a new self
is impressive. Think what would happen if the
poor creature were trapped in its original
skin? We also don't want to be trapped in our
stories.
Judaism is brilliant at giving us tools for
growing into new selves, new stories.
The best tool we have is Midrash
interpretation or story-making about stories.
Typically, the Rabbis would start out with a
Torah story and then tease out new meaning
from questions they had about the story, or
by reading between the lines, or by exploring
a contradiction in the story.
On this day of creation, of new
possibility, let's look at what we do to
resist a new story. What do we gain and what
do we lose from giving up a comfortable
story? What are the choices for re-working
the story? Where do we go with our big stories?
We each have stories in our personal lives
that could use some refreshing midrash. I
cannot tell you how many people in their
elder years, talk to me about resisting using
a walker or a cane. Their story is, "I'm an
able bodied person in the prime of health."
That's a wonderful story to carry as long as
it works. But the day might come when this
proud story, and your increasingly wobbly
body are on a collision course. Reality
sometimes outgrows the story. A shift in the
story might be "and a cane or walker will
keep me independent and mobile." As long as
the old story is hardening your heart, you
aren't able to see past it to the truth that
using a walker might be the sanest, most
life- affirming choice.
Other personal stories have to do with the
quotient of joy you think you deserve in this
world, or with how competent you think you
are or aren't. Sometimes our biggest wake up
calls come when our own personally-held story
crashes into reality. "I am a happily married
person in a long-term, stable relationship,"
until there is an affair and then the story
needs to grow to hold the reality, "I am a
struggling partner, in relationship, working
this out." A huge part of our distress when
things don't go the way we wish they would,
is the humiliation and shame in the face of
our broken story.
Sometimes a broken story is liberating. I
read a story quoted in a book by Jon
Cabot-Zinn. A bunch of families vacationed on
a lake all summer. The fathers would go to
work and the Moms and kids would hang out at
the lake. The author remembered that when he
was around 9 years old, the lakeside
community built a little tool shed near the
lake. For some reason, he and his buddies
decided to smash this little hut to pieces.
They took shovels and axes and destroyed the
hut.
Well of course their vandalism was
discovered and they were hauled in to wait
for their fathers to return from work. As
each father pulled up in his car, the son was
ratted out and the fathers would strip off
their belts, enraged, and beat their child.
Our author waited in terror for his turn.
When his father arrived, the father heard
what had been done to the hut. In silence he
got back into his car and drove away. Several
hours passed. Finally he returned with lumber
and everything he needed to re-build the hut.
The author wrote "That day, I learned that I
could trust my father."
That Dad re-wrote the story of what it
means to be a father.
The stories of the Jewish people also need
to evolve and flex. I'm going to look at two
places where we could really use a creative
new story.
In the Middle Ages, Jews were treated as
second-class citizens, persecuted, expelled,
banned, insulted. We developed a wonderful
survival story that said, "Well we may live
in a ghetto but really we are superior; we
are God's chosen people and those filthy
goyim, gentiles, don't know anything." This
chauvinism found a place in many of our
texts. Today it looks like Jewish xenophobia,
Jewish prejudice against non-Jews.
Today, when we live integrated into
society where we intermingle, love and learn
in an atmosphere of mutual respect, that old
story of Jewish superiority and chosen-ness
is long past relevant.
The founder of Reconstructionist Judaism,
Dr. Mordecai Kaplan, was so appalled by the
numerous claims of chosenness that he excised
sentences that expressed that concept from
the prayers. That's why in this congregation
when people are called up to the Torah for an
aliyah, we chant the aliyah prayer using
alternative language. We leave out the
sentence Asher bahar banu mi kol
ha-amim and instead thank God for
bringing us close to God's service. (We
welcome you to use whatever language you
prefer when you come up to the Torah.)
{As a parentheses: We are here in the
Ethical Society building. The Ethical Society
was founded by Felix Adler who lived at the
same time as Mordecai Kaplan. Felix Adler
said he couldn't continue to be Jewish
because he couldn't abide by the sentence we
say when we lift the Torah "V'zot HaTorah
asher sam Moshe lifnay b'nay Yisrael al pee
Adonai b'yad Moshe." Here is the Torah
that was given to Moses before the people of
Israel, by the Word of God and the Hand of
Moses."
Felix Adler left Judaism and founded the
Ethical Society over this sentence. When
Mordecai Kaplan heard the story, he said,
"Why didn't he just change the words?"}
But we still have work to do in our
communities to invite non-Jews into our
story, to fully share our beautiful heritage
with anyone who is drawn to it. Our old story
of chosen-ness persists, encrusting us in a
defensive posture that can make our
communities un-welcoming to the thousands of
people from interfaith backgrounds or in
interfaith families who are seeking homes. We
need to look back to ancestors such as
Abraham and Sarah and Moses and Zipporah who
found ways to nurture Judaism even in
multi-faith families.
Here is a second place where we are so
ready to help birth a new story. Our people
is still emerging from the trauma of
near-extinction in the last century, a time
of horrific tragedy and human suffering. We
will never forget the grief of that
onslaught; the holocaust is seared in our
memories with scars that will never be erased.
From that experience and from other
historical experiences of our people, we
crafted a story that says we are a small,
weak and vulnerable minority but we will
never again be hurt. Where can we open that
story and keep it alive, fresh, developing?
Given that we definitely have to be
vigilant to make sure Jews are safe and able
to thrive, is this exclusive story of
endangerment still serving us well? Is it
helping us live as an ethical, peace-making
people? We sometimes seem to be carrying a
story that recognizes only two possibilities:
victim or aggressor. This is not a story that
supports us in the responsible wielding of
power. As citizens of the richest, strongest
nation on earth, a nation on which Israel,
for instance, is significantly dependent, our
Jewish positions have clout. We have power to
influence our institutions and our
representatives about matters that concern
peace in the holy land of Israel. We are the
Jewish vote. But we may be locked in a story
rooted in fear. Let's not diminish our dreams
to the size of our terror.
We need a new, bigger story that empowers
us to protect our people AND listen to the
needs and interests of the other actors in
the story. This fall, I am proud to say,
Congregation Leyv Ha-Ir~Heart of the City
will join with the Ethical Society in
sponsoring a Jewish Dialogue Group,
facilitated by experienced leaders. People
will have a chance to listen and to be heard
talking about difficult issues relating to
peace in the Middle East.
We need midrash on the story of the
"other" in our tradition. Let's hear stories
from the point of view of Hagar, the Egyptian
woman who was cast out by our ancestor Sarah.
Let's hear stories from the point of view of
Esau. Our tradition gives us a process,
midrash, for telling the story that is
between the lines, for growing the story to
meet the needs of the times. Elu v elu
divray elohim chayyim, These and these
are the words of the living God.
In this New Year, there are personal
stories and political stories that we have
outgrown. What stories are you ready to
reinterpret, reconstruct for this New Year?
What are your old stories and what are your
emerging stories? What stories do you need to
grow with and grow into? When you were a
child you probably had a favorite story. As
you grow up how does that story change? I can
tell you one thing, the story beckoning you
is always bigger than you think it could be.
The new story grows you into it; it stretches
you into new realms. You shape it and it
shapes you.
Hey Young World, Hey Young Soul, on this
day of Rosh HaShanah we celebrate HaYom
Harat HaOlam - on this day the world was
created. We celebrate creation, development,
evolution. We pledge to grow into beautiful
creatures, full of potential, created in
God's image. We are young, very young, but we
are growing ourselves up. There is no better
place to do this growing than in community,
for instance here in Congregation Leyv
Ha-Ir~Heart of the City, infused with ethical
discussion, many helping hands and the
evolving stories that enrich our lives. We
welcome you anytime to grow your story with
us. Welcome to our New Year, 5770. Welcome to
the next chapter of our joint adventure. I'm
glad we're in the same story. Shana Tova.