Rosh HaShanah: Morning Service
Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2020/5781
Fear
As we celebrate Rosh HaShanah we are afforded the opportunity to express gratitude for our blessings. Even unusual places where blessing might be found. Zoom, for instance, has blessed my life in many delightful ways. Who knew how well a jacket and a tie would go with pajama bottoms? And that mute button! What’s going to happen when we get back up on the bimah and you are sitting in the pews and we can’t mute you as we have been doing?
As the new year begins, we also weigh the consequences of our actions of the preceding year, and what we might have done differently. I was saying to myself only yesterday, “If I only I could go back to February and buy shares of Zoom stock when it was trading at $118 and has since quadrupled…” But I digress.
Over the past few months we have received many kind words about Temple’s ability to adapt to our unique and challenging circumstances. In fact, while some religious communities deliberated over whether it was kosher to use electronic media on Shabbat or Yontif, Reform congregations around the country pretty much jumped in doing virtual services, classrooms, counseling sessions, funerals, weddings, and b’nai mitzvah celebrations fluidly. My biggest challenge was keeping the Torah I had brought home away from the family dog who has never smelled that much animal skin in one place before. My dog Flora was begging me to let her do a devour Torah! Don’t worry, it didn’t happen.
Additionally, the word “zoom” has increased its status as a verb: “Shall we zoom?” “It’s been nice zooming with you.” “Hey, I was zooming with my friends.” “Should we text or should we zoom?”
Thinking about “zoom” as a verb reminded me of how the “reform” in Reform Judaism has also been long regarded as a verb. Not only did we reform Judaism 200 years ago, we have never stopped reforming! Our bold, audacious movement has always embraced change. And that reforming has often required great courage and intentionality during difficult times.
A notable example is the bold 1983 Patrilineal Descent ruling that recognizes the child of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother as a Jew. A decision that sent shock waves through the Jewish world. Imagine the chutzpah of the largest movement of Jews in the United States changing the very definition of who is a Jew! But in the long run we saved tens of thousands of souls who otherwise would have been turned away from living Jewish lives, and their children and grandchildren after them.
Such a decision had to transcend fear of the consequences. One had to have faith that, despite our profound trepidations, we were doing the right thing and move on that assumption.
An even more dynamic shift occurred now 48 years ago in the ordination of the first woman rabbi, Sally Priesand. Had other movements not followed suit they might not exist today. There are even branches of Orthodox Judaism that are now in the process of ordaining women, something that many believed would and could never occur. The progressive movement of Judaism has long been at the center of Women at the Wall in demanding the right to bring a sefer Torah to the women’s section of the Kotel.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was drafted at the Reform Movement’s Religious Action Center in Washington. It is also a hallmark of our movement to have taken the lead on immigration and sanctuary congregations. After much discussion on the consequences of assuming that posture, we forged ahead, knowing it was the right thing to do. Were we concerned about the fallout? Absolutely we were. Did we let it stop us? Absolutely not!
If we allowed our fear of the consequences to rule the day we would be fossilized and frozen, time would march on without us. But Reform Jews face their fears and thus we remain dynamic.
If we have learned anything during the past several months, it is that we cannot go forward governed by fear. We all have seen someone in the grip of fear — the staring eyes, the shivering, the flailing at self-defense to try and articulate what is happening. The anger that fear generates between one person and another. The retreat into safe monolithic camps. This cannot be the kind of posture our God wants us to take in a real world with real crises.
Fear led many of us to make really moronic decisions over the past several months. I am reminded of the sign someone posted on an empty drugstore shelf which read: “To the people who have bought out the entire supply of hand sanitizer, may I remind you that you have left none for the rest of the population to protect themselves and thus not infect you?” Or the liquor store where all the six packs of beer were cleaned out, except Corona Beer. Or my west coast siblings reporting a deserted Chinatown in San Francisco because folks didn’t want to be exposed to the “Chinese flu.”
And yet for all of human history, fear has been a powerful motivator. According to social scientists, fear makes us hold more tightly onto what we have, and to regard the unfamiliar more warily. Put simply, fear makes us want to be protected, regardless of the reality of the threat.
At this critical moment in our world I believe it is important for us to sit up and take notice of any news, or policy, or demagoguery that seeks to alter human behavior by poisoning minds with fear. If somebody is preaching fear rather than hope or faith, you can be sure they are misguided, and are leading us down a rabbit hole that does not have our best interests at heart.
We know that living without fear is impossible. But our Jewish tradition teaches us that it is possible to fear wisely, to fear with courage, to change our fear reaction from immobility and retreat to constructive action.
There are two different Hebrew words for fear: Yirah and Pachad.
Pachad is the projected or imagined fear of something. Pachad is the over-reactive, irrational, lizard-brain fear: the fear of horrible rejection that will destroy us, or the fear that we will simply combust if we step out of our comfort zones.
The second Hebrew word for fear is yirah. Yirah is the fear that overcomes us when we suddenly find ourselves in possession of considerably more energy than we are used to, we suddenly inhabit a larger space than we are used to inhabiting. It is also the fear we allow ourselves when we are standing on sacred ground.
If you’ve ever felt a deep calling in your heart, or uncovered an authentic dream for your life, or felt a mysterious sense of inner inspiration around a project or idea, and it terrified you, you have experienced yirah. This is the fear that emboldens us to make constructive, albeit sometimes risky, decisions for ourselves and for the betterment of our world.
Yirah has a tinge of exhilaration and awe while pachad has a sense of threat and panic. Pachad freezes us in our steps, or causes us to react robotically, while yirah calls us to greater things.
These days there are many things being called to our attention to be feared — the fear of others who don’t think the same way as we do, the fear of a warming planet, the fear of the foreigner at our borders, the fear of totalitarian authority, and foreign espionage. And they are often brought to our attention to stun us into frozen submission.
A call to fear the immigrant is a classic appeal to pachad. The very reverse of the biblical injunction to welcome the stranger! Instead, we become frozen in our places and demand barriers to keep this perceived threat at bay. The Jewish people know firsthand the fatal consequences of turning away desperate refugees without a timely and fair hearing. Our ethical teachings require us to extend the same opportunities to those escaping violence.
This coming year of 5781 is going to demand courage in the face of adversity. Most of us will experience fear, but which kind of fear will it be? The destructive pachad or the empowering yirah?
In the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, no less than 40 times, God comforts us with the words al tirah, do not fear. It is a timeless message for our people that is as important in our time as ever. God is not saying to have no fears — that ain’t going to happen. Rather, God is telling us to push through our healthy fears and keep them in check.
The God I believe in is not bent on scaring the living hell out of us. The God of justice and mercy wants us to create a society in which all human beings are endowed with dignity and blessed with security. The fear that we call yirah may be frightening to us because we know it is challenging us to enact Divine change!
One of the most profound narratives in the Torah involves the scouting out of the new territory promised to the Israelite nation. The spies that returned give a report based entirely in pachad —an irrational fear of the unknown. And because of that reaction, what occurs? An additional 38 years of wandering are mandated. There is no moving forward when pachad is the guiding motivator.
And the terrifying story we just heard chanted, and that we listen to every Rosh HaShanah morning — the story of Abraham and Isaac on Mt. Moriah — is the chronicle of a man about to do something really stupid out of pachad —out of fear — to take the life of his beloved son. The pivotal moment comes when Abraham’s God says: Al tishlach yad’cha el hana’ar —do not lay your hand upon the lad —ki yadati ki yir’ah Elohim ata! —I know you are one who fears God. Or to put it another way: I know you are scared about what lies ahead of you; it is scary! But don’t let your fear make you a fool!
In essence, we are not a fear-based people and we don’t operate with blind allegiance!
There will likely be moments of fear this year for each of us. But I pray it will be not pachad —the fear that stops us cold in our tracks, but yirah —the sensation of outrageous audacious possibilities. The fear that leads to hope! Taking a chance of getting to know someone different from ourself; taking the risk to make ourselves bigger than we are today; allowing our dreams to take flight and not be held captive by the possibility of failure.
May we someday look back at 5781 and say that was the Jewish year we faced crises, but transformed fear into faith that we can and will affect Tikkun— we can and will repair a broken world.
L’shana tova.