Rosh HaShanah: Ultimacy

Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2012/5773

Some years ago I recall seeing advertised an interesting product for the person who has everything. It was a desk clock that ticks backwards, counting down seconds rather than adding them. You set the clock for your expected life span and then, at a glance, you are able to see how much time you have left. Isn’t that a great idea? Haven’t seen it? That’s because they don’t make it anymore. The life span of that particular product was over calculated.

I was thinking about that clock because there has been a lot in the news recently about life expectancy. We are being told that today’s children are likely to live to be over a hundred. Our congregation is blessed to share in the life of a woman who has taught more of our children than all the rabbis. Ruth Knelman, at the age of 102 remarked, “Well you know, Rabbi, the first hundred years are the hardest!”

You might think that an increase in life span would result in a more relaxed view of the meaning of life and how to accomplish what we are here to do, and yet it seems to have the reverse effect. Back in the days of shorter life spans one’s death was taken more seriously as an impetus for focusing your life early on, finding one’s ultimate value and asking, What do I live for? What is my unique gift to the world?

The High Holy Days are the holidays of ultimacy. Put aside our fantasies about Powerball, getting rich or becoming famous, forget amassing as many material goods as we can; never mind trying to outlive Methusaleh whom the Torah tells us lived 969 years and didn’t accomplish anything worth reporting. Instead: What am I here to accomplish?

Figuring out the “ultimate” is a tricky business, and yet Judaism does not shy away from it. The Shema prayer is an extraordinary acknowledgement of that oneness and ultimacy. We Jews are a very distractible people. This Adonai our God is One stuff, this monotheistic ideal, this unity principle is important to Jews. Stay away from multiple gods, saith the Lord, you’ll get confused! Don’t worship in a hundred different little places, you’ll get lost! Everybody come to the Temple in Jerusalem. We need focus, otherwise we wind up overwhelmed like the fabled Jewish weatherman who, as the storm rolls in, comes on camera and says: “Ach, trust me, you don’t wanna know!”

We are bombarded with so many issues by the media, the internet, reporters, writers, politicians, columnists, fund raisers, demanding that we make their issue our issue. With all that faces a well informed modern human being in a complex society it is time to ask: what is of ultimate importance to me? What do I live for? I cannot solve all the world’s problems. I cannot achieve every single one of my dreams, so what is my ultimate? I believe each of us is here with a purpose. Applying a somewhat mystical ideology, I trust that our hearts were designed as part of an aggregate human heart, a combined soul, if you will, in which each individual soul plays a part. If we are able to locate that which is most meaningful to us, our ultimate, I have faith that collectively we could cure the ills of this world.

But how to discover such a thing? It is said, "If you don't know where you are going, any road can get you there." We teach our children to get good grades, to be decent people, to choose a career, to find a partner, to go to college. But who asks them to scan their hearts and set a course to fulfill their life’s meaning?”

Unity, oneness, is an ultimate objective. Why else do we fall in love and unite with another? Why is family always mentioned as the ultimate value on one’s death bed? Why do those who dwell as one with others in a solid unified community live longer than loners? The oneness of being is an ultimate.

As some of you know, I was pretty sick this past winter. I thank God this yontif for creating within us only one appendix. It’s not really appropriate for a clergyman to discuss all his personal medical details from the pulpit. I’ll spare you that, though if you are interested after the service I do have the cat scan here…. or what my surgeon called his “strategic plan.” I will, however, share with you that mortality looked me squarely in the eye in a way it never had before, and asked me a question: What am I here for?

Mortality, death, is in and of itself an ultimate issue - thus Yom Kippur in 10 days is referred to as a rehearsal for Death. We fast from food, drink and sex. For one day we experience our existence without the distractions. It is even the custom that day to wear the clothes you will be buried in. On Yom Kippur we act as if it is our last day, our only day to face the truth of our implicit meaning; to remember who we are and why we were born. Truth is, we walk through most days half alive, but on Yom Kippur the reality of death urges us to face the urgency of living!

Rabbis are constantly asked: Why do the Jews play down the notion of an afterlife? Of reincarnation? Of other worlds beyond this one? It is because we know that this is it, and that the opportunity to achieve our mission is imminent, not eternal, not deferrable. The binding of Isaac story we read this morning is about identifying and committing to your ultimate issue. Abraham himself had to have been overwhelmed with his task of fathering an eternal nation and still had many obstacles ahead of him.

No passage in Torah illuminates the striving for ultimacy more than the one we read this morning. Abraham, the first human to intuit ultimacy in the universe, is then commanded to cross the ultimate line and murder his own child. What the heck is that about? God has spoken to Abraham saying: I’m going to make your people as numerous as the grains of sand on the shore of the sea and the stars that fill the heavens. Any nation that comes in contact with you will be blessed. Lech l’cha. Bring forth your message from your inner core!

I am going to imagine that the discussion might have gone something like this…

Abraham. I called you from your father's house. I led you through Canaan to the Negev, to the land of Egypt. I raised you up, made you a rich man. I defeated four kings in your name.

“All true, El Shaddai, all true”

“And when you asked me for your greatest desire, something so incredible your wife laughed at the very thought of it, what did I do, Abraham?”

“You gave us a gift more precious than the moon and stars; You gave us Isaac, El Shaddai, and I can never thank you enough for that.”

“My thought exactly.”

“Um, where we going with this?”

“Abraham, in the many years I have spoken to you, have I ever asked you for any favors, any special deeds, any burdens?”

“Not really.”

“Have I ever asked you to do anything unpleasant or injurious to yourself?”

“Well, there was the one thing with the flint stone and foreskin…”

"Other than circumcision Abraham?"

“No, you have been very reasonable. No other complaints. Is there anything at all you want from me?”

Well, now that you mention it, there is something.

“Name it, El Shaddai.”

I have a simple test for you. Take your favored son one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights which I will point out to you.

“That’s not even funny.”

I wasn’t joking.

“Ok, then that’s just not possible.”

It is possible, and I want you to do it.

“Why could you possibly want me to sacrifice my own son, God? That makes no sense. It goes against everything I believe in. Why?”

The Lord works in mysterious ways, Abraham.

"I’ll say! Look, You’re supposed to be all powerful, right God?" There is no ‘supposed’ about it.

“And, just so I understand, that means you can control everything, everywhere, all the time. Correct?”

Down to the sub-atomic level, but let’s not get into that. The answer is yes.

“So given that, what is the point of this conversation? My destiny is the future of my people. No offense God, but I am not going to kill my son. So if you would like to control my limbs, go ahead. But otherwise, I have to go feed the goats.”

Very well Abraham. I have now transported you to Moriah at the appointed place. Your son Isaac lies bound before you. The knife is in your hand. You must now do this thing and I will reward you greatly. If you do not, my anger will be stunning.”

“I will do anything except this God. Please ask me to do anything else.”

No. You must do it now, Abraham!

“Ok God. Have it your way.”

(pause)

Abraham?

"Yes, El Shaddai?"

You have defied me.

“Defied you God? I brought the knife down and one of your angels stopped me before I could land the blow. Talk to him!”

Abraham. Your blade was not aimed toward Isaac. You were going to kill yourself rather than do my will.

“Well, it is hard to lie to someone who is omnipotent. I told you I would not kill my son. It is wrong, no matter what you say. So I didn’t. Sorry.”

"Abraham, I have created you. And rather than heed my word, you have rejected my commands in favor of your personal ideas of what is right and wrong. Where is your faith, Abraham?"

“I have no faith that can lead me to murdering my own son. Even faith doesn’t work for me God when it contradicts the very purpose for which I exist. I’m only sorry God that I have failed your test.”

"You didn’t fail my test Abraham. You have shown me what is the deepest thing in your heart. You have confronted the Eternal here and you have made clear your ultimate. There is nothing more important to you than the future of your people and their mission. Now go out and tell the world!"

It may not be the easiest story in the Torah to digest, but it smacks us in the face and demands that we too answer the seminal question: What moves us to the core? What is the ultimate value that we are willing to sacrifice our very lives on the altar of time itself?

One writer hauntingly describes our lives as boats flowing down a river. At a certain point the boat is lifted out of the river into a boat lock for transport to a higher elevation. Slowly the vessel is raised by time seeping in from all sides. And with every passing day the desire grows for the moment when life will reach the top, and the sluice gates will open and we will finally move on. But lo and behold, by the time the boat is back in the water, there isn’t that much river left. We look back and say, how long was I in that boat lock? Why did I stay there? Where did the years go? What was I waiting for?

Do we expect to live that purposeful, fulfilling life by accident? We are expected to choose the standard components of friends, partner, career, neighborhood, children, and then hope that meaning will take care of itself. But we discover that this does not happen. We reach a certain point in our lives when health or love or work break down, when children move away, or simply the process of aging, and we lie awake at night and wonder why we feel empty inside. What we have learned is that we don’t fall accidentally into our purpose. And beshert? I’m not a fan.

But you and I have seen people driven to their inner depths discovering the purpose of their lives. Suddenly confronting oblivion they embrace real values, living with conscious direction and intention: they create true love, they embrace true friendship, they begin giving to a purpose that will endure beyond their bodies. For many people it takes a mid-life crisis, or a terrible loss, or an exploding appendix to even consider the problem of what they are supposed to do with this precious gift called life. That’s why we read Abraham’s greatest trial, the confirmation of his ultimate mission... so we will be able to detect and design our own destiny.

Obviously I don’t know the answer for each one of you. Of all the words God says to the people of Israel throughout the Bible, the most often repeated phrase is lo lefached - “don’t be afraid.” Above all things, do not succumb to fear.

Let us not, in the new year, fear to locate the inner core of our being and to act upon it. May we embrace our authentic selves and find our own unique piece of the human puzzle.

And when each of our hearts has found its place, may the sum total human heart beat as the heart of God.