Erev Yom Kippur: I’ll Meet You Halfway

Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2012/5773

There is a pretty well known story of a tailor name of Schneider who despite his excellent stitching, his fine clothing alterations, just can’t seem to make a buck. Around the High Holy Days he goes to the rabbi and asks what he can possibly do to make his business flourish. The rabbi responds with a very “Yom Kippur” message telling him that he must make God his partner, and then all his endeavors will meet with great success. Well, years pass and it seems that Schneider has all but disappeared, until one day the rabbi sees him pull up to Shul in a Rolls Royce. Astounded, the rabbi asks him what happened. “Why, I took your advice rabbi,” said Schneider. “I made God my partner and boom, the business took off, I’m a success, huge clothing stores all over the country, look there goes one of my trucks right now! The rabbi looked up and sure enough Lord and Taylor.

We tend to think that God can do most things by God’s self. But there is much proof of God’s dependence on us. In the first 5 days of creation God went by the name of Elohim, and all that existed during that time were birds and trees and land and quaking earth and mud sliding mountains and flooding waters and hot sun and chilling winds and you name it.

On the sixth day, when our species was created, we started calling God Adonai. Elohim is the God of the spinning natural world – a world of beautiful landscapes, flowering fields, oceans rich and teeming with life, and also the natural spinning world that has brought floods, earthquakes, parched lands that yield no produce, others that have plenty, hurricanes that knock down houses and put cities underwater. But Elohim, you should know, however, is not the God of hunger, for there has been created enough to eat.

Adonai is the God that calls out for partnership when such things occur. Adonai is the small voice inside of each of us that says: Looks like the boss needs help. And, Adonai is the God that calls out to us like God did in the story of Cain and Abel and says: the bloods of your brothers cry out from the ground. When human being attacks fellow human being, God cries out for partnership.

This partnership idea is very much a Yom Kippur theme, and other stories come to mind. One, of course, is the book of Jonah, read tomorrow afternoon. We know about the big fish, but some of us still get Jonah confused with Gepetto. Do we really understand what Jonah is about?

It isn’t really about the fish. The book of Jonah is about a God who’s looking for a good partner to help straighten up a lot of evil people who live in the city of Nineveh. It is God’s desire that people better themselves. That we pull ourselves out of the great depths and embrace better behavior. Jonah is a very reluctant, unwilling partner. Called to service Jonah flees as far away from God as he believes a person can possibly go. Down to the seaside, down into a boat, down into the hull of the boat. Over the side and down into the ocean. Down into the belly of a fish. He obviously confuses the direction of lowness with being distant from his would be employer. Jonah is content to reject God’s offer of partnership.

Eventually Jonah gets with the program, but he never really understands his partnership with God. Maybe that’s because God didn’t put it to him the right way. God yanked Jonah out of bed one night and made him take on a completely new task. Did God meet Jonah halfway?

Maybe one of the reasons Jonah had no desire to forgive others was because he had no ability to forgive himself for something. Maybe he simply felt that he was beyond redemption. The biblical book never informs us what he may have done, but something tells me he felt so guilty about his own behavior that he held everyone else to that same standard, one they could not possibly meet. Maybe we need to sort things out for ourselves before we can be of any use to others. There is certainly no record of God trying to find out what was in Jonah’s heart. No attempt to meet him halfway.

Jewish mysticism teaches us that the balance of the entire universe rests on our ability to make that partnership work. It begins on this Holy day, by coming clean with your partner, then collaborating on a plan to make the world work better. Partnership always involves meeting the other person halfway.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav told the story of the prince who went insane and insisted he was a rooster. He sat on under the table naked, clucking and eating his food off the floor. The king had tried everything to cure him, but nothing worked, and he was in despair. How could this mad son of his ever grow up to inherit the kingdom?

Then a wise old Jewish man, a rebbe arrived and said he could cure the prince. The king was desperate, so he said, "OK, fine, go ahead, I'll try anything..."

So the rebbe took off his clothes and sat under the table, pretending to be a chicken, too. The king was totally shocked. No doubt he had expected the old man to argue with the prince or try to verbally beat it out of him. But the Rebbe knew what he was doing. And so, sitting there under the table, he got to know the Rooster Prince.

Then one day, the Rebbe called for a pair of pants and began putting them on. The Rooster Prince objected, saying, "What do you mean, wearing those pants? You're a rooster -- a rooster can't wear pants!"

"Who says a rooster can't wear pants?" the Rebbe replied. "Why shouldn't I be warm and comfortable, too? Why should the humans have all the good things?"

The Rooster Prince thought about this for a while. The floor under the table was very cold and uncomfortable. So he asked for pants, too, and put them on.

The next day, the Rebbe asked for a warm shirt, and began to put it on. Again the Rooster Prince objected: "How can you do that? You are a rooster -- a rooster doesn't wear a shirt!"

"Who says so?" said the Rebbe. "Why shouldn't I have a fine shirt, too? Why should I have to shiver in the cold, just because I'm a rooster?" Again the Rooster Prince thought about it for a while, and realized that he was cold, too -- so he put on a shirt. And so it went with socks, shoes, a belt, a hat... Soon the Rooster Prince was talking normally, eating with a knife and fork from a plate, sitting properly at the table -- in short, he was acting human once more. Not long after that, he was pronounced completely cured.

There was no way to convince this prince other than meeting him halfway. So too, in our lives, when we want to influence someone’s behavior we have to know who they are and what makes them tick first. Then we join in a partnership to create a new relationship, even to create a new human being. And the beauty of it is that in doing so we find that we ourselves become more sensitive and loving and easier to get along with.

So, as we prepare this YK to forgive others and to ask others for forgiveness, we may want to take a few minutes alone and forgive ourselves. We have to believe we are worthy of a partnership with God and with each other.

And then as we seek to improve our relations with those whom we love, may we take the time to understand what makes them who they are, and learn better ways of communicating with them in ways they understand.

Perhaps the point of the next 24 hours, before the gates close at Neilah tomorrow evening is to learn to present ourselves as willing partners and very precious co-workers for a better world.