As we start to
move into the month of Elul — the month that precedes the High
Holy Day season — we do well to consider the full spectrum of
human possibility. If the full spectrum of all that is possible
for a human being consists of seven metaphorical colours, it’s
likely that most of us rarely stray from a relatively narrow
bandwidth of one or two colours — what might be called our
“comfort zone”.
For many of us,
that comfort zone of thought, feeling and action works
magnificently well. Many of us enjoy the blessings of wonderful
relationships, meaningful work and comfortable lifestyles.
Still, every year the High Holy Days ask us to consider that our
lives — comfortable and good though they may be — may be
woefully incomplete and may fall far short of all of which we
are truly capable.
This is the
reason for the pre-occupation of the High Holy Day liturgy with
death. The Netaneh Tokef prayer articulates our
dread of death in the most stark and startling terms, in a way
deliberately designed to remove us from our comfort zone. It is
non-change with which we are most comfortable. For good reason,
we dislike changes in occupation, domicile or close
relationships. And yet it is the very nature of life to change.
Paradoxically, the only constant in life IS change. And it is
change, ultimately, that forces us to confront the extremes of
the colours of life — the “red” and the “violet” of the full
spectrum of human experience. It is at these extremes of
experience that we discover what kind of people we are, and how
weak or strong we actually may be.
Our natural
tendency is to regard these changes as “good”, or “bad”,
depending on their desirability. And a primitive reading of the
High Holy Day liturgy tells us that “prayer, repentance and
deeds of kindness” will allow us to be “inscribed and sealed”
for a year of good outcomes in “the book of life”.
However, real
life works a little differently than that. This is why the
Netaneh Tokef tells us that “repentance, prayer and deeds of
kindness remove the SEVERITY of the decree” (RO-AH, which
means “evil”). In other words, “repentance, prayer and deeds of
kindness” ideally create a consciousness or spiritual
orientation in which we no longer experience the inevitable,
bitter extremes of experience as “bad”, or “evil”.
It seems
inhuman, doesn’t it? How can the death of child, or a beloved
parent, spouse or sibling not be deemed “evil”? How could we
consider any bitter, painful experience to be anything but
“evil”? Two expressions from the daily prayer liturgy may help
to put this in perspective. In one passage, God is described as
MASHPIL GE’IM U’MAG-BI’AH SH’FA-LIM — “One who casts down
the proud, so that He may uplift the humbled.”
Who are “the
proud”? I would translate “proud” as “comfortable” — which is to
say, most of us — we who live in the monochromatic world of our
comfort zones. Any personal growth that occurs under comfortable
circumstances proceeds very slowly. There is little motivation
for us to change. But devastating change forces us to “do or
die” — to become strong and survive, or else drown in the ocean
of our sorrows. The 19th century philosopher,
Nietzche, would say, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”
The other
passage occurs in the daily Amidah. God is MELECH MEI-MEET
U-M’CHA-YEH U-MATZ-MI’ACH Y’SHUAH — a “King who slays,
revives and thus causes redemption to blossom.” Here the imagery
is even more dramatic. The God of All Life is starkly described
as a murderer! And the harsh fact is that God’s universe is a
world of death. Life is change, and change usually means the
end, or death of someone or something that affects us
personally. But this isn’t yet the end of the story. God is a
“King who slays, AND revives, AND thus causes redemption to
blossom.” In other words, there is no death, or ending, that
isn’t also a new beginning that fits into the larger pattern of
redeeming the universe.
I’m sure that
the rabbis who wrote this prayer did not intend to minimize the
suffering of those who mourn. To those who have experienced
loss, God is surely MEI-MEET —“a murderer”. In using such
stark terminology, the rabbis don’t attempt to evade the issue
of suffering in life. But the rabbis also held that life is
ultimately whole and holy; that there is meaning beyond the
mystery and order beyond the apparent chaos. Out of the black
depths of suffering and despair, over time, great light can and
does emerge.
This is the
story of the Jewish people in a nutshell. The terror and
destruction of the First Temple and Babylonian exile (586 BCE)
gave rise to the greatest period of Biblical prophecy. The
horrors of the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE) resulted
in the great spiritual reformation of the Rabbinic period. From
the tragedy of the expulsion from Spain (1492) came the
flowering of Kabbalah in the Galilean town of Tz’fat. From the
ashes of six million innocents slain during the Holocaust, the
modern State of Israel, phoenix-like, was born.
Now perhaps, we
might begin to grasp the rabbis’ marvelous and terrible teaching
that one must bless God as much for the undesirable outcomes in
life as for the desirable ones. May the dynamic of rebirth and
renewal that has operated throughout Jewish history manifest
this year in our lives, in the life of our people and in the
life of all humanity everywhere.
Shanah Tovah
U-M’Tukah,
Rabbi, Katy,
Daniel, Eve and Shoshanah
