Rabbi Kanter’s Message on Rosh Hashanah

[This drashah was given on October 4, 2024]

There is a parable about a king who lives in a lavish palace.  And while in the palace, only a select few can come in and see the king and be in his presence. 

But when the king ventures outside the palace, when the king takes to the road and passes through the fields, then any ordinary person can see him and gain access to his presence.

According to the Hasidic masters, the king venturing outside of the palace represents how God becomes more accessible to us during the days of awe, beginning in Elul and lasting through Rosh Hashshana and Yom Kippur; it is a time of special closeness to God.  All last month through next week, “the King is in the field,” God is close, hoping and waiting for us to draw closer.

And in different ways, we do come here to draw closer, to God, to our community, to a higher and better version of ourselves.  God is here, the community has gathered, and each of us is here.  All the components needed for teshuva and transformation are present in this moment.

But so are the obstacles to transformation –

I was listening to a lecture by Rabbi Arthur Green in which he told a story.  He spends about half the year in Israel, and he was in his apartment in the Bakka section of Jerusalem, and he heard a tremendous noise.  And he looked out the window and saw something that looks like an ice cream truck and on that truck was a large sign:  Machnisim Sefer Torah – we are bringing in a new sefer torah.  Apparently the Morrocan shul in Rabbi Green’s neighborhood had recently acquired a new torah scroll, and the community was walking and welcoming the torah into shul and into its place in the ark.  And as the community walked, there was a loud outpouring of love for torah and its meaning, as they brought home this new scroll.

A week later, Rabbi Green was in his apartment and a friend was over, and they heard another tremendous noise.  And they looked out the window and there was another truck heading toward a different shul, with a sign “Machnisim sefer torah” – we are bringing a new torah scroll to place in the ark.

And Rabbi Green noted to his friend how the exact same thing had happened the week prior.

And his friend said to him:  You understand what’s going on here, right?  Each of those torah scrolls represents a fallen soldier.  Families dedicate torahs in memory of their young sons. The torah scrolls are living memorials to lives lost too soon.

This is the reality of October 7 and the wars in Gaza and now Lebanon.  Lives have been shattered and we feel deeply connected to that anguish.  Our hearts are broken.  And in our vulnerability, our yetzer hara, our destructive, unhelpful impulses come out in full force.

Even at the best of times, we come to Rosh Hashana carrying our wounds, from childhood, or from tragedy, or from loss.  Our tradition’s challenge to us to do better seems hard.  But when the world around us is so profoundly broken, there is a temptation to give up, to throw in the towel, to stop trying as hard, because after all, with war everywhere and so many in harm’s way, why continue struggling to make our corner of the world better?   Does it really matter?  Do we really make a dent in all the pain and loss around us? 

Trying to live our best lives and to increase our capacity for compassion seems both too hard and not worth trying.  The changes we are called to make during this period seem like a very tall order, and on the other hand, futile, because it doesn’t make a difference anyway.  

And especially this year, where the wounds have come in waves since October 7. They continue, and we can get stuck in them, making the call to teshuva a hard one to answer.  How do people keep going, indeed, how do we keep going, when life seems overwhelming?  How can we persevere and try to improve ourselves individually, and strengthen ourselves as a community, when loss and pain are so present?

This morning, I wanted to offer some thoughts that can begin to respond to This question, in the hope they can be of use.

The first idea comes from the book, The Amen Effect, where Rabbi Sharon Brous shares a text from the Talmud that I had never learned until I heard her speak about it, from Mishna Middot 2:2.  

All who entered the Temple Mount entered by the right, circled [to the right] and exited by the left, except for one to whom something had happened, who entered and circled to the left.

[That person was asked]: “What happened to you? Why do you circle to the left?”

“Because I am a mourner,” [they replied.]

[And they were blessed:] “May the One who dwells in this house comfort you.”

[If they replied] “Because I have been ostracized,” [they were blessed]: “May the One who dwells in this house inspire them [your community] to draw you near again,” according to Rabbi Meir.

What Rabbi Brous noticed in this text is the importance of acknowledging our fellow travelers, especially when they are in pain.   When you saw someone who had entered from the left, you knew that life had knocked them down.  And so those who circled from the right would ask those who were circling from the left them:  “Mah lach?” Tell me what happened to you.  And the person would say:  I’m a mourner.  Upon hearing that answer, the listener then has a chance to acknowledge the loss, and to wish the mourner comfort.  It is a powerful text about how important it is for us to know and bear witness when our fellow community members are in pain.

When we acknowledge someone else’s pain and let them know that we see them in their distress, it can help them to feel less alone.  Acknowledgement of their pain, or when they acknowledge ours, doesn’t take the hurt away, but it softens it just a little bit, and it helps the recipient hang on. Bearing witness to the suffering of another person, even when there is nothing you can actually do, can help sustain the person facing the loss.   

So this first thought is that the acknowledgement of pain can be helpful to the person trying to cope with it.

And there can also be a healing quality for the one who does the act of acknowledgement.  Rabbi Jack Riemer tells the story of a man who was president of his synagogue. And he lost his wife. He was very attached to her and so he was beside himself with grief when she died. His rabbi went to pay him a shivah call, and, as the rabbi sat there, together with some of the man’s other friends, the man kept crying out, over and over again, saying: “What am I going to do? How am I going to live without her? She was my whole life—and now she is gone! What am I going to do?” And no one, including the rabbi, really knew what to say that wasn’t going to sound trite.

And then the phone rang. Someone was calling, someone who did not know that he had lost his wife and who did not know that he was sitting shiva. The caller called to ask for a favor. He had a child whom it was no longer possible to keep at home.  This father wanted help in getting his child into a group home that could care for his son’s special needs. The people at the home had told the father that there was a waiting list, so the father had called this man to ask for his help.

The man spoke to the boy’s father for more than half an hour. He reassured him and gave him some advice on how to care for his child. He promised to see what he could do to get him admitted to the home. And he gave this man some guidance on how to get through this difficult situation.

And then, when he hung up and came back to his rabbi, and back to his friends who were there to comfort him, he said: “I guess that is how I am going to get through this”.

For that half hour that he was on the phone, for perhaps the first time since the death of his wife, he had forgotten his own pain and had focused on what he could do to help someone else.  And that changed everything for him. It reminded him that he was still a person, even though he felt like half of him was gone. It reminded him that there were others who needed him. And that sense of being needed helped him to transcend his pain, and to focus on what he could still do, and not only on what he had lost.

When life is hard and we are knocked over by the pain, sometimes it can help us to be called to help others. To be reminded we are needed because someone asks us to help others, can help restore us as well.

Acknowledgement of our own pain can help.  Attending to the pain of others can help.  And one last thought.   Judging ourselves a little less harshly than we usually do can help.  It’s not about letting ourselves off the hook, but rather, remembering that when our hearts are broken, it’s not because there is something wrong with us, but it’s because something wrong was experienced by us.  As Rabbi Nahman taught in his famous piece, you have to judge every person favorably, even yourself.

The idea is that rather than engaging in a process of teshuva that involves chastising ourselves for our shortcomings, sometimes we can build on the memory of when we have lived up to a better version of ourselves, and use that as a starting point, for moving forward.

So here we are, as the Talmud says, let the old year and it’s curses end, and let the new year with its blessings begin.  We can bless each other, by receiving acknowledgment and by giving it, by being present in the difficult times and allowing others to be present with us, and when we are tempted to judge ourselves severely, remembering that building on our strengths can be an effective way to grow too.

On this Rosh Hashana, may we be privileged to be both givers and recipients of these blessings. So may it be.