A Year of Strength
Each year I choose a theme for the Days of Awe at CBI. Some months ago I chose the theme of gevurah, which means strength, power, heroism, courage, boundaries, determination. People were getting vaccinated. The weather was warming up and we were about to begin offering safe outdoor / hybrid services at CBI. I could already imagine writing my high holiday sermons this year about the strength it took for us to stay apart last year to keep each other safe, and the heroism of medical professionals in every COVID ICU around the world, and how our determination had brought us safely through this pandemic.
“Man plans, and God laughs,” the saying goes. Though this year it feels more apt to me to say “humanity plans, and God weeps.” I imagine God has been weeping a lot over the last fifteen months. Whatever we hoped for a year ago, I think it’s safe to say that we haven’t made it there yet, and the path from here to there feels fraught and uncertain.
And our theme for the year couldn’t be more apt. Wow do we need gevurah this year.
We need strength: the strength to keep going when the path ahead feels uncertain, when we don’t know the right thing to do, when we don’t know how to keep each other safe. We need the strength to help each other find hope, especially when the world feels dark. We need the strength to discern what’s right, and which voices we should be heeding. We need the strength to forgive ourselves and each other, especially in these difficult pandemic times — especially because we’ve moved from “this difficult pandemic year” to something longer and of more uncertain duration. We need the strength to see the world differently than we have before, so that we can live into that vision, making the world better than it was before. (Stay tuned; that’s a sneak preview of sermons to come!)
Gevurah helps us be courageous: it helps us strengthen our hearts and keep our resolve firm even when we’re frustrated that this pandemic is becoming endemic.
Gevurah helps us have good boundaries. Gevurah reminds us that we never know what difficulty another person is facing, so our sacred task is always ladun l’chaf z’chut, to give one another the benefit of the doubt and see one another through generous eyes — even as we strive to hold ourselves and each other to the highest ethical standards.
Gevurah gives us strength to speak up for what’s ethical and just, and the courage to protect the most vulnerable among us. Gevurah helps us be giborim, heroes, for and with each other as we lift each other up and keep each other safe.
And gevurah is a necessary part of teshuvah: repentance, return, re-alignment, turning ourselves around to live out our best and highest purpose in the year now beginning.
May the spiritual journey of this High Holiday season open our hearts, deepen our resolve, and give us the gevurah we need to make 5782 a year of holiness and strength, a year of community and connectedness, a year of justice and joy.
This is the very brief d’varling that Rabbi Rachel offered at our erev Rosh Hashanah Zoom seder. (Cross-posted to Velveteen Rabbi) Stay tuned for actual sermons in days to come.
