As I write these words we’ve entered the lunar month of Heshvan, during which there are no holidays other than Shabbat. After the densely-packed spiritual season of the high holidays, Heshvan can feel like an abrupt gearshift.
What a beautiful holiday season it has been thus far. It was such a joy to be with you on Rosh Hashanah and during the first half of Yom Kippur!
As you may know by now, I experienced several TIAs during Yom Kippur morning services. (It was difficult for me to speak at times, and the words either wouldn’t come out, or came out wrong.) Thankfully each episode passed quickly and I was able to continue praying with you through the end of Yizkor. After that I went to the hospital for the remainder of Thursday and all of Friday. I am now released from the hospital and recovering at home comfortably.
Several of you asked me: “Could you talk at the high holidays about how we can stay sane? How can we pay enough attention to be connected, but not so much it harms us?”
The first known Black mutual aid society was the African Union Society, formed in Newport, Rhode Island in 1780. Seven years later, African Americans in Philadelphia formed the Free African Society to provide benefits to the needy, aid for the ill and unemployed, and burial assistance. By 1838 there were a hundred of these societies in Philadelphia alone. After the civil war, free Black Americans started credit unions when White-owned banks wouldn’t serve them. They pooled resources to buy farms and land, to care for widows and children, and to bury their dead. I’m not sure if my ancestors knew they were following in those footsteps when, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Eastern European Jewish immigrants formed landsmenschaftn, mutual aid societies rooted in shared geographic origins.
This is the hardest sermon I have ever tried to write.
My fear this morning is that when I say something that’s hard to hear, you might stop listening or close your heart to what I’m trying to say.
So here is my ask of you this morning. Take a deep breath. Let it out. Maybe do it again a few times. And please make a conscious effort to hold certainties lightly and to keep your heart open.
A while ago I went looking for a New Yorker cartoon. I don’t subscribe to the magazine these days – I used to, maybe ten years ago, but they arrived more quickly than I could read them. After a while the stack of un-read issues made me feel like I was falling down on the job of being a well-informed poet! Still, many of the illustrations are available online, so I went hunting. I knew exactly what the cartoon looked like. And I couldn’t find it. No one else could seem to find it, either. Maybe it didn’t exist.
Every year, I try hard to find the right balance in high holiday planning. Some things are the same every year, and they should be! High holiday nusah (the melody-system associated uniquely with this season) and familiar melodies are a spiritual touchstone. They reach us in our hearts. They are a musical carrier-wave that can bring us to our deepest selves. And some things are different every year, and they should be!
The choir is rehearsing high holiday melodies. My teen has begun attending his final summer camp of the season. The roads are lined with blue chicory blooms and frothy Queen Anne’s Lace. I’m about to start eating corn and tomatoes at every meal I can, because there’s nothing like sweet corn in season or a tomato ripe off the vine. And now that we’ve made it through Tisha b’Av, we’re on the spiritual upswing toward Rosh Hashanah! Happy August.
It never fails: we reach this Torah portion, Matot-Masei, in high summer and I go, “Wait, what? Already?” The words in this single verse are like hyperlinks. נֶדֶר, vow. שְׁבֻעָה, oath. כָּל נִדְרֵי וֶאֱסָרֵי וַחֲרָמֵי, וְקוֹנָמֵי וְכִנּוּיֵי, וְקִנּוּסֵי וּשְׁבוּעוֹת… Surprise! It’s a reminder of Kol Nidrei.
In recent weeks, I’ve been paying visits to someone in a skilled nursing facility who has a copy of this very Rosie the Riveter “We Can Do It!” poster propped up in the room. I think it’s an excellent reminder that even when life’s challenges might seem insurmountable (and even when simple physical tasks might feel insurmountable), we can persevere… especially if we focus on what we can do, instead of what we can’t.
