Rosh Hashana Sermon
One of the more timeless questions of Theodicy is why bad things happen to good people. Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a whole book using that title, and the question is addressed in great books, such as Iyov, the Zohar, and the Talmud (Brachos) places the question in the mouth of Moshe Rabbenu.
One can argue it is the central theme of today’s Torah reading, in that Avraham is given the instruction to take his most precious possession, his son Yitzchak, and go to a mountain where he is to bring Yitzchak as some kind of offering or sacrifice.
In Rabbi Soloveitchik’s analysis of Avraham’s experience, there isn’t a whole lot of depth in the thought process. He says that as soon as God ordered Avraham to sacrifice Yitzchak, the sacrifice was implemented in the depths of his heart. To him, Yitzchak was surrendered right away. He was already dead. Going to the mountain was a fait accompli because Yitzchak was already gone – all that was needed was a substitute sacrifice, which he ended up offering in the form of a ram, but the young man himself no longer existed.
In his inimitable dramatic fashion, Rabbi Soloveitchik paints the image of what Avraham is going to look like on his way back from the Akedah. “We can imagine Abraham’s desolation and loneliness. He knew that on the way back there would be no Isaac. He knew this was the last journey with Isaac. In a matter of days, Isaac would be gone and Avraham would travel alone. There would be no more companionship, no more young child in the house, no more laughter, no more enjoyment, no more joy.
And then God asked for a substitute. And God’s name changed from Elokim, the god of Judgment, to Hashem, the God of Mercy.
Rabbi Soloveitchik notes that Avraham was a yerei Elokim, one who fears Elokim, when his relationship with God was one of strict justice, of total surrender, when God wanted him to give away the best he had. It is easy to be a yerei hashem when God treats you with love, charity, and kindness, when he bestows grace and benevolence upon you like a father treats his son. But to be yerei Elokim when God applies middat hadin, the measure of justice, when you have to surrender everything and to thank Him for hardships, is very difficult.
In 1973, in the wake of the Yom Kippur war, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein delivered an address to senior educators in Israel on the topic of trust in God. After the lecture, he was asked several questions, one which was “How do you explain the concept of yissurin shel ahavah – that God gives chastisements of love?”
The question, was a follow up to a specific point RAL had raised, addressing lessons to be taken from the YK War, and how to relate to the terrible losses. While one never has an answer, and RAL was not the kind of person to utter a sentence such as “This tragedy happened because” or “This suffering happened in order that…” he was not averse to reflecting on the kinds of lessons Chazal might have taken from the difficult time that was the YK War. And in that context he noted that such a concept exists – that Bad Things Happen to Good People – and there is a reason for it. And he was asked to elaborate further.
One view, that of Rabbi Yehuda Loew of Prague, is that Yissurin Shel Ahava is a form of punishment. RAL was of the view, that Yissurin Shel Ahavah is a form of suffering that come to purify a person. Certainly there are people who are broken by suffering. But RAL argued, there are people who can be purified by it. One does not know how one will perform under the duress of suffering, until the difficult time takes place.
To the point – which is relevant here today – RAL noted, “What was accomplished by the Akedah?” And the answer… the Akedah is a creative act that stands by itself. Avraham after the Akedah is not the same Avraham as before the Akedah, because the experience of suffering purified him.
RAL’s message was this. We do not, in our Jewish experience, revel in suffering. But when it occurs, it is essential to turn it into a force for self-rehabilitation and growth. Then it can become chastisements of love – yissurin shel ahavah – which can creatively build the person’s soul and enhance his or her spiritual development.
Arguably, the most important elements of the Akedah narrative is the 3-day journey that Avraham took to get to the mountain. The rabbis focus heavily on the spiritual grapplings he went through. Trying to understand the inherent contradiction in fulfilling God’s commandment while knowing that murder is wrong. It’s that 3-day struggle that brought him to the conclusion that God’s will must be followed. And of course, it was that same conclusion which allowed for God’s command to be countered only by a different command to not touch the lad.
Most fascinating to me is the depiction of Avraham pre-Akedah vs. Avraham post-Akedah as not being the same person.
When I was trying to conjure up such an image, the thought that came to my mind was Charlton Heston emerging from the Burning Bush in “The Ten Commandments.”
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| Before |
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| After |
His face glows, his hair has assumed a grayness and authority that was not present before, and he has clearly BECOME – MOSES, the leader, the deliverer, the one who is ready to face Pharaoh in order to free the Hebrew slaves. One experience, and he is a changed man.
Heston actually wrote an article about how he “met Moses 3 times.” Without getting into the details, he describes his own struggles walking on the mountain near Egypt which the filmmakers were told was Mt. Sinai, and his struggles when playing the scene when Moses is exiled into the desert, at the mercy of the elements. In both cases Heston imagined Moses as a regular human being. Plagued by a lack of clarity, uncertain about his faith in God, unsure of where he is going, and going through the struggle of contending with nature.
And the last time he “met” Moses was when he came out to film the Exodus scene. He was in costume and makeup, and knew there were 7,000 Egyptian “extras” there. 7,000 people, to him, were as far as the eye could see. Lending us to wonder what 600,000 or 3 million people might have looked like to the real Moshe.
These people had trusted Moses, they had followed where he led—and where had he led them? Into this waterless desert? Into this unspeakable wilderness?
I turned and looked back at the sea of old men, half-starved women, tiny children. Moses could not have led them into this desert!
Not the Moses I had seen—not the man who had crawled on his knees through this very wasteland. Not the man who had struggled, panting and terrified, up the slopes of Mt. Sinai; that man was capable of doubt. Could he now walk into this desert with the little girl and her geese?
The moment had come for Moses to lift his staff and signal Exodus. I walked slowly to where they waited, twisted and tangled back through the cool sphinxes. What had Moses felt as these eyes turned to him in trust? The man I had glimpsed on Mt. Sinai had been afraid.
I had met Moses on Sinai, yes, but Moses had met God. And then I knew what Moses had felt, he had been confident, joyous, unhesitating.
Of course Moses could not lead these thousands across the desert. He never would have tried. But God could do it. And Moses, this all-too-human man, this man so much like the rest of us, had simply turned himself into the instrument through which the strength of God moved.
With joy I cried out the words that Moses cried: “Bear us out of Egypt, O Lord, As the eagle bears its young upon its wings...”
Then I lifted Moses’ staff and saw the multitude heave into a vast shudder of motion, and walk out from bondage.
When we think about our own struggles, I think Heston’s insight about Moshe is essential. If we truly believe in God, and trust that He is at our side, we have to remind ourselves that while perhaps I don’t have the strength to do what God is putting me up to… that while I don’t think I can survive the suffering experience I am having… that while I will have questions until the day I die about why I needed to have this experience… the difficult time is a struggle I can get through because God is with me.
Avraham goes from being a Yrei Elokim to a Yrei Hashem because he sees God is not just about judgment. God is also merciful. God spared Yitzchak, even after Yitzchak was dead to Avraham.
And as RAL noted, it is that difficult moment that serves as a watershed in a person’s experience.
When I was in yeshiva in Israel post-high school, I remember going to the funeral of Rabbi Kenny Hain’s father, AH. One of the rebbeim in yeshiva, who had grown up in Woodmere, took my brother and I there, and after the funeral he offered to take us to the graves of RAL’s parents. At the back of every section we passed in the cemetery were smaller, in some cases unmarked graves. These were miscarriages, still borns, children who did not survive long after birth.
And there were A LOT of them
Har Hamenuchot has one way streets. And this rebbe remarked to us, “Do you know why the streets are one-way in the cemetery? Because you never go out the same as how you came in.”
I think that line summarizes what Rosh Hashana is meant to be for us. It’s a day when we look to Avraham, perhaps we look to Moshe, we look to all those who suffered in their lives and we realize “I’m not alone.” And if we trust in God, we can tell ourselves that the cleansing that comes from the difficult experience will help define who I am. It might help me become a stronger person, it might give me clarity in life.
I saw a video this year for the organization Kids of Courage. They create amazing experiences for kids and young adults who live in the most trying of circumstances. Whether born with tremendous physical handicap, attached to life saving machinery, or whether they had a debilitating life-event, such as the perfectly normal young man who was electrocuted by a telephone wire, losing both legs and an arm.
In the video, after describing his accident and how he first came to the realization of what had happened to him after waking from the coma, he said he didn’t think he had a reason to live anymore.
But if I could use RAL’s words, the accident cleansed him. It gave him pause to think, to consider, to analyze his life, what he puts into it, and what he hopes to get out of it.
A few weeks ago I quoted a line from Joseph Telushkin’s mother, AH, who said “The happiest people I know in life are people I don’t know very well.”
Every person in this room has something going on that we wish were different. Finances, illness, loss, infertility, divorce, drugs, difficulty with a child. A personal struggle with a medical problem, with a temperament problem, with an aging problem, or some form or another of loneliness.
Where does it take us?
It’s Rosh Hashana. It’s the Yom HaDin. The Day of Judgment. Perhaps one message from the shofar is to blast our problems away, as we take our struggle and do our best to move forward with it.
But even that’s not easy. And perhaps it’s not a good solution. But the sound of the shofar is also reminiscent of God at the Mountain, when He sounded the shofar that accompanied Revelation.
Rabbi Soloveitchik wrote a lot about his relationship with God, and the feeling of having God carry him, the feeling of God’s gentle caress on his worn and frail shoulders. And maybe that’s what the totality of our Rosh Hashana experience is meant to be. It’s a heavy day. We’re in shul many hours. Maybe we’re hungry. Maybe we’re tired. Maybe we’re looking at the clock wondering when this will be over.
But if we take it all in – Confidence in Judgment as I mentioned yesterday; the realization of how any struggle is the gate to the new me; the connection with God that is meant to be symbolized through the Shofar; the model of Avraham and Moshe who went to edges of despair and emerged as the incredible men they became, we begin to see the doorway for our own deliverance opening.
Let today’s Torah reading be the closest we should ever get to experiencing our own Akedah. But like RAL said about Avraham’s experience there. Let the person who exits shul this afternoon be a committed-to-better person than the one who entered this morning.
If Rosh Hashana moves each of us properly, let that be the blessing of our collective experience.
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