The Akedah, The Un’taneh Tokef and the Pandemic:
Part 2: Lessons Learned and Lived
Rosh HaShanah, First Morning 5782 (September 7, 2021)
Boker tov. Good morning. L’shanah tovah to all of you.
Last night I spoke mainly about the Akedah, the story of the binding of Isaac which we’ll read tomorrow, and a bit about the U-n’taneh Tokef, that we’ll recite in Musaf today and tomorrow.
The Akedah is a horrific story, in which G!d commands Avraham to sacrifice his son Yitzchak. Yitzchak is not only Avraham’s son but personifies all of Avraham’s hopes and dreams. He is Avraham’s future. There’s a lot at stake.
Last night I spoke about the Akedah through the prism of vision. I read Avraham as a person of great vision, of great spiritual capacity, and of resilience and creativity in confronting life. He could see life from many angles, to find the best possible avenue for the moment. G!d promised to show Avraham the mountain, but did not have to since Avraham’s insight knew which one it was. Avraham could sense that G!d “would see to the ram,” that there was a way through this. Avraham “saw” a ram that was not in his sight line, but behind him–and yet saw its possibilities. The entire episode takes place in Eretz Moriyah, the land of vision, and Avraham names the specific location to honor vision, encouraging all of us.
Yitzchak did not have the vision to move on. He does not see the mountain, does not see the ram of its possibility. He does not even look up. When Avraham descends the mountain, Yitzchak is not with him. Yitzchak has seemingly gone into stasis, paralysis, unable to function in the face of trauma. And later on the story’s arc repeats in the next generation when the Torah tells that Isaac’s eyes grow dim. He has lost his ability for spiritual insight or even to tell his children apart, and he ends up nearly sacrificing his son Yaakov’s life, just as his father Avraham nearly sacrificed his.
So today, I’d like to go back into the Akedah story a bit, and to speak about the lessons that Avraham learns, and that we have learned, throughout these past 18 months of the pandemic.
First, the narrator informs us readers that “G!d tested Avraham.” We noted last night that actually both Avraham and Yitzchak were tested–tested to see how they would respond to intense life challenge. The text is clear, however, that neither Avraham nor Yitzchak knew they were being tested. And quite often in life we do not know we’ve been tested until afterward, or at least in the thick of it. Then we can ask ourselves, “Did I respond like Avraham, with resilience, perspective, and faith, or did I respond like Yitzchak, and withdraw from the world, hiding myself from it?”
Pirkei Avot tells us that G!d tested Avraham 10 times20. Ten is higher than the Jewish number of completeness, which is seven. So Pirkei Avot is letting us know that Avraham had a fullness of life challenges to confront and pass through. So do all of us.
At de Toledo High School, I never used the T, Q, or E words with my students. I never gave tests, quizzes or examinations. Instead I referred to them as opportunities. Tests, including life-tests, are opportunities. They are opportunities to show ourselves capable of rising to the highest standards. A challenge is an opportunity for faith and personal growth. We were all challenged these past months: did our faith help us through, or did we find it difficult to access? In what ways did we find ourselves growing?
The verb here used for “test” is ni-sa, which is related to the word, “nes,” meaning “banner,” or something elevated high above. In what ways did we elevate ourselves during the pandemic?
I would like to share what I think we have all learned, with a point to how Am HaYam exemplified those lessons. I learned and grew, essentially because of all of you.
Lesson 1: Family Matters More Than We Realized, and that Is Equally True for Our Am HaYam family.
Families could not always be together, but we learned how to spend face time with loved ones, from our adult children to our youngest grandchildren. You can share your life’s wisdom even from a distance.
Here, we realized that our CAH family needed time with each other, so we first decided to change our bimonthly Shabbat services to weekly so that we could see each other and check in with each other. Knowing that that would not suffice during the pandemic, I spoke with our Adult Ed VP Fran Lande, and we came up with a plan so that there would be activities at least five days a week, and twice a week two activities. Mort Resnick led sessions on Mondays and Thursdays, Fran and I each taught on different days of the week, and Andrea Massion held her weekly singalong for hope and healing. We kept Wednesdays open for special events, such as our Significant Jewish Book Club discussions and my Teaching about the Holocaust through Music. We had more activities than synagogues seven times our size.
We succeeded because we all depended on one another.
Having these many classes and activities was a response to our human need for interdependence.
Globally, too, whether we like it or not, we are all in this together, and our success or failure depends on everyone doing their part. The Motzi prayer recited over bread helps me to realize how many people work so hard so I could have challah at my Shabbat table. I now know the term for those people: “essential workers.” I hope we never forget how much we depend on farm workers, truck drivers, factory workers, grocery clerks, public service employees, teachers and others. When one part of the system breaks down, we all suffer. It’s important that we all work for the greater good.
We at CAH also extended ourselves beyond our boundaries. Seeing a sister Conservative synagogue with no services or activities, we invited Congregation Beth Shalom of Bermuda Dunes to join us for anything and everything. We joined together for joint study before last year’s High Holy Days and Shavuot, and have attended each other’s services. New friendships have been forged. While some initially asked, “Who are these people?,” everyone now acknowledges how much we gained by reaching out.
So lesson #1: Family and Community on All Levels Matter, and reaching out gets as good as it gives.
Lesson 2: Self-Care Is Not Self-Indulgence
Eighteen months ago, America became a hibernation nation. Canned, dry and instant soup sales quickly rose 37 percent. Premium chocolate sales grew by 21 percent in the first six months of the pandemic. The chocolate industry thanks you, Ruthy! The athleisure market–sweatpants, yoga wear and such, saw its U.S. revenue last year push past an estimated $105 billion.
Self-indulgent? No. No. It’s self-care.
Many of us grew up learning, at least by example of our parents, that doing things for yourself is selfish and inconsiderate. In my household, selfish and inconsiderate people were about the worst people one could associate with or, even worse, become. I deeply appreciate my parents’ emphasis on caring for others.
But pampering is vital to well-being—for yourself and for those around you. Whether it is permission to take long bubble baths–guilty!, tinkering in the backyard “shed,” enjoying herbal tea or seeing noon come while still in your robe, Isabel Gillies, author of Cozy: The Art of Arranging Yourself in the World reminds us that “being good to yourself offers a necessary reprieve from whatever horrors threaten us from out there.”
It’s OK to use comfort as a crutch. Comfort will help us ease back to life. Some companies are already hawking pajamas you can wear in public.“Not only does self-care have positive outcomes for you,” claims psychologist Richelle Concepcion, “but it also sets an example to younger generations as something to establish and maintain for your entire life.”
Fran’s Thursday night middot class offers great insight into what our soul’s needs are, the types of strength that comprise character, and how we can all grow in personal areas, sharing wisdom. In the first weeks of class, I noticed that it was hard for some to speak personally. Many wanted to intellectualize the discussion or present quite implausible scenarios to avoid sharing personal feelings and experiences. That changed rather quickly–and it has become a great forum for personal growth.
For some this self-indulgence translated into D-I-Y–do it yourself–projects–painting a room, installing a light fixture, learning to cook, or indulging a hobby. All of this is part of the second lesson: We must take care of ourselves, and we must consider those who do so not as selfish but as role models.
Lesson 3: We Befriended Technology, and There’s No Going Back, and Embracing It Shows Our Resilience
Before the pandemic, standard operating procedure for most older Americans was to buy apples at the grocery, try shoes on first before buying, have your doctor measure your blood pressure and see that new movie at the theater. Now we have our food delivered, buy clothes online, do telehealth, and binge on Netflix. Popular food delivery apps more than doubled their earnings last year. PayPal reported that its fastest-growing user group was people over 50; Chase, too, stated that about half of its new online users were 50-plus.This trend will probably not change, no matter when the pandemic ends.
We at CAH have had members work with members to upgrade computer skills, and we had town hall meetings to teach Zoom. And over this time, we have used technology to enrich our community. We have had funerals and shivah gatherings on Zoom, an aufruf on Zoom, Passover seders on Zoom.
Envisioning how important technology will continue to be, we assessed our situation and decided to build a new website, which just recently went public, and to get wifi in our building so we could hold these services via YouTube. I am so deeply grateful to our donors Janice & Amnon Aharon-Ezer, Fil Barton, Marc Goldman, Donna Gustafson, Miriam & Darryl Mack, Ruth Resnick, Lee Rothschild, Lois Lebman, and Judye & Rick Newberger, as well as an anonymous angel. You, along with a grant from the Pacific Southwest Region of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, have made this come true. Please check out CongregationAmHaYam.com. A number of people from outside our community have already complimented us on this achievement–and ask about how we pulled this off. We should all feel 10 feet tall.
Of course it was pulled off mostly because of Marc Goldman, Miriam Mack, and our webmaster Mark Rich, who all put in so much time both thinking through the creative end and working on the technological nuts and bolts. Y’shar kochachem.
With improved technology, we need not feel so isolated. The number of adults 50 and older who felt lonely doubled from 2018 to 2020–and grew worse from there. I hope this is not true for anyone in our CAH family. If you do feel lonely, please reach out.
But I also know how resilient you are. Dr. Dilip Jeste of UC-San Diego’s Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging reports that research shows that older adults, on the whole, have handled COVID psychologically better than younger ones. “With age comes experience and wisdom.” You all have lived through difficult times. In fact, older adults with high levels of empathy, compassion, decisiveness and self-reflection score lowest for loneliness.
So our third lesson is not just that we have befriended technology, but that you have all adapted. Planning is good. Goals are great. But adaptability is the key to it all. Plans get ruined, and goals get delayed, or get realized in unexpected ways. So, how will you handle this? When you’re adaptable, you figure it out. And now we know we can. We figured a lot of “stuff” out in the last year. We should be proud of this. We made it. And now we know: We can make it through whatever comes next.
Family, self-care, adaptability, learning new things.
Finally, going through challenging experiences often leads us to think more
deeply about our core beliefs—whether it’s our personal relationships or health, the work we do, or how we spend our free time. We now realize that life can be fragile, time with others cannot be taken for granted, and that what we do only matters if we make it matter. For me, my faith deepened during these past 18 months. I have felt closer to G!d and my belief in life’s essential goodness, are stronger because I have been through this pandemic, and because I have been through this pandemic with you.
Most discussions and commentaries on the Akedah end, quite reasonably, with Avraham staying in Beer Sheva. Nonetheless, the last aliyah we’ll read tomorrow adds a short section, a report of the births of a number of relatives in far-off Mesopotamia. A lot of these names are obscure: Tevach, Gacham, Tachash and Ma`achah21. We never hear of them again. Rashi claims that this section was written only to tell us of the birth of Rivkah who would later marry Yitzchak. If so, why was it necessary to include all the seemingly superfluous information? If Rashi were correct, the whole section could have been reduced to one verse: “After these things, Abraham was told that Rebecca, daughter of Bethuel, was born.”
But I now understand this passage in the light of the pandemic. By including this seemingly extraneous material, we learn that after a traumatic event comes another ordinary day, and then another ordinary week and then another ordinary year. After enduring the pandemic, we necessarily return to hum-drum existence. Life continues. The list of names once seemed superfluous and irrelevant, now take on special meaning, as they did to Avraham in the wake of the Akedah.
On Sunday, my dear cousins Jeff and Sari, called not only to wish Steven and I a shanah tovah, but to share the news that they are expecting two grandchildren, one in five weeks, and one in January. Jeff is the son of my Uncle Issie and Aunt Celia, both Holocaust survivors and both of blessed memory. We, like Avraham, were delighted to hear such news. It speaks to me of my Uncle and Aunt’s resilience through a traumatic time that lasted longer than 18 months, and that light and joy can still be had in the aftermath.
Finally, I want to return to the Un’taneh Tokef. Last night I spoke of the importance of the line U-t’shuvah u-t’fi-la u-tz’dakah ma’avirin et ro’a ha-g’zeirah. “Repentance, prayer, and righteousness remove the severity of the decree.” The line tells us not that we can ever remove the decree or change our reality, but that we can limit the long-lasting effect that suffering can have on us. Our deeds matter, and they can help us raise our own banner and elevate our lives. We can pass the test.
Now let’s focus on the word ma’avirin. The word is the very middle word of a seven-word sentence. It is the core, the heart, of the statement. It comes from the root avar, which runs through the entire prayer. Its basic meaning is “to pass.”
So, in the key verse, repentance, prayer and righteous action ma’avirin, help us pass through the awfulness of the decree, help us get past the pandemic. But not only this, because avar also has a sense of resiliency and creative betterment. In modern Hebrew avar al means to edit or improve a text. So our deeds–our self-indulgence, our sharing, our caring, our depending on others, and enabling others to rely on us–can help us not only pass through, but pass on to another level of meaningful living. They edit and improve our personal Sefer Chayim, Book of Life.
Perhaps that is why Abraham is called the first Ivri, Hebrew, and our people’s language is Ivrit, Hebrew, both also from avar. This connotes that we Jews have passed through many tests, and that at each one, we continued to strive: we have solidified, not hardened; offered, not imposed; contributed, not dominated; deepened, not isolated.
As we celebrate this day, the first day of Rosh HaShanah, the first New Year in our sanctuary in two years, let us celebrate us.
May this be a year of continued emphasis on family–nuclear, synagogue, and beyond.
May this be a year of continued self-care, self-help, self-love.
May this be a year of continued reliance on each other, of continued community.
May this be a year of continued resilience, flexibility, and adaptability.
May this be a year of continued assessment of what matters.
And may this be a year of drinking deeply from the cup of life. Amen.