Yom Kippur 5777 - Marathon Living vs. Daily Living

A few weeks ago (just before Rosh Hashana), I went on a century bike ride with a number of people from our shul bike club. I have been on a number of centuries before, but this one was different. I didn't really train for it and I was really not ready. Mile 40 felt like mile 60, mile 60 felt like I was already at mile 80 and by the time I actually got to the rest stop at mile 80, I was spent. I had nothing left and I still had 20 miles left. It was at the rest stop that I heard people saying that because of the indirect nature of the the final 20 miles, it was possible to do a direct 6 miles back to the finish line. That would make a total of 86 miles, not bad for a ride! But there was no way that I was going to take the shortcut! I set out to do 100 and I was going to do it no matter how I felt. I rode the last 20. It was painful, slow, hard. Each and every short hill felt like a steep climb. But I finally finished.

When I got home, Sarah, my wife,  asked me how the ride was. I told her how hard and painful it was. To which she said, “let me get this straight, I let you take an entire day off to go on a bike ride. I watch the kids by myself take them to all of their activities, make them lunch and dinner (all this a week before rosh hashana!) and you did not even enjoy yourself. ….

But of course I felt excited about my Marathon like accomplishment. But that feeling didn't last. You see, I tried to use the momentum of the century to break into a more regular exercise pattern. ½ hour a day, 4 times a week. But I have failed miserably.

I realized that it was easier for me to ride 100 miles in one day then exercise ½ hour, (or even just 10 minutes!) 3 times a week for a longer term.

This really got me thinking about how in so many areas of life, it is easier to to do the herculean  task than the disciplined, consistent, ongoing daily or weekly behavior.

A few examples:

Torah - It is easier to literally stay up all night on shavuot or learn Torah for 6 hours straight than incorporate a daily 5-10 minute learning practice into your life.

Many of you know, I am very fond of the Daf Yomi, the practice of studying a page of Talmud a day. Thank G-d, we have about 30 members of our shul who have been studying a page of talmud since the summer of 2012 and are hoping to finish on January 4 2020. The most important part of Daf Yomi, is not the daf. It is the Yomi. The idea that we are learning something every day. It could be an Amud, or a mishna, or an aliyah from that week's Torah reading, a chapter of Tanach. It doesn't matter what it is. It only matters that it is Yomi.

The same is true about so many areas of life. We want to be good parents, spouses, children, and friends. So what do we do? When there is a crisis or a celebration, we are there. We will fly around the world to be there, stay up all night etc. But what about the Yomi (daily) or even Shvui (weekly). At the end of each week, can we think of quality time we spent with each of our kids, or one thing we did special for our spouse. Sure, we will find the strength to be Marathon parents, spouses, children or friends. But what about the daily and weekly.

Sarah and I had a friend in NY who was in a 12 step program and part of her recovery process was to do a small act of chesed every day. It sounds easy. But it isn't when it has to be Yomi. She described how sometimes at the end of a long day, she would realize that she had not done an act of chesed. She would have to go down to the street and try to find something she could do. Living in Manhattan, she described some amazing things. But the real question is not if we can do Marathon Chesed in crisis mode but if we can do a small act of chesed, Yomi.

There is a line in the Vidui (confession) that makes me shudder every time I read it.

הרי אני לפניך ככלי מלא בושה וכלימה

“I am before You (G-d) like a vessel full of shame and humiliation.”

We have all of these negative emotions inside - Shame, embarrassment, remorse, regret. These feelings are so heavy, especially regret and the inner shame it causes. What do we do with our regrets? It is so hard.

I believe that most of the regrets that we have in life do not come because we were not that marathon parent, spouse, friend or jew. Because we probably found the energy during that crisis mode. Our regrets come from failing to do the Yomi stuff.

This past Sunday, we dedicated the Torah classroom as Chuck’s room, in honor and memory of my dear friend Chuck Wheeler who passed away a few months ago.. At the dedication, Chuck’s Hebrew teacher called him a “Matmid,” which means a diligent and persistent student. She pointed out that the root of “Matmid” is “Tamid” which means continuous.

In the temple, there were two kinds of sacrifices. Tamid (daily) and Musaf (additional on holidays like rosh hashana, Yom Kippur). The Tamid is basis for Shacharit and the Musaf for, you guessed it, Musaf. Which one is more important? Let's say they only had one animal. Or let’s say we can only pray either Shacharit or Musaf, which one is more important? The daily boring one done each and every day or the special one, with the longer elaborate service that is dedicated for special occasions?

תדיר ושאינו תדיר, תדיר קדם

This rule is not only about order. It is also about priority. If you can only do one, you do the boring daily one over the exciting Marathon one! In Judaism, the boring daily one wins out every time! It is because it is the boring commitment of the Yomi stuff that makes us as people.

Sometimes I wonder: What if G-d’s commitment to us was like our commitment to G-d and to other people.

What if G-d was really good in the crisis mode at being a Marathon G-d but not so good at the daily stuff.

We thank G-d in the Modim prayer for נסיך שבכל יום עמנו - the miracles of everyday. The fact that we have food to eat, the fact that when we eat food, we are able to digest it. The fact that when we wake up, there is oxygen for us to breathe. We thank Hashem that these miracles are כל יום (every day).

Every day, Tamid. G-d is a Matmid!

Could you imagine if G-d said, I will do it when I can. If I provide oxygen 90% of days, that is pretty good.

No, we need it to be “Yomi.” So then we also need to be “Yomi.”

I want to conclude with a story but the story needs a brief introduction. Many of us know the 12’th Ani Maamin (“I believe”) of Maimonides.

אני מאמן באמונה שלמה בביאת המשיח

I believe with perfect faith in the coming of Moshiach. I believe that this world can be perfected that my actions matter and that I can make a difference.

ואע"פ שיתמהמה

And even though Moshiach is delayed and it sometimes seems like the world is regressing and that I cannot do anything to make a real difference.

עם כל זה אחכה לו בכל יום שיבוא

I still wait for Moshiach. I still have hope and act and live my life with that faith and hope.

But there are two extra words. I wait “Kol Yom” - every day. It must be Kol Yom, daily.

So here is the story about that Ani Maamin.

Reb Azriel Dovid Fastag owned a simple clothing store in Poland before the war. His livelihood came from the store but his passion was composing nigunim for his Rebbe, Rabbi Shaul Yedidya Elazar, the Modzitzer rebbe. When one of his new niggunim arrived in Modzitz, it was mamash a yom tov for the rebbe. Reb Azriel Dovid was also the chazan in the Modzitzer Shtibel (shul) in Warsaw.

In the late 1930’s the rebbe escaped and eventually made his way to NY but unfortunately many of his chassidim, including Rav Azriel Dovid, were left behind.

One very dark day, Rav Azriel Dovid and the jews of his town were rounded up and put in cattle cars on a train to Treblinka.

As an aside, I always like to look up cities on a map  when I hear about them in stories. So I went on Google Maps and found Warsaw and then Treblinka and hit the button for car directions. It said that Warsaw-Treblinka was an hour and a half drive. But Rav Azriel was not in a car, he was on a train. So I asked for train directions. You know what it said: “Sorry, there are no trains routes from Warsaw to Treblinka.” If only that would have been the answer 70 years ago.

But it wasn't. And Rav Azriel and most of the Modzitzer Chassidim from Warsaw were on that train.

Inside the crowded cars, the situation was deteriorating. Imagine the starvation, the crowding, the gasping for air the stench as the days wore on, the crying children and the parents who couldn't help. It was awful.

All of the sudden, in the midst of that awful scene, Reb Azriel Dovid, saw the letters of the Ani Maamin before his eyes. And he started composing a tune. He hummed at first and then he started singing softly:

Ani Maamin, Ani Maamin, B’emunah Shlaima. Beviat Hamoshiach, Beviat Hamoshiach Ani Maamin.

As his voice got louder, people started listening and then joining in. They no longer felt their hunger or could smell the stench. First the parents then the kids and pretty soon the entire cattle car was singing:

Ani Maamin, Ani Maamin, B’emunah Shlaima. Beviat Hamoshiach, Beviat Hamoshiach Ani Maamin.

Then the people in the next car overheard and started singing. Eventually the entire train of cattle cars stuffed with Jews (chassidic, misnagdic, religious, and secular) racing along the beautiful countryside from Warsaw to Treblinka was singing:

Ani Maamin, Ani Maamin, B’emunah Shlaima. Beviat Hamoshiach, Beviat Hamoshiach Ani Maamin.

Reb Azriel David opened his eyes to the sight of the singing train. He ripped off part of his shirt and wrote down the musical notes of the song he had just composed. He then said: “If Anyone brings this shirt, with the musical notes, to my rebbe in NY, will get half of my share in the World to Come.

Two young men appeared, promising to bring the song to the Rebbe at any cost. One of them climbed upon the other, and finding a small crack of the train's roof broke out a hole from which to escape.

The two proceeded to jump off and eventually were able to bring the song to the Modzitzer Rebbe in New York.

It is told that on the first Yom Kippur that the Modzitzer Rebbe sang the Ani Ma'amin, there were thousands of Jews in the shul. The entire congregation burst into tears,

"With this niggun," said Rebbe Shaul Yedidya Elazar, "the Jewish people went to the gas chambers. And with this niggun, the Jews will march to greet Moshiach."

When I think about this story, while I am of course very inspired by what happened on the Cattle car, I am more inspired by what happened later. The song made it to NY and so many Jews sang it and were inspired by it daily living their faith and their values Kol Yom, every day. What happened on that train was truly heroic. It was the ultimate Marathon Judaism and G-d gave them the strength to sing the Ani Maamin. But what happened and continues to happen every day as people are inspired by that story and others and live a life of hope and faith in a world in which their daily actions matter, this is the essence of life. This is living Yomi.

May Hashem bless all of us with the ability to live out our Values Yomi. May we have the courage to continue working on ourselves and transform those regrets and shame into beautiful Mitzvot and acts of Chesed. May we all be inscribed for a wonderful 5777!

Rosh Hashana 5777 - Faith Lost; Faith Recovered

I would like to begin with a very personal and intimate story about myself. About 18 years ago (when I was 19), I was studying in a Chareidi Yeshiva. I was very religious and had deep faith. My goal in life was to stay in the Yeshiva, get married, and study and teach Torah my entire life. I was not even planning on going to college for, at that time, I didn’t believe in secular studies.

But even as a devout Yeshiva student, I was always plagued by questions. How do we know G-d exists? Where was G-d during the Holocaust? How do we know the Torah is Divine? And for some reason, as a yeshiva student living in Jerusalem just a few miles from where terrorists were killing people in the name of Islam, I was obsessed with the thought that had I believed G-d wanted me to kill innocent people, I would have done it.

I remember going to the Mashgiach Ruchani (Spiritual Mentor) of the yeshiva with my questions. I was not satisfied with his answers and I kept challenging. Finally, he looked at me and said, “Nissan, do you want to believe?” I said, “Yes, very much.” He told me to stop thinking about G-d. I told him this was impossible because every time I studied Bible or Jewish thought, the questions would come back. So he put me on a course of study where I would only study Talmudic Tractates that dealt with tort law (Baba Kama, Baba Metziah) all about what happens if my ox gores your cow or if we someone is negligent when watching someone else’s property. I buried myself in these Talmudic discussions for about 6 months and thereby buried my questions.

Until….one day I got sick. It was nothing serious but I was running a high fever and could no longer study Talmud. I laid in bed for three days and all I could think about were my questions. My mind was about to explode. After three days, my fever broke and I went to Ben Yehuda street because I heard that there were some used book stores. I needed to find answers to my questions.

I found a bookstore. The first floor only had the “kosher” books and I was not interested in that. But upstairs is where they had the “heretical books.” I walked up the old rickety wooden staircase. I found the shelf that had books on Academic bible, comparative religion and philosophy. I had never before in my life read anything unsanctioned by the yeshiva. With great trepidation, I took some of the books off the shelf, went over to a bench in the corner and started reading. 3 hours later, I realized something changed inside me. I had completely lost my faith. I no longer believed the Torah was divine. I was no longer sure that G-d existed. 12 plus years of wonderful day school education, hundreds of thousands of dollars of day school tuition, countless hours of praying with real tears and devotion, all of it gone. All of it was lost, in 3 hours, on a bench, on the second floor of a used bookstore in the holiest city in the world.

I share this deeply personal moment with all of your (my 500 best friends!) because I have had conversations with so many of you who are struggling with your faith. I hope that my own story (which includes loss of faith but then an intense long process of rebuilding my faith) can serve as a model for you wherever you are on your faith journey.

I have been rereading Elie Wiesel's books in the three months since his death. For many people, Wiesel's writings (especially “Night”) are a glimpse into the horrors of the Shoah. But for me, when I read  “Night” as a 19 year old, the Holocaust was just the backdrop. Almost every page of the book was like an arrow piercing into my heart of faith. Let me give one example.

At one point, Wiesel’s foot was frozen and infected. He almost lost it. He was in the infirmary talking to his neighbor in the next bed. They hear bombing and shooting coming from the Allied forces and Wiesel had hope that the nightmare would end. His neighbor said:

“Don’t let yourself be fooled with illusions. Hitler has made it very clear that he will annihilate all the Jews before the clock strikes twelve…

Weisel bursts out:

“What does it matter to you? Do we have to regard Hitler as a prophet?”

The neighbor’s glazed eyes look at Wiesel. At last he says in a weary voice:

“I’ve got more faith in Hitler that in anyone else. He’s the only one who’s kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.” (“Night” page 87)

As a 19 year old, passages like these crushed my faith in the G-d who controls the world and who answers prayers. It was a very scary time for me because my entire anchor and foundation was faith and it was all coming crashing down.

So how did I get from that very scary place to here? How am I now a rabbi with a rebuilt faith that in many ways is stronger and more enduring than before?

For this I turn to one of the names of Rosh Hashana, Yom Harat Olam (anniversary of the creation of the world). It is not really the anniversary of the creation of the world. That happened 6 days ago on the 25th of Elul but today is the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve. G-d could only be coronated as King of the Universe once there were people. So how did this coronation take place 5,777 years ago on the first Rosh Hashana. Well there were no synagogues, no minyan, and no shofar. All they had was G-d, Adam and Eve, and the snake. G-d told Adam (who then told Eve) not to eat from the tree of Knowledge. In other words, the entire Torah was this one commandment. They were told that if they eat, they will die.

In comes the snake and tempts Eve with the fruit. At first she says she will not eat because she does not want to die.

(I remember this feeling. As a teenager, as much as I would have loved to have a cheeseburger, I was convinced that I wouldn't be able to even finish it before lighting would strike me dead!)

The snake convinces her that she won’t die so she and Adam eat the fruit. Now here is the schocker. Whose prediction was correct, the snake or G-d? The snake was correct. They did not die!

(This is like the rebellious teenager who starts to lose faith and eats the cheeseburger and….no lightning….G-d is not going to do anything).

So Adam and Eve are probably in a pretty bad place (from a faith perspective at this point). They have just violated the only commandment and G-d’s threat did not materialize.

But that is not the end of the story. I think there is a shofar in the story. It is a question. The first question in the Bible. Ayeka - Where are you? They hear G-d’s existential question. What is the point of being here. Who are they? This question which is deeper than any faith proposition draws them back.

I think that what saved me when I was 19 is that I always heard that question. I always heard the sound of the shofar. I always wanted to reconnect as my connection it was something much deeper than any article of faith and I held onto it and built on it.

This is not the place or time to go through the theological underpinnings of my reconstructed faith. My questions took me to Kabbalah and Chasidut, to Maimonides’ “Guide for the Perplexed” and many other works. I would be happy to go into more detail at other opportunities. But for now, I have one message:

Don’t give up on faith! Don’t give up on Torah and our amazing jewish values and teachings. Even if you feel like you are struggling with (or have even completely lost) your faith, ask yourself if you hear the call of “Ayeka” (Where are you). When you will hear the shofar in just a few minutes, will it just be a sound or will it reach some place deep inside of you? If you don’t hear it, try to listen even harder. If it reaches that place, grab onto it and if you want it, I promise you, you can build on it.

Let me return to Elie Wiesel. I just finished rereading “Night.” Now, in reading the book that originally shattered my faith, I found G-d on almost every page. An example:

When Wiesel and his family first arrived in Auschwitz, they heard the SS Officer say those fateful 8 words:

“Men to the left. Women to the right.”

“For a part of a second, I glimpsed my mother and my sisters moving away to the right. Tzipora held mother’s hand. I saw them disappear into the distance; my mother was stroking my sister’s fair hair, as though to protect her, while I walked on with my father. I did not know that in that place, at that moment, I was parting from my mother and Tzipora forever. I went on walking. My father held onto my hand.” (“Night” page 39).

As heartbreaking as this passage is, I see G-d all over it. I see G-d in Wiesel’s mother’s hand as she stroked her daughter’s hair. I see G-d in that holy space between father and son as they walked together hand in hand.

Later in the book, when Wiesel sees another son who abandons his father for the sake of his own survival, Wiesel offers a prayer “to the G-d I no longer believe in” that he should be able to take care of his father. I see G-d and faith in their beautiful relationship throughout the book. In recent years, I have also become very taken by Holocaust responsa and I see G-d in every Jew’s attempts during the Shoah to keep the holidays or kosher or in attempts to share a piece of bread or even a smile with their fellow.

I want to underscore that this sermon is not a theological treatise on the question of “where was G-d during the shoah?”. It is also not a description of my personal theology (nor should it be analyzed as such). It is just my way of showing that if you continue to hear the sound of the shofar, if you continue to hear the question, Ayeka, you can grab onto it and pull yourself back.

We just observed the 15th anniversary of 9/11. 9/11 happened at the time when I was working on reconstructing my faith. The images of the twin towers and the pentagon became a prominent metaphor for me. I started to think of my old faith like the World Trade Center Towers. My faith, like the towers, was soaring and majestic. It reached the heavens. But as soon as it was hit with a severe blow, it all came crashing down. My new faith is more like the Pentagon. It is lower to the ground. It is spread out. It takes a long time to navigate and understand. But when and if it receives a blow, it will continue to stand. It can be rebuilt. I am told that the pentagon has many underground floors and rooms. In other words, while it might not soar to heaven it has deep roots. A great part of my rabbinate is helping people build their pentagon faith.

This past summer, I was in Israel. I have visited Israel many times since but have never returned to that bookstore. This time, I had a burning desire to return to the place (אל המקום) that impacted me so much.

So I started looking for the bookstore. I went in one bookstore, not the right one. A second, not it either, but I was given directions to a third. I walked into a narrow alley. Found the bookstore and walked inside. This was it. I climbed those rickety wooden stairs to the second floor. I went to the shelf. I swear that some of those books on the shelf were the same ones from 18 years ago! I took a book off the shelf and walked over to the bench but instead of reading, I started to weep. It was a deep cry. I don't know where it came from but I couldn't stop for at least 5 minutes.

I had never mourned my lost faith. I never mourned my world trade center tower which soared to the heaven and now I was weeping for that loss.

After 5 minutes the tears dried up and in its place came a great sense of happiness. I looked around the shelves with the knowledge that I could read any of these books and while I might get challenged and have to rethink things, no book could shatter my faith. My new faith is strong and enduring and comes from the deepest part of my being.

So I decided I had to buy a book but not from the second floor!. I walked downstairs to the “kosher” section and I found a Yom Ha’atzmaut Machzor (prayerbook). This was particularly exciting for me because my first faith did not have room in it to celebrate Zionism and the miracle of the modern state of Israel. Today, with my new faith, Yom Ha’atzmaut is a day I celebrate the “Hand” of G-d acting in this world through human initiative.

So I ask all of you as you hear the sound of the shofar, listen for that question, Ayeka - where are you and where do you want to go? When you hear the shofar does it touch you some place inside of you? If so, grab onto it and allow it to propel you into a wonderfully fulfilling and deeply meaningful 5777.

Shana Tova!