Yom Kippur 5779: "In Praise of the Old - Why Middle Age Doesn't scare me!"

Some friends and I were having a “debate”. The debate - when exactly does middle age begin. One person said 40, another said 45 and a third person said 50 (a very optimistic person to call 50 middle age!). So since I am a rabbi and very interested in Halachic precision, I had to look it up to see if there is a precise age for when middle age begins. It turns out it is a Machloket (talmudic debate) of the great dictionaries. According to the Oxford English Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster, middle age begins at  45.  But according to great rabbi and Posek of psychology Erik Erikson and the Collins English Dictionary middle age beings at 40.  

This debate is very important to me because (at least according to one of the above definitions of Middle Age), I will, G-d Willing, become middle aged in 5779! Or maybe we should say “early middle age”. Or at least let’s say that I am beginning a second stage of my adult life. I am no longer “new” to being an adult.

This “early middle aged”/second stage seems to be a present theme in my life this year! I mentioned on Rosh Hashana that this is my bar mitzvah High Holidays at Beth Sholom. For those of you that are counting, that means that I am beginning my thirteenth year! While I hope to be here for many more years, I can no longer say that being at Beth Sholom is new for me. (I am certainly no longer in the honeymoon period!). I guess I am entering into an “early middle age” stage of my career, or at least a second stage of my career.  

In 5779, Sarah and I will have our Chai (18th) anniversary. Again, please G-d, we will have many, many more years of happiness together but I think that as we get close to our Chai anniversary, we cannot really be called newlyweds. I guess our marriage is early middle age or at least a second stage (maybe 2.5!!)

Finally, ss a dad, my oldest is 12 and just had her bat mitzvah. I am sure that there are still many new “dad” experiences that I will have (especially as my kids become teens) but I am no longer a new dad. I am in a second stage of parenthood.

So I look at my life and wonder what it means to be in a second stage of life where there aren't any new big things going on. While I feel very settled and anchored, part of me asks, where is the new? The fresh? The different?

I think that this question is very important for us no matter what stage of life we are in, even those of us who are currently experiencing something new (marriage, child, job). Because most of life, most of the time, for most people; is actually old and the same. We are in second (or third or fourth stages). And it is really those things (the old, same old, same old) and how we do with them, that determine our success in life.

So how do we deal with this human dilemma? On the one hand, we crave the new, the exciting, the different. On the other hand, most of life is the old and the familiar. How do we live with passion and excitement when most of our life most of the time is old and familiar.

Well there is something amazing that happened today 3300 years ago on Yom Kippur that speaks to this issue. Every holiday has a story. Pesach has the exodus, sukkot has the dwelling in the booths in the desert, shavuot has giving of the torah. Even on Rosh Hashana, the rabbis tells us that Sarah, Rachel, Chana conceived. But what happened on Yom Kippur? What is the story?

The rabbis teach us that Yom Kippur is actually when we received the Torah. But we dont stay up all night studying Torah like shavuot. This isn't the wedding/honeymoon at Har Sinai. No cheesecake or blintzes for us today! Rather this is the second giving of the torah after something terrible happened.

Let me remind you of the chronology.

On the 6th of Sivan, the Jews received Torah/Tablets #1. Thunder, lightning, revelation, direct encounter with G-d. Moshe then goes up for 40 days on the mountain to learn the torah. He comes down late. The jews jump ship. The look for the new shiny Golden Calf. Moshe comes down and smashes the tablets on 17th of Tamuz. G-d then says that he will destroy the people and start again. Start a new relationship and create a new people out of Moshe’s descendents. The theory was “The old wasn’t working anymore. Let's start something new.”

Moshe then pleads with G-d for a second set of 40 days. Finally, G-d forgives on the 29th of Av with the famous 13 attributes of mercy that we say over and over again. the next day, on the 1st of elul, moshe goes up for another 40 days to receive the torah/tablets again. And he comes down today on Yom Kippur.

This about it. The Jews received the covenant the first time on shavuot. It was new and shiny with much excitement. But it was almost lost. And both sides almost gave up. Yom Kippur is the miracle of trying a second time.

Yom Kippur isn't the wedding; it’s the renewal of vows.

It isn't the honeymoon in some exotic place; it's the boring early wednesday morning in your same old house 15 years into the marriage when you and your spouse have an important conversation and appreciate each other just a bit more.

Yom Kippur is not about something new but about appreciating the old. What you already have.

This concept of “appreciating the old” jumped out at me this morning when I walked into shul. This morning, I made a bracha (blessing) that I have never made in my entire life! This is a big deal for someone who grew up religious and is (or almost is!) middle aged!

Rabbanit Fruchter and I were trying to think of what to put on the cold brew coffee table which is usually a nice place for people to say Good shabbos/Yom Tov on a regular shabbat/yom tov. We obviously could not serve cold brew coffee on Yom Kippur. So we came up with the idea of a “Besamim Bar.” You are allowed to smell nice things on Yom Kippur. In fact there is a custom to pass around besamim and etrogim on Yom Kippur so people could make brachot and get up to the requisite 100 Blessings for the day (which are hard to reach because we have blessing on food).

So I walked in this morning and there was an orange at the Besamim bar. The Halacha is that when one picks up an orange to smell (usually I pick it up to eat), you say Blessed are you Hashem, who puts a nice smell in the fruit. הנותן ריח טוב בפירות.

I had never made the bracha before this morning. I picked up the Orange which I usually only appreciate for its taste (when it is actually good and I am not just wolfing it down as I run out of the house!) and, through the help of the bracha, I was able to appreciate this (same old same old) orange in a completely new way through smell. I really appreciated the Bracha. It is one thing for G-d to make an orange. But it didn't have to have a nice smell! It was about appreciating something that I have in my house all the time in a completely new way! This by the way is one of the great things about making blessings!

I am reminded of the value of appreciating the old every time I open the Machzor. True, it is nice to hear a new melody every once in a while. But we really look forward to the what we can call the “Oldies but Goodies”! There is nothing like the whole shul singing together that (same old, same old) Avinu Malkeinu that you sang as a child. Its true that the words and tune are the same. But we infuse it with new meaning every year as we bring our new selves with our new worries and hopes and gratitudes into that Avinu Malkeinu. It is not always about finding the new but finding renewed meaning and meaning in the old.

Now to conclude with a story. You know I love to end with a story! But this year, I was really struggling to find a story. Yom Kippur was getting closer and closer and I still did not have a story. A few hours before Yom Kippur, I remembered that Rabbi Telushkin (one of the greatest speakers and storytellers is coming to Beth Sholom for a shabbaton on December 1 for Lieberman/Silverman Shabbaton (you don’t want to miss it!).

So I decided, to throw a “hail Miriam” (I called it in shul a Hail Mary but people gasped thinking I was talking about the religious persona when really I was thinking football metaphor!). I emailed Rabbi Telushkin and told him my sermon topic (second stage, middle age, in praise of the old) and asked him if he had a story for me. About 1 hour before Yom Kippur, I was in my office and the phone rang. I was about to ignore it but then I saw the caller ID said “Joseph Telushkin”! I quickly picked up the phone, “Hi is this Rabbi Telushkin?” “Yes,” He answered. “I would like to tell you Yom Kippur dvar torah from my father.” I am thinking, “ok.” I asked for a story and he is giving me a dvar torah. So he tells me a beautiful dvar torah (that I hope to share another time) but it was not a story and it had nothing to do with my topic.

But then it hit me. “The Oldies but Goodies”. On erev yom kippur, Rabbi Telushkin likes to tell over (every year) the dvar torah from his father to get a deeper appreciation of his father. This resonated with me as I had just read the intro to his book on the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He describes (this is my own words…) how it first the project was really an old topic. His father had been the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s personal accountant and his grandfather had a deep relationship with the Rebbe. So it was not the same kind of exciting research project as some of his other books. But then, as he got into the project, everytime he would go to Crown Heights, it was as if he was visiting his father and grandfather. He was gaining deeper appreciation and understanding of these “old” relationships through this new research.

We are about to recite Yizkor. During Yizkor, we reflect on those parts of our lives that our the oldest; Family, parents, values and community. We look for new insights and appreciation of those aspects of our lives that have always been there with us.

My Bracha to all of us is that we remember that the most important things in life are those things that we already have. The new is wonderful but our success as people and Jews will come from how we do the “old.” I hope we can reflect on that throughout our prayers and be sealed in the Book of Life.