The Same, But Different: Before Rosh HaShanah

“Ehhhhhhh….S’LICHAH!”   

If you’ve ever been to Israel or had any interaction with an Israeli, you’re familiar with the phrase. It is the Hebrew equivalent of “excuse me,” and Israelis use it for anything and everything, even when—especially when—they don’t really mean it. Once in Jerusalem I wasn’t bumped into, I was blatantly shoved by a woman trying to move past me, and when I looked at her incredulously, waiting for some kind of apology, she begrudgingly said, “Oh. Slicha.” As if just saying the word made it all okay.   

But s’lichah is—or at least, it’s supposed to be—more than just “excuse me,” more than just a necessary verbal offering in an effort to appear polite. It is, at its essence, a phrase, a concept we hear an awful lot this time of year on the Jewish calendar, most clearly tomorrow night for the observance of Selichot, but all throughout our High Holy Day liturgy. And that is forgiveness. We are, at the moment, in the final week of Elul, the month leading up to Rosh HaShanah, where we’re supposed to be taking a good, hard, deep look at ourselves, evaluating our lives—where we’ve been, where we are, where we’re headed. The rabbis call it cheshbon ha-nefesh, an accounting of the soul, a taking stock of who we are, as we prepare to enter into the new year. When this cheshbon ha-nefesh—this digging down into the deepest, darkest recesses of our entire beings, the places perhaps only God and each of us know—when it’s done honestly and truthfully, it is grueling and upsetting and scary as hell. But when it’s done right, there is, I believe, nothing more powerful, nothing more transformative in nature.   

So. How do we get ourselves to begin this most difficult of processes? How do we start to strive for the ultimate reward of this soul-searching, hoping to God it’s all worth the incredibly hard work it requires, the hurt and the pain we will inevitably discover along the way?   

We begin with the word shanah, the Hebrew word meaning “year.” A professor at HUC in Jerusalem told us to look at the word, and asked us what is its shoresh, its root? Taken one way, the root is shin-nun-hay, having to do with changes and differences, as in the Arik Einstein song Ani V’atah N’shaneh et Ha-olam, “You and I will change the world,” as well as the chorus of the Four Questions from Passover, Mah nishtanah ha-laila hazah mikol haleilot?, “What makes this night different from all other nights?” With this root in mind, the word shanah tells us that the new year is a chance to make changes in our lives, to do things differently in 5772 than we did in 5771. Whether the changes are as big as things like improving our time or stress management, or as small as cutting back your coffee intake by one cup a day, they’re all changes for the better. So shanah is an opportunity for change.   

But if we look at it another way, perhaps the root is shin-nun-nun, which has to do with repeating or doubling things, as in the verse from V’ahavta:  v’shinantam l’vanecha, literally “and you shall repeat them to your children,” and shnayim, the number two. For all of the things we could have—and maybe should have—done differently in the past year, there are so many things that we did right, that we did well. And it’s these things that we want to repeat, and double, and triple, if we can. Clearly we didn’t mess everything up, right? So what’s wrong with focusing some of our energy on what went right so that we can try to do even more, even better versions, of those?    

This is not to say that focusing on the good things we want to repeat is more important than the things we want to change. Not hardly. They are unequivocally halves of the same whole, both parts necessary if we really want to do this soul-searching thing right. But perhaps the emphasis on the good is exactly what we need to hear right now. After all, it’s this time of year, this point in our calendar, where the famous Jewish guilt first made a name for itself. And we spend so much of it focused on our shortcomings, our flaws, our mistakes, beating at our chests as we recite the communal confession of Ashamnu.

But we still did some good in there. That shouldn’t be overlooked by us, because it certainly isn’t by God. So maybe for each striking of our chest for what we did wrong this past year—for what we want to shoneh, to make different, for the coming year—maybe we can give ourselves a small pat on the back, for everything we did right, everything we want to shinan, to repeat again and again.   

May 5772 be a happy, healthy, sweet, successful, and meaningful year for all of us. May we find the strength and courage to embark on the difficult, but powerful and transformative journey that comes with a genuine cheshbon ha-nefesh, a true accounting of our souls. And when we come together, in the coming weeks and months, at the same time next year, may each of us find ourselves better people than we are right now.

AMEN.

Ten Years Later: Remembering 9/11

I remember back in 1996 when the blockbuster film Independence Day came out in theaters. It was, I believe, the first, or at least the most widely known, of a series of movies with an apocalyptic, End of Days-type theme, where each of them became identified with a major landmark being destroyed. For Independence Day, it was the White House. And I remember how incredibly upsetting I found it. I couldn’t have cared less for the amazing special effects that would eventually win the film an Oscar. It wasn’t cool or exciting to see something iconic, something so meaningful to so many people, explode in a million pieces. It wasn’t raising issues around security and self-defense, in the name of provoking thought and questioning and a critical approach to the systems and protocols in place. Not in this action/comedy, where crazy Randy Quaid saves humanity by sacrificing himself, flying right into the alien ship, crying out, “Hello boys! I’m baaaack!” No. Not fascinating. Not intriguing. Just downright upsetting. And terrifying, to say the least.

The question I do remember the film raising, however, was this: What would you do if the world was about to end? That, I thought, was intriguing. That, I thought, was worthy of contemplation and exploration. And yet, while the question could have been addressed in some deep, philosophical, theological, cosmological realm, that isn’t quite what happened. On MTV—you remember that, right?--well, on MTV, when they’d ask this question, you got all kinds of intelligent, selfless, and classy responses such as, “Well I’d throw a big ol’ bash and go out partying!” Or “I’d go try to get it on with every girl who’ll let me!” Or “I’d jump out of an airplane and then go bungee jumping!” Or the best one, which was something to the effect of, “I’d get all kinds of wasted and just let it happen.

Nonetheless, despite the juvenile responses to it, the question is still potentially very powerful: What would you do if the world was going to end? What would you do if you knew you were about to die?

Ten years ago this Sunday, for nearly 3,000 Americans, that question jolted violently from the hypothetical to the actual. Ten years ago this Sunday, 3,000 mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, left their homes—for work, for a plane trip—never to return there again. This time it wasn’t special effects, no CGI wizardry from a Hollywood studio. This was terribly, horrifyingly real. Surreal, even; I remember that being the word on everyone’s lips. And before any of us knew what had happened, gone were the towers of the World Trade Center. Gone were the lives of 3,000 innocent people. Gone was the America, the world, the life we always knew.

But what is not gone are the stories. The stories that came to light in the weeks and months that followed. The stories of unfathomable bravery—of police and firefighters and first responders who made the ultimate sacrifice, returning again and again and again into that fiery hell everyone else was running from, to help just one more person, save just one more soul. The stories of strength and courage—of the passengers of United Flight 93, who came together to take down their own flight, and the lives of everyone onboard, before it too could be used as a weapon of further terror. The stories of the purest, truest love—of final phone calls to family members telling them how much they loved them, how much they meant to them, how they would need to be strong to take care of each other; and that famous clip of the husband and wife, clutching each other’s hands, choosing to end it all, together, with one final leap of faith.

The stories live on. They live within each of us, within all of us, and they will stay with us forever—haunting us, yet giving us hope; breaking our hearts, yet opening them up to be full once again.

What would we do if it had been us? God willing, it’s a question we’ll never have to answer. But the question we do have to answer is this: What do we do with the time we have left? What do we do with the time we all too often take for granted, the time that was taken from all of them in a heartbeat?

I’d like to conclude tonight with a poem written by Rabbi Zoe Klein following September 11, 2001. It’s called “Two Candles.”

On Shabbat we would light two candles,

one for remembering Shabbat

and one for observing Shabbat.

Tonight we light two candles:

this one for Building One,

this one for Building Two;

this one for the Pentagon,

and this one for Pittsburgh;

this one for the hundreds of firefighters,

this one for the hundreds of police;

this one for all the men,

and this one for all the women;

this one for all the girls,

and this one for all the boys;

and these candles for the husband and wife

who leapt out of the tower holding hands;

this one for our luck running out,

this one for the New York skyline;

this one for the walking wounded,

this one for the critically wounded;

this one for the survivors,

this one for the dead;

this candle for Building One,

this candle for Building Two.

As we remember that fateful day that changed everything, we say zichronam livrachah, may their memory truly be a blessing for us all. Let us take a moment of silence to honor their memory, and then take it with us by living each moment of our lives as though it were our last.