At Woodlands Community Temple, where I am honored to serve as Rabbinic Intern, each Friday night the sermons are enhanced by iyyunim, written and delivered by the service leaders who are not preaching that evening. The goal of a Woodlands iyyun is to use a wide variety of resources - Jewish and secular - to further elucidate the theme of the sermon, while linking it to the prayer immediately following.
Sh’ma
I played football for eight years when I was growing up, and I would get dressed exactly the same way each time. Right sock, then left sock, then left cleat, then right cleat. I don’t remember how or where this ritual started, but it became very important to me that this was the way I got dressed. Following this exact order of preparation would lead me eventually out on the field to practice or a game. In this process, I could look forward, knowing what was coming next. The Sh’ma is often called the central creed of Judaism, and as one of our most important prayers, it has its own “pregame ritual.” The prayers immediately preceding sh’ma are grouped in our liturgy as “sh’ma and its blessings.” As we begin with Bar’chu and move forward, we know that we are moving steadily forward, towards the Sh’ma. The Hebrew month of Elul, that last month preceding Rosh HaShanah, allows us a similar space to look ahead and know what is coming. It is in Elul that we actually start our process of Cheshbon HaNefesh, an accounting of our souls, that will continue through our Days of Awe. On this final Shabbat of 5778, let’s put on our socks and shoes (in any order you would like) and ready ourselves for the work ahead.
Mi Chamocha
A classmate of mine is home in Chicago this week for the holidays, and when she arrived at home, her parents took her out for their customary Chicago-style deep dish “pizza.” When the check arrived her father took out his phone before they paid, to make sure that he was getting all of the rewards points on the restaurants app. What my friend noticed, was that at the top of the app, the header said “Redemption Menu,” and the text message I received was a picture of this app, with the caption, “Saw this and thought, we really need this for the High Holy Days.” Sounds convenient, right? An app with a menu of redemption for us, as we sit during these Days of Awe, and think about what we might need redemption from.
Mi Chamocha is our daily redemption reminder. The moment in our service where we acknowledge with gratitude our freedom, and recommit to the work of redeeming those in our world who are not yet free/have not yet been redeemed. In this moment tonight on Shabbat Shuva, let us embrace this reminder as a daily one. In 5780, may we not - like the app - save up our redemption points for one big reward, but use this small reminder in our liturgy to do this work as often as possible, on whatever scale - and bring that feeling of redemption to as many people as we can.
Amidah
Jews love blessings. We have a blessing after we eat; we have a blessing before we eat; we have a different blessing before we eat if that meal didn’t include any bread... We even have a special blessing that some people say upon seeing someone whom they haven’t seen in a long time. It goes like this: Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech HaOlam, m’chayei hametim. Blessed are you, Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe, who gives life to the dead. Now, wait a minute. This person isn’t dead, we just haven’t seen them in a long time. However, the metaphorical language used here is what I believe makes this blessing so powerful. Jewish tradition likens the experience of re-connection to that of reviving the dead. This phrase, m’chayei hameitim, is also used twice in the traditional version of the g’vurot, the second prayer in our Amidah. {it has been changed in our prayerbook, in order to avoid the literal reading of God reviving the dead} But here too, a metaphorical reading can be much more powerful. M’chayei hametim could be about giving life to that which feels dead, or dormant in our lives. Or, just like the blessing, could be about giving new life and new energy to a relationship that has faltered. When we read this as metaphor, we can use it as a reminder for ourselves. As we embrace and embody the divine spark within each of us, we can take hold of this power, to consider those relationships and experiences we have, and into them breathe a little bit of new life.
Sim Shalom
The penultimate song in the Broadway musical Hadestown goes like this:
It’s a sad song
It’s a sad tale
It’s a tragedy
It’s a sad song
But we sing it anyway
‘Cause here’s the thing:
To know how it ends,
And still begin to sing it again
As if it might turn out this time - I learned that from a friend of mine.
When I first heard it, it completely knocked me down. What a powerful sentiment, what a powerful description of faith. To know how it ends, and still begin to sing it again, as if it might turn out this time….This is also, in a lot of ways, how I feel about prayer. And specifically, the prayer for peace. In my experience, we can pray for peace as much and as hard as we can, and sometimes peace still feels so far away. Perhaps, even if it is making a difference, there is so much pain and anguish in the world that our prayers feel as if they have fallen on deaf ears. But that’s the beauty of it. Maybe that’s why there are a number of different pieces of liturgy that pray for peace, and maybe that’s why we say them so often. Because to know it might not fix everything, to know that it maybe won’t even make a difference, but to do it anyway? Against those odds? Maybe that makes all the difference in the world. Sim Shalom.
Aleinu
Over the break I got to spend some time with a baby cousin of mine, who is just learning how to walk. One morning, a few of us were sitting on the couch in the living room, just watching as my cousin would get up, take a few steps, and then fall down, unsuccessful. Then she would get right back up, and walk forward again. As we marvelled at her that morning, I thought about how powerful her resolve was, and how we lose that as we grow older. As she learns how to walk, she will continue to get up and take steps, and continue to fall. Sometimes she will make it farther than other times, and sometimes the falls will hurt more than others. But in the time I spent with her, she never stopped trying to take that next step. For most of us, that undeterred audacity to just do the next thing diminishes as we move through life, but that doesn’t mean it isn't crucial for us to try and maintain it or recapture it as best we can. In our prayer service, Aleinu serves as a reminder to us of the task at hand. Aleinu is always at the end of the service - a final reminder that there is crucial work to be done in our world, and that it is on us to do it. A reminder that our unique mission in the world as Jews is to work to repair as much of our world as possible, and work towards that moment we talk about at the end of the prayer - when on that day the world will be one. It won’t happen overnight, and it might not even happen in our lifetime, but our Aleinu prayer is a consistent reminder of our obligation to try, to be audacious, to take just one more step, as we learn how to walk the path towards a more complete world. Please rise.