Living With and Embracing Mystery1
Yom Kippur Morning 5767
Rabbi Joseph R. Black
Congregation Albert -
Albuquerque, NM
One day, a man received a message from God. It was simple and direct: "Go to the Casino!" So he went. When he got there, he heard another message: "Go to the Blackjack table - bet everything!" So, he went to the Blackjack table and bet all of his money. The dealer dealt him a 6 and a 10. That meant that he had 16 - not a great hand. The dealer was showing a 7.
The next message came: "Take a Hit!" He asked for another card. It was a 2 - that made 18 - a good hand with the dealer showing a 7. The next message came: "Take another hit!" He balked..... "Take a hit!" God commanded. He asked for a card - it was a 2. That meant he had 20 facing a dealer's 7. He was ready to sit back and see if he won, but God's voice came again: "Take another hit!" Now if you know anything about Blackjack, the odds of you receiving an Ace on 20 to make 21 are practically impossible. The man balked - "TAKE A HIT!!!!" God's voice thundered. The dealer dealt him an Ace - that made 21 - a perfect hand. The dealer had to stand at 17 - the man won.
Then the man heard God's voice one more time .... "Wow, that was AWESOME!!!!!"2
I love that story - as bizarre as it is - because it teaches a profound truth: there are things in this world that are so mysterious - that, perhaps, even God is in awe of them.
Today, I want to talk about mystery - and the fact that for too many of us, there is little left in this world that is mysterious.
The torah portion that we in the Reform movement read on Yom Kippur morning is not the traditional reading. The editors of our prayer book decided that the traditional parashah - which dealt with the Priestly rules surrounding Yom Kippur - did not convey the grandeur and power of this day. And so, they substituted sections of Parsashat Nitzavim - with its message of individual responsibility for the fulfillment of God's ethical demands. The sections that our movement chose to include are very meaningful, but I believe that, in the editing process, we left out one sentence that is necessary in our world today.
Our portion begins:
Your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from wood-chopper to water-drawer to enter into a covenant with your God."
In our text, Moses goes to great length to let all Israel know that what God demands is accessible for all to choose; man and women, young and old, those present and those yet to be born.
They are universal in that they are for everyone - and for all time!
For this commandment which I command you this day, is not hidden from you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us, that we may hear it, and do it? Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it, and do it? But the word is very near to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it.
It is not "beyond the sea", in some other country or place. Moses assures us that what God asks of us, demands of us, is not beyond our reach,
It is "in our mouths.
and in our hearts" for us to do.
In other words the meaning of Torah and the mitzvot can be found in what we say to each other, and how behave with each other. It is not mysterious at all.
As I looked over these familiar verses in preparation for Yom Kippur this year, I realized that if we had included one more verse - Deuteronomy 29:28- a whole new dimension to the meaning of this day might be revealed.
"Those things which are hidden are in the realm of Adonai our God; But those things which are revealed are for us and our children - that we might always follow the provisions of this teaching."
What does our text mean when it speaks of "those things which are hidden" and "those things that are revealed?"
Written in the Torah - above the words "us and our children" - UbhίbŠc‰kU UbÊŠk there is a line of dots. They're not cantillation notes. They're just..... Dots - with no obvious meaning. Some commentaries suggest that the Masorites, the ones who punctuated the Bible as we use it today, put them there to signify to us that something hidden and mysterious is happening here.
The Rabbis try to clarify what they think is happening.
They ask the question "What is revealed [by these dots]?"
Their answer is very simple and straightforward - Torah: our roadmap for humanity that is revealed to all - through all time.
The Torah was never intended to be some sacred lore, available only to a select few upon whom the rest depend. The rabbis never were considered unapproachable holy men or keepers of a divine secret. From the very start of Rabbinic Judaism the Rabbis' mission was to establish a new Judaism that was rooted in the people. Their authority to do so came from the Torah itself when Moses says: "It is not in the heavens.
So, the answer to the question, "What is revealed?" is the Torah itself.
What, then, is hidden? And, what does it mean when our text says that the hidden is only the concern of God?
The answer to this question is not so simple.
Our tradition teaches that there is an answer for almost every question - if we search hard enough, if we dedicate ourselves to the process of study, then we can find meaning in almost every situation. BUT...... there are some rare cases where no answer is available. In the Talmud, when the Rabbis are unable to find an answer to a question they use a concept called: "Teku".
Teku is an acronym for the phrase: "Tishbi Yitareytz Kushyot U'va-ayot" - the Tishabite (Elijah the prophet) will someday come and explain all unanswered questions.
In other words, when the time for the Messiah is here, one of the ways that we will know that he is about to come will be when Elijah the prophet will return to answer all of the unanswered mysteries of the Universe.
Until that time, however, there will be aspects of the world that we cannot know - we cannot grasp - no matter how hard we try to understand them.
So, the truth is - we don't know what the text means when it states: "Those things which are hidden are in the realm of Adonai our God". It's a mystery.
We are Human. We are Mortal. We can't know everything. What makes the Unetana Tokef such a powerfully emotional prayer is the fact that it forces us to face that which ultimately we cannot know, "Who shall live and who shall die?"
Job understood this, as he declared:
"But where shall wisdom be found? Where is the place of understanding? Humanity does not know the way, yet. It is not found in the way of the living."
So did the author of Proverbs when he asks:
"Who has gathered the winds in his fists? Who has gathered the waters in his grasp? Who has established all the ends of the earth?
The author of Ecclesiastes understood this when he wrote:
Yet, God made everything beautiful in its time, and implanted our minds with mystery, so we may never really know what God has done from the beginning to the end." (Ecc. 3:11)
Those things which are hidden are in the realm of Adonai our God; But those things which are revealed are for us and our children...
The order of the world is a wondrous mystery. And for the wise, it is the world's prevailing orderliness - in its relationship to the universe - that is the ultimate mystery. And that is what ultimately demands our attention.
Every day we penetrate further into the unknown... into the skin as we unravel the mysteries of DNA; and into the brain as we learn how the mind works.
We push out further, beyond the moon and Mars.
Telescopes and exploratory satellites reveal new facts about our solar system. Pluto is no longer a planet; the universe is finite and may be shrinking. Cosmology continues to expand our knowledge of the many inscrutable forces at work in the universe. Such discovery has led molecular biologists, nuclear physicists, and other classical scientists to admit that what we formally perceived as random acts of nature may very well be evidence of an order that transcends previously held notions of Chaos. The well-known physicist, Paul Davis writes:
[Only recently have we] begun to understand how complexity and organization can emerge from featurelessness and chaos. Research in areas as diverse as crystal growth and neural networks is revealing the extraordinary propensity for physical systems to generate new systems of order spontaneously. It is clear that there exists a self-organizing process in every branch of science.3"
Think about what this is saying! If nothing else, it is an acknowledgment of the truth of the 19th Psalm that teaches that "The heavens declare the glory of God. And the earth suggests God's handiwork." It's enough to give one.......faith.
But, as we know all too well, in the world in which we live, "faith" is a dangerous word - it is a political word - for one person's faith, is another's blasphemy.
For too long, the word "faith" has been seen as the property of one type of religious thought - that which makes a sharp distinction between the hidden and the revealed. To dare to cross these groups' self-imposed thresholds is to engage in blasphemy and heresy. To teach evolution in schools, to uphold the rights of women, gays and lesbians, to prohibit sectarian prayer in the military - these are heretical acts to many in our society today.
These are the people who feel called to regulate and attempt to legislate how we think, how we learn, how, where and to whom we pray.
And then there are those who, rather than attempt to impose their beliefs on others, withdraw into self isolating enclaves, and self-imposed ghettos. They refuse to study any material of the larger secular world - not that such material secrets belong only to God, but because it contaminates; because it might contain that, which if "revealed," would poison their world of belief.
It's refreshing, and perhaps a ray of hope, however, that there are voices like that of John Danforth - the former Republican Senator from Missouri and an ordained Episcopal priest - who speaks publicly about what he says is the Christian right's hijacking of the Republican Party. Upset that his party has embraced the agenda of the Christian right by using religious issues such as stem-cell research, euthanasia, abortion, gay-marriage and public prayer as wedge issues, which have split this country in two, he laments: "Real faith is about searching for answers, not presuming to have them.4"
Yet, we - the cosmopolitan, the contemporary, the worldly, the intellectual, are equally guilty. In reaction to the distasteful use and abuse of religion in the political arena, too many of us reject religious discourse altogether. We study everything secular. We explore it all. Math, physics, biology, English lit, philosophy. We study every discipline but our own. And, that too, is a sin.
As I mentioned on Rosh Hashanah, Congregation Albert is growing. We are thriving in terms of numbers and program. And yet, if we measure the success of our congregation by the number of people who come to services on a regular basis, who attend torah study or other adult education courses, we might come to quite a different conclusion.
I was distressed to see the number of empty seats in our sanctuary on Rosh Hashanah. I was saddened to think that this time of the year - the holiest days in our calendar - was not enough to bring much of our membership to come together in worship.
My friends, is it possible that we've successfully managed to somehow turn the Biblical metaphor on its head? Could it be that the gifts which God has revealed to us have now become hidden from our view. We have a good command of the "The secrets". But we've turned our backs to that which is revealed - that which is available - The Torah - our tradition. What irony! What a paradox!
In our reach for discovery, for truth, we've cut ourselves off from the very mystery, the very truth, that there is an unknowable consciousness that has sustained us all this time.
Rabbi Harold Kushner has written:
"Once, there was magic and a sense of mystery in our lives. Once (in our childhood and in the childhood of the human race) there were places that were unlike all other places, and moments in time that were different from ordinary time. They added color, texture, and excitement to our lives. But today no place is off limits to human ingenuity. We have become so good at unraveling mysteries that few things still mystify us, and in the process we may have become the people to whom the late philosopher Joseph Campbell addressed this warning: `When you get to be older and the concerns of the day have been attended to, and you turn to the inner life - well, if you don't know where it is or what it is, you'll be sorry.
We have largely lost the capacity for reverence, the sense of awe that comes from realizing how much greater God is than we are. We have lost it, paradoxically, because the [modern world]5 teaches us both how great we are and how small we are."6
This doesn't mean that there is not a hunger for spirituality in our midst. On the contrary, on a daily basis I see men, women and children who are eager to find deeper meaning and purpose in their lives. But what concerns me greatly is the fact that, in their search, many of our congregants feel that the answers to their questions are not found in Jewish tradition - or in community at all. There seems to be a disconnect in many of us between Spiritual seeking and being part of a community. The society in which we live teaches that each of us can find meaning and purpose on our own - in isolation from community. Answers can be found on the internet, in books, in therapy.... There is some truth to this - but it's not fully Jewish. To be Jewish is to be part of a community. As Rabbi Eric Yoffie once said: "There is no such thing as Lone Ranger Judaism7."
So today I am offering us - not answers - but opportunities to share our search together. Through Torah - Study. Through Avodah - Prayer. Through Gemilut Chasadim - Acts of Loving-kindness - through being part of a caring, searching, faithful community.
Being Jewish is as much in the practice of Judaism, as it is in what we learn from a text or in a class. Judaism is inherently living -being- in a community of our peers and God. To be a Jew is to share your Judaism with the rest of us, as we share ours with you. It is not enough to do your own thing.
As if to anticipate our need to do something communal after all the praying of Yom Kippur, we're given the perfect opportunity to take the necessary first step. We are told that even before breaking the fast we are to go home and nail the first nail into our Sukkah - that ever so fragile booth we build each year where we welcome everyone in and that looks like it needs everyone's help to keep it standing. If ever there's a structure that replicates uncertainty and mystery it is the Sukkah. And it is precisely, and I think with intention, that it is on this foundation of the unknown future that we start the new year.
Amidst all this, this morning's Torah portion becomes that much more reassuring.
Those things which are hidden are in the realm of Adonai our God; But those things which are revealed are for us and our children...
A Story: Once the Stoliner rebbe found himself in a strange town on the eve of Yom Kippur, and we went to the local shul to pray Kol Nidre. When he walked into the synagogue he was recognized immediately and with the respect a great teacher deserves, the leadership asked him to honor the congregation with a sermon. So, the rebbe went in front of the congregation, looked out into the sanctuary, and after many minutes of silence lifted up his hands and said "Ich Ken Nicht" - I don't know!
How liberating! To realize that even the most knowledgeable, the most learned, really when it comes to the ultimate questions, just don't know.
My Dear Friends, On this Yom Kippur may we all find a way to search together - to find that which is revealed - and struggle with the hidden. May our searching bring us strength.
AMEN Ken yehi ratzon
1 This sermon was written in partnership with my friend and colleague, Rabbi Barnett Brickner.
2 Thanks to Doug Cotler for this story.
3 Paul Davis, The Cosmic Blueprint
4 From Faith and Politics" by Senator John Danforth Viking, 2006
5 Actual text: "twentieth century"
6 Kushner, Harold. Who Needs God. p.51
7 Taken from Rabbi Eric Yoffie's Biennial address in Minneapolis, 2003.