Congregation Netivot Shalom

Erev Rosh Hashannah
Sep 28, 2011 (eve) / 1 Tishrei, 5772
Rabbi Shalom Bochner

Tonight our sanctuary is filled, as are other Jewish communities all over the world. Despite when the holidays fall, early or late, there are unseen forces that brings us all together: tradition, family, a desire for meaning in our lives, spiritual recharging, or perhaps even a tiny bit of un-conscience guilt. Each holiday has its own customs, beauty, melodies, and mitzvot. Beyond the Torah's instructions to make the new moon of this seventh month a time for sacred remembering and sounding the teruah on the shofar, this is a season for reflecting. For thousands of years, these days have been designated as a Jewish time for looking inside, for examining ourselves, considering our actions, refining our goals, celebrating our accomplishments, admitting our regrets and failures, and trying to be honest with our thoughts and actions.

And, we engage in this holy work of self improvement as a group.

Even in our most quiet moments of whispering an Amidah, we draw tremendous strength from knowing that we are not alone, that we are in the company of our community. Earlier tonight we heard the deep silence; not of being by yourself, but of being together. In our personal, private experiences of Teshuvah, we have the support of others. We draw strength from all the other open and vulnerable hearts in this room, and all the praying, singing, studying, and meditating Jews here and all over the entire world.

Every season has its own tasks and energies, and every holiday hallows a different aspect of life. There is a time for celebrating freedom and new beginnings on Pesach, receiving a revelation of wisdom on Shavuot, for deep existential sadness on Tisha B'Av, for knowing that we are forgiven on Yom Kippur, for the bounty of harvesting happiness on Sukkot, celebrating the light on Chanukah and drunken joy on Purim. All of the holidays recall a moment in Jewish history and also connect with the natural seasonal cycles of the passage of time.

But what about Rosh HaShannah, what do we sanctify tonight on this holiday?

We make holy the passage of time itself. We bring our kavannah, our intention, to the start of a new Jewish year, the rolling over of the odometer of life. We look back at what has happened in the past year: for us, for our community, for our people, for our world. On this day the world is reborn; this is the anniversary of creation’s completion.

By noticing the changes, the challenges, the successes, the failures in our last 12 months, we not only notice that we and the world are one year older, but we also try to ensure that we and our world become one year wiser as well. Teshuvah: spiritual return is meant to be a return to our true best selves. We imagine ourselves as we want to be; we try to envision the perfected world that we yearn to live in, and by celebrating that another year has passed, we each ask our self tremendously important questions: where have we been? where are we trying to go? where are we right now, at this moment in time?

This year has been a rough ride for the world at times, and our people and our own congregation have certainly experienced very trying moments. My own year has contained incredibly hard and sad moments, most significantly, the passing of my mother, Yehudit Miryam zichona l'vrachah. Among the moments that I reflect back on during this Head of the Year are my last visits with her, her funeral, the week of shiva spent in what had been her house and before that my grandparent's house, and the experience of having said kaddish daily for the past eight months.

I learned in a painful way and in an incredibly beautiful way what I had long suspected: that there is powerful wisdom in our mourning rituals, and specifically in reciting mourner's kaddish. Most fundamentally, what kaddish teaches us is that when we are aching, sad, angry, broken in the process of grieving over a death of a loved one, we are not to be alone, that we must stay connected with our community. Not only does kaddish demand community involvement by requiring a minyan, a quorum of nine others, for it to be recited, it forces the mourner into a leadership role. "Vi'Imru: amein" "Say: Amein!" the mourner calls out at the end of every paragraph of Kaddish Yatom, transforming him or herself into a conductor of the services, a community organizer.

Kaddish has such a fascinating history. At the times when our modern siddur was first being birthed around 1,500 years ago, few people had actual books and few people could read or follow the public Hebrew prayers. So a simple prayer was recited at the conclusion of study sessions, and later at the end of every service. This prayer in the vernacular, Aramaic, guaranteed that at least this one section would be understood by all. In rhythmic poetry, this short but profound piece states the goodness and sacredness of life and of God.

Kaddish appears in five forms: 1. the Shalem, or complete kaddish recited after an Amidah, 2. Chatzi, a shortened kaddish marking a point of transition in the prayer service, 3. D’Rabbanan after study, and 4. a rare lengthy version recited at a parent’s funeral and after completing the study of a Talmudic Tractate. In time, a custom developed for those in mourning to also lead a Kaddish prayer as way of ensuring their participation in the services as they confronted their loss. This Kaddish Yatom is the same as the complete Kaddish Shaleim minus only a line about receiving our prayers which would seem disingenuous for a mourner to recite.

Kaddish makes no mention of death; it is a hopeful prayer of praise. It is not a kaddish of the mourner; it is a kaddish for the mourner, an opportunity for those who have tasted the death of a loved one to publicly declare that life has meaning and purpose. What do the words of this familiar but often misunderstood prayer really mean?

Yitgadal V'yitkadash shemei rabah. Great and holy is God's great name in this world created according to God's will. May God be Ruler of the realm in your lifetime, and in your days, and in the lifetimes of the entire House of Israel, speedily, in a close time, and say: Amein! May God's great name be praised forever and for the eternity of eternities! Blessed, praised, glorified, and exalted, and uplifted, honored, and elevated, and extolled is the name of the Holy One, blessings to the One; above all the blessings and songs, praises and consolations which we speak in this world, and say: Amein! May there be much peace from heaven and life for us, and for all Israel, and say: Amein! May the One who makes peace in the heights of heaven, make peace for us, and for all Israel, and for all who dwell on earth, and say: Amein!

Kaddish is hopeful; it yearns for a better day. It expresses our concern for others, it speaks of our sense of being part of something greater than ourselves, it states our hopes for the community, it asks for blessings as a group. There is a story about kaddish that I heard this past year while sitting shivah.

In Russia, a few hundred years ago, the Tsar issued a decree that would have had some negative impact on the Jewish community of a particular region. So the leaders of that community petitioned to have an audience with an official in the government. After months of delay, the leaders of the community were told to come to a particular office in the capitol, Saint Petersburg. When they arrived at the appointed day there were additional delays and they only had their audience with the government after almost a week of waiting. When they were done with the meetings, it was Erev Yom Kippur and there would not be sufficient time to return home. They made some inquiries and were told that there was a Jewish congregation not far from the neighborhood that they were lodging in. They readied themselves for the holiday and went to the shul.

Now at this time in Russia it was common for the Tsar’s army to randomly abduct Jewish children and conscript them into the army. Many of these cantonists lost their Jewish heritage completely, a few managed to hold on to some memories of a childhood Hebrew education. As the delegates from the province arrived at the shul for Kol Nidre they discovered that this was a congregation made up entirely of Russian soldiers who had been taken from their Jewish homes. The visitors offered to help however they could with the davanan but were told that the soldiers were prepared to lead the prayers. The Service started, and as one might expect from a group of poorly educated Jews who had been cut off from their heritage, it was not the most spirited or well led experience. The prayers were mostly mumbled quickly and were almost over when one of the soldiers walked to front to deliver a drash.

"Why are we here?" he began, looking to the other soldiers. "Most people come to shul to pray for their families, their loved ones, to ask that they be sealed in the book of life. We don't have any families; we have no loved ones to pray for. Others come to pray for “parnassa”, for a reliable livelihood in the new year. We don't need that. We are soldiers in the Russian Army, the government will provide for us. They want us to be strong, so even in time of famine we know that at least we won’t starve. That is not why we are here.  And others pray for salvation, an ultimate redemption. We have no hope that we'll be saved anytime soon. There may be an ultimate redemption, but it probably won't be in our lifetimes. That is not why we gather here. There is only one reason that we are here: Yitgadal V'yitkadash, sh'mei rabah. As our parents said kaddish for their parents, we are here to say kaddish for our parents.

That is our duty as a sacred congregation.

I have had many opportunities to reflect on that story in the past 8 months. I think about why I am saying kaddish, what do I believe is the impact that it has on my mother's soul and what do I hope to get out of this experience. We are taught that kaddish helps a soul elevate ever higher and merge into the oneness of creation and it's Creator.

The story is told in a Midrash found in Kallah Rabbati that Rabbi Akiva once met the tormented soul of a deceased tax collector who told him he was being punished for his misdeeds of favoring the rich and persecuting the poor. The soul said: “If only I had a child who would stand among the congregation and say kaddish and the congregation would answer: ‘Amen! May God’s great name be blessed!’ would I be freed of my punishment.” The man had died leaving behind a pregnant wife. Rabbi Akiva took it upon himself to find this son. God opened the boy's heart and Rabbi Akiva was able to teach him how to read Torah and how to recite the Shema, the Amidah, and Birkat haMazon. Then the son stood before the congregation and he said Barchu and they answered him. He then said Kaddish and they answered him, "Amen! Y'hay shmai rabba m'vorach!" His father was freed from his punishment and came straight to Rabbi Akiva in a dream and told him: "Let your heart rest assured that you saved me from the judgment of the after-life."

So, we learn that for the eleven months that it may take for a soul to become cleansed of its blemishes as it takes its leave of its physical shell that housed it, the kaddish helps the soul on its journey. I'm not sure that I can fully believe that my reciting of kaddish helps my mother's soul, but I know for sure that it doesn't hurt. And I do know that it helps me.

It not only gives me something to do with my grief, it gives me a chance, at least three times a day to remember my mother, to connect with those memories and with her, and to do this in the company of others. I've had the privilege of saying kaddish in this sanctuary, at 12:30 in the morning when I returned from the east coast and friends arranged a minyan so I could recite kaddish when my flight landed. From a minyan in a kosher pizza and falafel restaurant on Broadway in Manhattan, to reciting Kaddish D'Rabbana after our weekly Talmud class here , to saying kaddish after a friend's son's pet rat died, from moments that I have been in a large shul and been one of the only people saying Kaddish, to being in a small daily minyan space where almost all ten people in attendance were saying kaddish, each experience has been unique and powerful as I was able to feel connected to my mother by connecting with those around me.

From Woody Allen to Alan Ginsberg, the power and the mystique of kaddish are well known, even if not understood. Hanna Sensesh wrote an amazing poem that appears in the new Reform Siddur, Mishkan Tefillah as an introduction to mourner's kaddish:

“There are stars up above, so far away we only see their light long, long after the star itself is gone. And so it is with people that we loved - their memories keep shining every brightly though their time with us is done. But the stars that light up the darkest night, these are the lights that guide us. As we live our days, these are the ways we remember.”

In our times of pain, in our times of joy, when we feel deeply alone, when we feel close to the world and its inhabitants, we are to stay connected to those around us. "Al tifrosh min hatztibur; do not separate yourself from the community." Rabbi Hillel taught almost 2,000 years ago. In addition to food, clothing, and shelter, there is a deep human need for human contact, for meaning, for being part of a group, a caring community, a congregation of fellow spiritual travelers. We can't do it by ourselves and we wouldn't want to try. A community is a sacred gift that we give each other. It provides comfort, a witness to our hurts and our achievements, and a sense that we are not alone. We are not alone. This community has given me so much in the 3 years since I moved here. It is an honor to share these words with you as we welcome together a new year; it's a privilege to be able to be here with this amazing, vibrant congregation, and in a few minutes recite the words of kaddish, knowing that I am not alone. shana tovah u’metukah – may this new year be a sweet one for our entire community.