Rabbi Wayne has done it again. When I asked what he wanted his Legacy Piece to be for this month of October, he did not hesitate. He clearly asked me to send out his Rosh HaShanah Sermon — from 2022! Not only did I not have any memory of it, but trying to find it in his completely disorganized computer was a challenge, to say the least. Reading it, my jaw just dropped in wonder. It is exactly perfect for this moment.
How did he know, 4 years ago, that it would be this sermon of his that we would absolutely need to hear again today??
Rabbi was certain that each of us has the capacity to be a prophet — to hear the messages that God sends forth on a regular basis, and to convey those messages to those who need to hear them. In fact, he wrote a Prophecy Prayer, to assist all of us in developing these gifts of prophecy inherent within us.
Rabbi Wayne, thank you for being such a prophet for us! Thank you for being the voice of hope and inspiration that calls us to rise from the ash heap and re-member Who we can be – Who we are.
And thank you for being the ones called to rise up and help heal our world! It is an honor and a blessing to walk with you.
Ellen, continuing the work of the Elijah Minyan
RABBI WAYNE DOSICK’S SERMON
for the FIRST DAY of ROSH HASHANAH 2022
Every fall, from about third to sixth grade, the first assignment was to write a little essay, “What I did on my summer vacation.”
I imagine that many of you had the same task, for as I later presumed, it was the teacher’s way of not having to teach very much on that first day, even though she — and it was mostly she in those days — claimed this was the way to “get to know her students,” and to see how we performed when we read our little compositions to the whole class.
Now and then we would hear about a dazzling road trip that a family had taken in the old station wagon — usually to visit family in another city, or for, as our mothers put it, historical sites “for educational purposes.” Once in a while, we would learn of a family that flew in an airplane— an airplane! — to some exotic far-off place.
But mostly, it was “I played ball, I hung out with my friends, I went swimming in the lake, I watched fireworks on the 4th of July, and caught fireflies, we had hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill, we went to a Sox or a Cubs game, my cousins came to visit, I chased the Good Humor truck down the street.
It may not have been exotic or educational, but it was a good childhood summer, and we came back to school tan and happy.
So now that I am somewhat grown up, and have this — what they call — a bully pulpit, I could give you a travelogue of our trip to Israel this summer. But, of course, I won’t. Many of you travel to far more wonderous places than Ellen and I, for when we have the money and the time, we just keep going back to the place of our hearts — to the Land and People of Israel.
But this time, we had one extraordinary experience — something that with all our times in Israel, we had never done before — which deftly coincided with what the whole world was seeing and experiencing in the very same week:
We traveled south — deep into the Negev desert to Mitzpe Ramon. Mitzpe Ramon is a 1,100 kilometer crater — the largest erosion crater in the world. That means that it was not formed by a crashing meteor or by volcanic eruption, but by the rains and creeping seas that formed lakes and rivers running through the-then moist, fertile climate — far different from the arid desert of today.
The flow of the waters at what is now the bottom of the crater did not inhibit the side walls from continuing to grow higher and higher. Now and then — because of the sometimes fierce, ever-flowing movement of the waters, and mostly because of the separating movement of the tectonic plates, the walls of the soft limestone would collapse into the deepening crater, so that the depth of the crater is now more than 500 meters from the top.
It is a spectacular, awesome, awe-inspiring sight — so magnificent that we got up at 4:30 in the morning — and those who know me will surely understand what a miracle that is — to watch the sun come up over the crater at 5 am.
We walked along the edge — not to worry — it is now a well paved, safe path — until we reached the place where the rising sun would play off the walls and dip into the depths. Our Guide, Yossi, and I davened. Ellen meditated. And those of you who know Ellen — which is almost all of you — know how incredibly deep and powerful and revealing her meditations can be.
Scholars debate, about the age of Mitzpe Ramon. The opinions range between 110 million and 220 million years old. Who’s to argue over 110 million years here and there. Geologists? Yes. Me? Maybe. But, 100 million years! 220 million years! America is 246 years old. The Jewish presence in Israel is 3,300 years old. The Sumerians began recording history approximately 6,000 years ago.
220 million years! Who can fathom it? Who can begin to imagine it? 220 million years! That is why — when I was standing at the edge of this phenomenon of creation, the words of the psalmist of old bubbled up… “How great are Your deeds, O God!”… “In Your wisdom you created everything.”… “The whole world is filled with Your glory.”
And yet… In the very same week, the Webb telescope took us back 13 billon years! 13 billion – not million – billion years!.. Many — if not most — think the universe is 14 billion years old — meaning that we are one telescope away from witnessing the “big bang theory,” the moment when God said… “Let there be light!” — let the universe begin.
And, ever since… “In Your goodness, O our God, everyday, You renew the work of creation”… “We praise God, because God is good; God’s lovingkindness is forever.”
The natural order? Random chance? Ancient climate change? The rationalists amongst us may argue so. But not I. Not people of faith. We know that this is God’s paintbrush giving us the magic of our universe.
The much beloved rabbi-author Chaim Potok — in the non-egalitarian language of his time, taught us this way:
“The seeing of God is not like the seeing of man. Man only sees between the blinks. He does not know what the world is like during the blinks. He sees the world in pieces, in fragments. But God sees the world whole, unbroken. That world is good. Our seeing is broken. Can we make it like the world of God?”
The teachings of the modern mystic, Abraham Joshua Heschel respond:
“God is not always silent, and man is not always blind. In every man’s life, there are moments when there is a lifting of the veil at the horizon of the known, opening a sight of the eternal.”
In these last 250 and more years, since the Enlightenment and the Emancipation, we have lived in rational times, when matters of the mind have overshadowed matters of the spirit, the heart, the soul, of faith.
But, in the words of the prophet Amos,
“A time is coming when there will be a famine in the land; not a hunger for bread, nor a thirst for water, but for hearing the word of the Lord.”
That time is now.
Humbly, and in eager anticipation, we affirm, in the words of our teacher, Reb Shlomo Carlebach
“You spoke to us once on Mt. Sinai,
but the whole world did not hear You.
So, we are asking You, Almighty,
speak to us once again;
let us hear Your Voice just once more.
But, this time, let the whole world see it,
and the whole world hear it.
And we promise You
that the whole world will know
that You are there;
that You are God.”
And yet. And yet. Our hunger for God, our love for God, our faith in God is not enough. Judaism is a religious community not just of faith and love, but of action.
God sits us down on the park bench in the middle of Eden and says to us: “Be My partners. Help Me repair, and heal, and balance, and transform the brokenness in our world. For, when there is brokenness, when people turn their faces from each other and from Me, the glories of this world fall into the shadows.
“In the shadows, you need not fear, for I Am always with you, but give Me your hands, give Me your hearts — give yourselves to each other — and come from the shadows into the brightness of ever-unfolding possibility.” When human beings see in each other the Face of God Who created us all, we can enwrap each other in love and holiness.
Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks, or clay pots, or grinding stones.
But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink, or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.
A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety, and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts.
That is why Dr. Mead taught, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
We can be — we are — those people.
As I wrote in Radical Loving, within each one of us is the power and the passion to renew our world. Can we summon the determination and the courage to make the journey?
America can heal itself from the plagues of physical disease, a fractured social fabric, a broken moral compass, and widening spiritual malaise.
And the world can weave together a bright tapestry embodying the intrinsic values of freedom, equality, basic human and civil rights, justice, and dignity for every inhabitant of every nation on this Earth.
An end to discrimination, and segregation, and self-proclaimed superiority.
An end to terror and violence.
An end to authoritarian corruption and brutality.
An end to easy access to guns, and shooting deaths in our streets and schools.
An end to raping our lands, polluting our skies, and despoiling our planet.
An end to poverty, and hunger, and homelessness, and illiteracy.
An end to the antagonisms between nations, and races, and religions, and ideologies, and genders.
An end to political hypocrisy and corporate gluttony.
An end to greed and avarice.
An end to the lust for power and domination.
An end to war and destruction.
And
The embracing of awe.
The embracing of gratitude.
The embracing of human and civil rights.
The embracing of the wisdom of the past and the enlightenment of the future.
The embracing of decency and dignity, grace and goodness, justice and righteousness, kindness and compassion.
The embracing of each other in light and love.
The embracing of the Divine.
The embracing of the vision and the promise
of a world of Oneness and peace.
The Talmud teaches…“There are singular moments in our lives when we can discern the entire reason for our existence — that give us our place in the World to Come.” (BT AZ 10b)
Our time has come.
Our moment is now.
We have to be ready to fulfill our destiny.
We have to be joyfully willing to love, love, love.
The late, much beloved poet-singer, Leonard Cohen, taught us, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
The pandemic and the civil unrest have finally cracked open our hearts. The light is slowly flowing in. We sense, we feel, we see the new world-home waiting for us to grasp it, and step inside.
Home is in the heart of love.
And God is eagerly waiting to welcome us Home.
On this holy day, the journey begins, for, indeed, our individual souls, and the fate of the whole world — and that is not hyperbole or exaggeration — literally, the fate our whole world depend on the choices we make. I ask you to choose wisely and well.