Kol Nidre Sermon, 5769

Summer School Lessons for Yom Kippur

By Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg

Summer in this part of the world is glorious. Before moving here I have never lived so close to the beach. The awesome vastness of the ocean and the spaciousness of summer time allow ultimate questions to surface.

I share with you, then, some summer school lessons for Yom Kippur -

One afternoon my three-year-old daughter Amina and I were thoroughly enjoying holding hands and standing in the surf, letting our feet sink under the sand with every wave and then wiggling our toes free. Amina’s pail and shovel were lying nearby, and I thought I was just teaching her to be careful.

Just a simple word of advice: “Don’t leave your pail and shovel too close to the water,” I said. “A wave could come and wash it away, out into the ocean!”

From that point on, she didn’t want to go anywhere near the water.

“Will the waves wash me away too, Ima?” she asked.

In our prayers these Days of Awe, we remember that we are but flesh and blood. Tomorrow morning, we will recite the words:

Our origin is dust, and dust is our end. Each of us is a shattered urn, grass that must wither, a flower that will fade, a shadow moving on, a cloud passing by, a particle of dust floating on the wind, a dream soon forgotten¹.

Especially on this Kol Nidre night, we face the truth – life is fleeting. We stand before an empty open ark, wearing white shrouds, refraining from food and water, the elements which sustain us. For 24 hours, our lives are in limbo. We stand on the shore of life, the waves of mortality lapping at our toes.

We are all a child’s pail and shovel that can easily be swept away into the ocean, as if they had never been.

Another lesson:

Picture a jellyfish floating in the shallow water of the ocean. How the water washes over and flows right through its translucent body- the waves picking it up and putting it down again where it may. The creature has no control over its movements in the shallow surf. It just goes where it goes.

Or a hermit crab tucked into a shell – how it tumbles in the waves, finds an upright position, extends its spindly legs and scrambles towards safety only to be taken up again by the next wave. This soft animal seems to be well-protected in its hard shell, but then a seagull swoops down, picks it up in its beak and eats it for lunch.

We are much more complex than these sea animals, but how different are we really? We think we have control over our lives and that we can determine where we are going. And we do, but only to an extent. Sometimes outside forces wash right over us or lift us up. Often, forces beyond our control send us tumbling, disoriented, gasping for air. Or we are plucked from existence altogether.

There’s a Jewish tradition that asks “Why doesn’t God make known to us the day of our death?” The answer provided is that if we knew the day of our death we wouldn’t make much of our lives – no one would build a house or get an education or have children.

I don’t completely agree with this text. I have known folks who were terminally ill, who more or less knew the day of their death, and yet made it a point to make as much out of the time they had left as they could.

This text does speak to that human reality, though, that most of the time we don’t know the day of our death, and we assume that that day is a long way off. This sense of security and control over our lives is weak compared to the forces of the universe and the reality of death. But we can’t live, moment to moment, in constant recognition of our mortality. We need to have faith that our lives do have purpose, and that we’ll have a chance to fulfill that purpose.

If we were constantly measuring our decisions against the possibility that we could get plucked away at any moment– then it would not seem worthwhile to put down roots, to fall in love, to have a family, to finish a project, to care for our relationships, to build something, or to improve the world.

The current economic crisis is a powerful example of this. If we lived in a constant state of anxiety, worrying that banks and investments and the economy could fall apart at any moment, then we would be less likely to invest in our long term well-being. Like that hermit crab, in the moments when have some semblance of control, we scramble as fast and as hard as we can to make something of our lives. But like that crab, or the jellyfish, there are times too when all we can do is surrender to the flow and have faith that we are getting somewhere and that we were put here for a reason.

A third lesson:

I’m walking barefoot on the beach with my children. As they run and dance, their feet leave long trails of footprints in the sand. How remarkable, these footprints. How poignant, these imprints of my children on the world. They are their very own marks. They are mine too. These footprints will disappear with the tide. I wonder what I or my children will leave behind that is lasting.

Lines from a Psalm² comes to mind:

O God, You have been our refuge in every generation.

Before the mountains came into being,

before You brought forth the earth and the world,

from eternity to eternity You are God.

You return us to dust;

You decree: “Return, you mortals!”

For in Your sight a thousand years are as yesterday when it has passed,

as a watch in the night.

You engulf us in sleep;

We are like grass that renews itself:

At daybreak it flourishes anew;

At dusk it withers and dries up.

The span of our life is threescore and ten,

or, given strength, fourscore years;

. . . .

They pass us by speedily, and we are in darkness.

Teach us, therefore, so to number our days

That we may attain a heart of wisdom

 . . . .

Establish the work of our hands

That it may long endure.

Right before Rosh Hashana, my Great Uncle Kurt died, at age 97. After the burial service, I spent some time by the grave with my daughter, trying to help her understand what this was all about. As we looked at the casket laying in the ground, she asked me, “Ima, where is Uncle Kurt?”

I had no words.

I should have told her to look at her cousins, Kurt’s great grandchildren. That’s where Uncle Kurt is, I should have said, in the people that he loved.

I could have told her about all of the acts of Tzedakah that Uncle Kurt did throughout his life – supporting synagogues and other Jewish organizations, supporting Israel, delivering Meals on Wheels to homebound elderly people (many who were younger than he!)

I could have shared with her the ways he taught his grandchildren, my cousins, the importance of Judaism and the meaning of Jewish rituals.

“Establish the work of our hands, That it may long endure,” says the Psalm.

Life is fleeting. Find your purpose in this world – build something. We are here to create something of lasting value.

Weighty lessons for this Yom Kippur. From the mouths of children. From the creatures tumbling alongside us on this earth. From our sacred texts.

The Chasidic master, Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa, teaches that one should always carry two slips of paper, one in each pocket, the first slip reading “The world was created for my sake,” and the second reading, “I am but dust and ashes.”

We all leave behind our imprints – on the people we have touched; in the lessons we have taught; in the work we have done to make this world better. In humility, we pray that these traces will not disappear but will be carried forward into the future, our footprints extending beyond our vision.