Sermons

Tonight we begin Yom Hazikaron. Yom Kippur goes by several names in biblical and rabbinic parlance. It is called Yom Ha-Kippurim, The Day of atonements; Yom HaDin, The Day of Judgment; Shabbat Shabbaton, the sabbath of sabbaths; and even, Yom HaZikaron, the Day of Memory.

The theme of remembrance on Yom Kippur is geared less toward life like on Rosh Hashanah and more toward death. Our Yizkor service will be tomorrow, but it is more than just yizkor that brings death to our minds as we begin our holiest day of the year. The very way we treat ourselves is almost a dress rehearsal for our own death. We do not eat or drink, we do not take in physical pleasures, we wear white, we do not wear jewelry or perfume, and some even dress themselves in a kittel, a burial robe. And at the beginning of our services this evening we listened to the haunting melody of Kol Nidre as we declared our vows null and void as we stared into an empty ark. We hear a beautiful, haunting melody as we stare into a representation of our own caskets.

Tonight our rituals surrounding the Day of Remembrance encourage us to think about how we deal with loss and grief. Every year, every one of us experiences loss and grief. Jewish ritual and custom offer us a myriad ways to help us through the mourning process. We bury our loved ones quickly, not because we want to finish it but because we have the need to begin to mourn and we can’t do so properly until our loved ones are lovingly and carefully buried and laid to rest.  And when we start the process, the next seven days of shiva, slowly give way to the first month of shloshim, and then as the first year concludes we have the unveiling ceremony.

In her book Mourning and Mitzvah, Rabbi Anne Brener likens the mourning process to the Kabbalistic narrative of creation. It begins with the universe full of the Divine Presence. Then there is tzimtzum, a contraction that leaves us in utter darkness that seems unfathomable. We flail in the chaos and empty feelings of loss. Then comes shv’irat hakeilim, the shattering of vessels, when God’s contracting presence shatters the containers that previously had held that power in, spreading across the universe and hiding God’s presence. We, too, feel broken and unconfined when dealing with our grief. Finally there is Tikkun, healing, when the holy sparks that seemed out of reach and impossible to find are redeemed, reorganized, and restoration begins—even if it is never complete. We too can begin to repair our damaged world, even when we know the world will never be exactly as it was, and we do so with the help of the community around us.

All of this, from the funeral to the unveiling, is what psychiatrist and brilliant teacher Dr. Betsy Stone differentiates as dealing with loss as opposed to dealing with grief. She teaches that the tasks we can accomplish and the logistics that happen around mourning are the easy part. That’s dealing with loss. The hard part is dealing with grief. Grief is the aspect of mourning for which there are no specifics, no timeline, and no similarities to how other people have experienced grief. But both the feelings of grief and the logistics of loss must be dealt with.

An amazing bit of Talmud from a minor tractate dedicated to mourning rituals called Semahot, it is taught that a mourner may enter the Temple Mount, but must go the opposite direction from the flow of traffic. Most worshipers circle from right to left, but mourners are to circle from left to right. As the mourner passes others in the courtyard, they are supposed to ask, “Why are you going the wrong way?” To which the mourner responds, “because I am a mourner,” and the others say, “May God comfort you” (Semahot 6:11). When we are suffering a loss we feel backwards, like we are traveling upstream and the world is pushing against us. But when we encounter others on their own path and they offer us condolence, it can help. Little by little, and ever so slowly, we can find our way, through the help of others offering words of consolation and the comfort of our rituals.

To showcase how much it helps to have this support, I want to share a story from our Torah that we do not read on Yom Kippur, but one of its messages is perfect for today. In Numbers chapter 20, Moses is told he will not be allowed to move into the Promised Land. Why does God tell him that? Because he strikes the rock twice instead of speaking to it. It happens in Numbers 20:11.

And why does Moses strike the rock instead of speaking to it? What happened just before that?

In Numbers 20:1, the Israelites travel to Kadesh, Miriam dies, and is buried there. The very next verse says, “The community was without water, and they joined against Moses and Aaron.” So Moses goes to God, God tells him to speak to a rock; instead he hits it twice, and although they get water, Moses is banned access to the Promised Land. All of this in eleven verses of Torah. So what’s wrong with Moses? Why did he not follow God’s instructions?

Because he had not dealt with his grief.

His sister has just died. She has been with him all his life, watching him float down the Nile as an infant, making sure he was nursed by his own mother, joining him in song as they crossed the Sea of Reeds, standing by him throughout their journeys in the desert. Miriam was one of Moses’ closest confidants and advisors. And when she dies, he goes right back to business, and he does it badly.

The only character as close to Moses as Miriam is their brother Aaron. Just 13 verses after the section I just described, Moses is informed by God that it is time for Aaron to die. The end of Numbers 20 has Moses bringing his brother up to Mount Hor, where he takes Aaron’s vestments, puts them on his son Elazar, and Aaron dies. The last verse of Numbers 20 says, “All the house of Israel bewailed Aaron thirty days.” Now, when the Israelites are attacked by Canaanites just after this, Moses has the wherewithal to deal with the Israelites and their travels. After taking the time to mourn his brother, deal with his grief, and get his mind right, he knows what to do when attacked by Canaanites or infested by snakes or anything else they encounter in the wilderness.

The difference between how Moses behaves after each of his sibling’s deaths is indicative of how he dealt with his feelings. When he tries to just go on with business as usual, he makes the biggest mistake of his life. When he spends time in his pain and goes through the mourning rituals, he is able to confront challenges and take care of his community. When nobody expects him to go back to normal, he can be comforted by knowing that life will no longer be the normal he was used to.

Some losses sneak up on us, and we accuse ourselves of being silly when really we are not. Becoming an empty nester brings grief with it, even though our teenagers can drive us crazy when they live with us. Losing a job, whether we choose to or are asked to; losing our health or the health of a loved one; all the losses we as a society experienced with COVID-19; even Pluto losing status as a planet made people react in strangely emotional ways. It is important to acknowledge the grief associated with all kinds of loss.

The same thing can be said when a long-standing rabbi leaves a congregation. I know that Rabbi Folberg leaving left some people hurt, and I know others have different feelings about him. I also know that there are different versions floating around as to how it all went down. It is ok to acknowledge that not everyone feels the same way about his leaving, and it is ok to be honest about it with the leadership of CBI, both those of us on the bimah here tonight and those of us who are in the congregation with you. As an interim rabbi it is not my role to figure out exactly what happened, who was right, who was wrong. It is my role to help this community through its grief. And I am confident that my fellow clergy are also willing and able to listen to you, wherever you are in this process.

What makes Rabbi Folberg’s departure even more painful is the compound loss after the arsonist three years ago. The violence enacted on this community cannot be understated, and the decisions we make about rebuilding must be made while dealing with our grief, which makes the process all the more difficult.

To deal with grief successfully, Judaism ritualizes it. For mourners our rituals are rich and meaningful. From Shiva to Shloshim to Shanah, we have stages and changes that help us understand the slow return to a new kind of normal. All of them require that we come together as a community.

When the community works together, everything is easier. We might not agree with everyone else’s decisions, but we can sit with each other, have honest discussions, and learn how to work through everything we are dealing with together. When it comes to most types of loss and grief, it takes all of us to come together and be present for one another. When it comes to what you need from a rabbi, that is a big part of the work I do as an interim rabbi. And to do it successfully, we need to work in partnership. And I have just the ritual!

I am going to be very forward tonight and ask you to invite me over. Let’s pick a time when we can get together with six to eight of your CBI friends over a cup of coffee or a beer. We can work out the details over email. The goal of these gatherings is for you to help me understand what you want for the future of CBI. It is an opportunity for all of us to acknowledge our losses, address any feelings of grief, and move forward. I want to know how you envision the greatest CBI it can be for the tenure of your settled senior rabbi, what qualities you want that rabbi to possess, and what tasks you hope they will accomplish in the next one, five, and ten years. We can also discuss some of the changes you might not want to see.

Through this process we can help prevent the feelings of loss and grief from being exacerbated when next year you find yourselves with a new senior rabbi once again. I hope there are people who enjoy having me here who will miss me as I will miss you, others will not be sad at all, and some who not care one way or the other. However we relate to our clergy there are elements of loss at play, and to ignore them means we open ourselves to making mistakes. Probably not as major as the mistake Moses made when he did not deal with his grief, but mistakes that could be preventable if we make connections with each other.

This Yom Kippur, as we are focused on the memories of the past year and the memories of our loved ones who are no longer with us, may we also take a moment to acknowledge the losses we might not be aware of. May we turn our darkness into creation. May we welcome others to participate in our process of grieving and loss. May we be a comfort to one another when we feel like we are fighting upstream. May we work to acknowledge our grief, wrestle with it, and build ourselves to a community stronger not in spite of it, but because of it.