Yom Kippur Morning 2010 Sermon: Life is a Scroll

Yom Kippur Morning 2010 Sermon: Life is a Scroll
Rabbi Jonathan Jaffe
Congregation Emanu-El

I propose a modest goal for this morning’s sermon. To give a uniquely Jewish answer to the age old question, “What is the meaning of life.” After all, Yom Kippur is the day upon which we search for meaning in the memories of yet another year passed by. I believe that Judaism offers a salient answer within the five scrolls or megilot read on five specific holidays throughout the year. While the Torah and Prophets are read publicly each week, the texts of The Writings, or Ketuvim, the third and final volume of the Hebrew Bible, are only read on these five days. As this calendar of readings may be unfamiliar to many of us, I have included visual aides (point to posters)

The cycle of megilot, begins each Spring with the reading of The Song of Songs on Passover before continuing with the book of Ruth on the early Summer holiday of Shavuot, Lamentations on the late Summer Tisha B’Av day of mourning, Ecclesiastes on the Fall holiday of Sukkot and finally, Esther on the Winter holiday of Purim. Each text represents a specific stage in our lives, so that over the course of the year we move from the optimism of youth in spring to the wisdom of our later years in winter. By the time we reach Esther, our text will reveal its answer to the question of life’s true meaning. So let us embark on this journey together.

Our cycle begins with the Song of Songs, the Hebrew Bible’s volume of steamy love poetry. The book provides a first person account between lovers, burning for one other’s touch. The poet writes:
“How much better is your love than wine;
the fragrance of your perfume is better than any spice
Your lips drip sweetness like the honeycomb, my lover,
honey and milk are under your tongue.

Hot stuff. The text was included in the Hebrew canon by reading it as a metaphor for the relationship between God and the people Israel, yearning for unity with one another. Nevertheless, we may consider this the Biblical equivalent of the Danielle Steele novel.

We read the Song of Songs on Passover to represent the optimism and vigor of youth and the potential for rebirth in Spring. As the flower buds emerge and the natural world comes back to life, we look forward to a year of building and growth. It is a time of fertility and abundance. The Song of Songs is said to be written by the young King Solomon. He is not in love so much as in lust – his infatuation being entirely physical. For the poet, everything about the other is perfect – every detail of the body, each pore of skin. All is potential; nothing has been lost or used.

As we move from Spring to the early Summer, we turn from puppy love to mature relationship. The book of Ruth details a convoluted and difficult marriage between the Moabite Ruth and the Israelite Boaz, whom she is forbidden to marry. Their relationship requires compromise and negotiation, risk and reward. The physical imagery of the Song of Songs is absent, replaced by concession and give and take. The book of Ruth represents our own transition from youthful exuberance to mature forbearance. The book reaches its culmination not in passionate lust but rather a public ritual by which the relationship may be legally sanctioned. Whereas the poet of the Song of Songs is infatuated with every detail of his lover, Ruth acknowledges the blemishes we all carry within us and which over time, further endear us to one another.

Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Torah at Sinai, the imperfect marriage between a people of stiff-necked golden calf worshipers and the God who has allowed them to toil in slavery for 400 years. It is a pact between flawed lovers who nevertheless believe that the relationship can endure.

This elegant love story comes to a sudden crash in our third book, Lamentations, read in the late summer on Tisha B’Av, the annual day of mourning over the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in the 6th century BCE. The prophet Jeremiah witnesses the plundering of his city and the exile of its inhabitants with terrifying detail. Jerusalem is likened to a maiden, abused and left bleeding in the streets. Jeremiah writes,
“I reside in the deepest darkness like one who died long ago.
I am walled in so that I cannot get out;
I am weighed down with heavy chains.
When I cry out in desperation my prayer is ignored.”

Read within the cycle of megilot, Lamentations represents our most painful moments of failure. If the Song of Songs illustrates budding love and Ruth mature relationship, then Lamentations represents the moment when no matter how much you love someone, he or she no longer loves you back. Or when the enterprise you have so carefully constructed, suddenly falls apart, despite your best efforts. It is the sound of woe and lament when we come to realize that we are really not in control of our lives. When the house of cards we have lovingly constructed, piece by piece, comes tumbling down and we are forced to start all over again.

It is late summer, the solstice has passed and the days are getting shorter; life around us wilts and we encounter failure in the most personal way. Soon the world will be a colder place and we will be left to suffer, alone.

As we enter into Fall, we encounter our fourth book, Ecclesiastes. Like both the Song of Songs and Proverbs, this volume is also said to be written by King Solomon. But this is an older and wiser Solomon, who has learned from his defeats. It is the product of one who has seen the ebb and flow of history, and has gained the wisdom of perspective. The book famously reads,
“A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven: A time for being born and a time for dying, A time for planting and a time for uprooting the planted; A time for slaying and a time for healing, A time for tearing down and a time for building up…”

We read the book of Ecclesiastes on Sukkot, when despite all we have seen – the production of the Spring to the destruction of the Summer, we nevertheless plant again. We see that indeed there is a time for everything and so this painful moment too will pass.
Lamentations has revealed how little control we possess; that our lives indeed hang by a thread. And now here in Ecclesiastes, we gain spiritual awareness through acknowledging our own mortality and insignificance. Our hearts have been broken and so only now can we recognize the true value of love. Our ambitions have been torn asunder and only now can we identify our pitfalls. And yes, our hearts will be broken again. We will fall on our faces and lie humiliated before our peers. But we have learned how to heal, to pick ourselves up, dust off, and make a valid effort to be just a bit better the next time.

Finally we reach the one scroll, the one megillah of which we are most familiar: The reading of Esther on Purim. We have heard the story of Esther many times, of the beautiful queen who marries the Persian King and uses her influence to defeat Haman’s plan to kill the Jews. We have now moved from the passion of the Song of Songs, to the maturity of Ruth, to the woe of Lamentations to the despair and perspective of Ecclesiastes. What nuggets of wisdom could Esther have to offer us? I believe we arrive at not one but rather two answers to our original question of life’s meaning.

The first answer becomes apparent when we recognize Esther as the biblical form of Shakespearian comedy; a slapstick farce not meant to be taken too seriously. The story opens as the dim witted Ahasuerus holds a six month banquet and in a drunken stupor, commands his wife to dance for him and his friends. Esther and the other beauty pageant contestants prepare by applying perfume and makeup for an entire year. Haman is repeatedly humiliated and the great ruler Ahasuerus made to play the fool. The ridiculous nature of the book is mirrored in the silly revelry which distinguishes the Purim holiday. Indeed, our sages instruct us to drink until the point at which we no longer can distinguish Mordecai from Haman.

And so having moved through these stages of life, Esther playfully offers her response - Don’t take yourself so seriously that you can’t enjoy your life. Merrily merrily merrily life really is but a dream.

The second and more important answer to the question of life’s meaning demands a more nuanced reading of the text. Esther is the story of a young woman asked to risk her personal wellbeing for that of her people. Her Jewish background is unknown and she has intermarried with Persian royalty. Therefore, she is in no personal danger. Yet Esther must decide where her loyalty lies – with the community or with her own ambitions. Her Uncle Mordecai cautions her, saying,
Im le-et Kazot Higat La-mal-chut
“Perhaps you, Esther, have attained this position for exactly this moment. Now go” (4:14) That is, maybe this entire journey which you have undertaken, from one stage to the next, was meant to prepare you to answer the call of your people.

And so in a more serious tone, the book offers us the second answer to life’s meaning - Its not all about you. From the Song of Songs to Ecclesiastes, this has been a personal story. My passion, my compromises, my failures, my lessons. Esther caringly knocks us on the head and says, “Its about us.” As Rabbis Bauer and Mintz reminded us on Rosh Hashanah, life is lived within community. We are taught that we pray on Yom Kippur not for personal, but rather communal salvation. We ask for forgiveness, even for those transgressions for which we bear no guilt. Because after all, the person sitting next to me might need the help and yes, I am my brother’s keeper.
Earlier this morning, we took the Sifrei Torah from the ark. Each Torah is pristine and unspoiled, protected by regal covering. Like a baby, we cradle the Torah in our arms as it is passed lightly from hand to hand and adorned with kisses, each of us careful not to break it; or heaven forbid, drop it. We read the Torah with a silver pointer, less our finger deface the text, like over conscious parents armed with wipes and Purell.

(Hold up Scroll of Esther)

And here I hold the scroll of Esther. This is it, plain and simple. What you see is what you get. You can touch it with your hands, or even drop it without fear of penalty. It stands vulnerable before us, with thinning skin and gentle wrinkles, smudges and blemishes; the end of this great chain of tradition. If the Torah represents our youth, then surely megilat Esther represents the wisdom and beauty of our final years. There is no pretense or mystery; only comfort and security. It is what it is.
Today is Yom Kippur, the day we gather as a community and ask ourselves, “Who am I?” The story of the megillot is the story of another year gone by.

During the past year, each of us here has experienced moments of the Song of Songs: great passion and enthusiasm, inspiration and joy. Something or someone has grabbed us and refused to let go - and we have held on for the wild ride.

Likewise, in our moments of Ruth, each of us here today has matured over the past year. We have compromised, adjusted and reacted to those around us. We have planned for the future and sacrificed for better times ahead. We have learned to not allow perfection to be the enemy of the good. That if the person I love is only 90 percent right for me, the other 10 percent is probably me. Our Ruth moments have allowed us to embrace imperfection in all of its beauty.

And then, like Jeremiah lamenting through cries of woe, each of us here today has experienced complete and utter failure. I know that I have. We have come to recognize that there are times at which our best is simply not good enough. After all, we are only human.

As we turn to Ecclesiastes, hopefully each of us is wiser than we were last Yom Kippur. We have grown, added to our skill sets and gained wisdom in our perspective. We have survived and prospered from another year of tumult and transformation. The seats in which we sit are the same as last year, but we have changed; we have grown. We read familiar words of prayer, listen to the same readings from the Torah, but come away with different interpretations as we have changed. Yom Kippur is at its best a mirror, reflecting the dissonance between who we are and who we want to be; between is and aught.

And with this simple yet elegant scroll of Esther, we join together today, a family of sojourners through life, stopping to assess from where we have come and where we are going. To first laugh at the wonder of it all, that life truly is a dream. And at the same time, to commit ourselves to our community, to our mutual responsibility as one people.
The sages of the Talmud compare Purim and Yom Kippur through a play on words. Yom HaKippurim – The Day of Atonement – can be read as Yom K’Purim – a day like Purim. Yom Kippur and Purim indeed share many themes. On Purim, we dress in costume. On Yom Kippur, we dress up as well, specifically as one who has died. We don’t engage in the activities of the living – eating, drinking, bathing, and so on. Some of us even wear a kittel, the robe in which we will be buried. All of this in order to contemplate our mortality and make the necessary changes.
Furthermore, on Purim, Esther beseeches King Ahasuerus to show mercy to her people. On Yom Kippur, we beseech the King of Kings to show mercy upon us.
But there is one major difference between the two holidays. While Yom Kippur is full of awe and reverence, God is completely absent from the text of Esther. The word does not appear once. But through viewing Esther as the culmination of this journey, stage by stage, we realize that God is very much present within the actions of Esther and the inhabitants of Shushan; and so within each of us. We all carry a spark of the divine within us. And so we answer the challenge of Esther on this Yom HaKippurim; this day like Purim.
We renew the promise to act as God’s partners in the continuous creation and renewal of humanity. To take part in tikkun olam, the repair of our broken world. To act as God’s hands when we lift up those who have fallen. As God’s ears when we hear the cries of the needy among us. As God’s heart when we show compassion in moments of frustration and anger. As God’s back when we support our friends and neighbors in need of relief, especially in these lonely and difficult times. To bring godliness into the world through our actions.
Today, as we enter into a new year of opportunity and potential, Mordecai challenges each of us anew.
Im le-et Kazot Higat La-mal-chut
“Perhaps you (and you and you) have attained this royal position for exactly this moment.” Now go.