Here we are, at the last 8 hours or so of this Ten Day voyage, the Ten Days of Teshuvah. I have suggested that we look at these days, commonly called the Ten Days of Repentance, as the Ten Days of Answering. The word “teshuvah” has many meanings, including ‘repentance’ and ‘return.’ It also means ‘answer’ or ‘response’ and ‘the act of answering and responding.’

In these ten days we are called upon to recognize that we must offer better answers to some fundamental questions, questions that we have heard since the beginning of time.

On Rosh Ha-Shanah and last night I set forth a number of those original questions as presented by the Torah’s first accounting of human life. These are, therefore, to be understood as questions that first came up at the dawn of our consciousness as human beings. And the questions can be understood as following one from the former, and as building in complexity and urgency.

Our Torah places us in the Garden of Eden as our starting point. The first question we had to answer, as we stood in the middle of that paradise, was: “Can’t we have it all?” And we tried to take everything we could see, including the fruit from the Tree, and we discovered, to our pain and shame, that we had given the wrong answer.

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Tonight begins the tenth and last day of the Ten Days of Teshuvah – the Ten Days of Answering. On Rosh Ha-Shanah I suggested that we consider the Torah’s first questions asked by and of human beings as the questions to which, on these days, we are called to give our answers.

And we saw that the Torah mentioned 2 questions first asked back in the Garden of Eden. The first was a question we asked ourselves – “Can’t we have it all?” and the second question was asked of us by God – “Where are you?”

Our answer to the first question was a defiant – “Yes, of course we can have it all.” And we ate from the fruit of the forbidden tree. Right then and there we supposedly learned that we had given the wrong answer. But it is unclear whether we really have accepted for ourselves the right answer. Nor have we done such a great job in understanding what the right answer is supposed to lead us toward, beyond avoidance of prohibited fruit from a certain tree in a mythical paradise.

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Shanah Tovah U-m’tiqah! A Sweet, Good Year to all!

They say that when Gertrude Stein, the literary experimenter and self-hating Jew, was close to death, almost her last words were: “What’s the answer?”

This is something many of us wonder about, especially when we are confronted with our mortality. Rosh Ha-Shanah is such a time. The beginning of a new year makes us acutely conscious of time’s passing. Many of us hope that our religious tradition can give us the answer, or, at least, an answer. We seek answers to settle our minds and calm our spirits. Questions can engender feelings of dis-ease. But answers promise us a sense of wholeness. So we hope to start the New Year refreshed, restored, and reassured with an answer.

And, indeed, Rosh Ha-Shanah kicks off a period of ten days that are called in our tradition – Aseret Y’mei Teshuvah – often translated as the “Ten Days of Repentance,” but more literally meaning the “Ten Days of an Answer.” How great it would be to get those answers between now and Yom Kippur!

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5775 – The Year of Letting Go – Kol Nidrei Rabbi David Greenstein

The South Sea island of Borneo is a natural treasure. Its rain forest, one of the oldest in the world, is the home of myriads of different kinds of living creatures. Interest in these species has led to developing creative ways to capture them, so that they can be studied or shipped to zoos in many countries for our edification. And, of course this must be done without damaging them. For instance, there is a market for Borneo monkeys. But how do you catch these agile and clever critters?

This is how: The trap is a simple one – a large coconut. A small hole is opened in the coconut, just big enough for the monkey to squeeze its hand into. The coconut is hollowed out and goodies – bananas or peanuts – are inserted. The coconut is then fastened to a tree or anchor. When the monkey comes by and discovers the delicious treat inside the coconut, it slips its hand inside and grasps the food.

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The `Aqedah – Rosh Ha-Shanah 5775 – 2014 Rabbi David Greenstein

Gut Yontif! Shanah Tovah!

In keeping with honored tradition, I had hoped to start this talk with a joke. But, since I want to talk a little about the `Aqedah – the Binding of Isaac, perhaps the most difficult story in all the Torah, I was not able to find a good joke that would lead into it. But then I thought, wait, Isaac’s name literally means “he will laugh.” So there is apparently some humor embedded in this stark tale, after all. Perhaps we will find it – – and perhaps not.

This most difficult story forms the core of our Rosh Ha-Shanah service. Unlike our practice when we celebrate the two days of other holidays, when we read a discrete Torah reading for each day, the Torah readings for these two days constitute a continuous reading, from one day to the next, of the expanded story of Abraham and Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac. Oh, and did I mention – God?

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Shanah Tovah!

When we wish each other “Shanah Tovah! – A Good Year!” we are looking forward into the future. But, of course, it is pretty impossible to look into the future. I am reminded of a very old joke. So, without having to travel all the way to Broadway – “Welcome to the latest episode of A Not That Old Man Telling a Really Old Joke”:

One night Irving is coming home from work. It’s late and it’s Rosh Chodesh, the New Moon, which is as good as no moon at all, just like on Rosh Ha-Shanah. So it’s very dark out. At the corner he sees his friend Seymour crawling on all fours in the gutter, under the street lamp.

“Seymour! Are you all right? What are you doing in the street?” “Ah, Irving,” sighs Seymour, “I can’t find my keys.”
Irving surveys the scene and says: “I don’t see any keys. Where did

you drop them?”
Seymour: “Oh, about a block away.”
Irving: “Then why are you looking over here?”
Seymour: “Because it is too dark over there. You can’t see a thing.

Here, at least, I can search with some light.”

We can’t see the future, but Rosh Ha-Shanah is like a street lamp that gives us one more chance to look around. We can at least look back at the past. But, of course, this is also not so simple. The past is gone. Under the Rosh Ha-Shanah lights we will not see what’s lost of the past. But we can at least contemplate the past under the glow of the lamp. We can use the searchlight of Rosh Ha-Shanah to illuminate our memories.

And, sometimes, while we think we are looking for one thing, we may be surprised to find something else. You can never tell what you will find under the lamp’s glow. One memory may stay hidden in the dark, while another, that you thought was lost far off, will reappear, glimmering under the light. Thus, we sometimes recall a meaningful experience that we had, not only in the last year, but even further back.

Today I would like to share with you a recollection of mine from long, long ago. I was a student at a Modern Orthodox Jewish day school. Though my father was a dynamic rabbi who had sought meaning in non-Orthodox Judaism, my parents chose to send me to Yeshivah from Kindergarten on. I thrived in that environment. I loved the entire experience – the studies, the friends, the rhythms of Jewish life. I endeared myself to the teachers because I was such an eager student.

It was some time in middle school, perhaps 6th grade or, maybe, seventh, that our teacher gave us an assignment to write a composition. The essay had to be written in Hebrew. The subject was: “A Person I Greatly Admire.” We were charged with portraying this person and explaining why we thought he or she was a real hero.

I was thrown into a crisis. I took these assignments very seriously. But it was not the Hebrew language requirement that challenged me. I was tormented by a conflict. Who was the personal hero I should pick?

I was torn between two choices. I could write about the legendary Rabbi Aqiva. I had read and heard so many stories about him. He had transformed himself from being a poor, illiterate shepherd to become perhaps the greatest rabbi who has ever lived. Or died. For, as we will chant on Yom Kippur, he died, almost 2000 years ago, a martyr for the sake of the Torah, for the sake of keeping Jewish tradition alive in the hearts and souls of the Jewish people. For you and me.

So I could write a rousing report about why I admired Rabbi Aqiva so much.

But…

But I also happened to have another hero. Actually, he wasn’t exactly my hero. He was my idol. He was not a rabbi. He knew nothing about the Torah. In fact, he wasn’t very literate at all.

But – he could run like the wind! And he was so strong that he had hit the longest homeruns any human being ever hit – in history! His name was Mickey Mantle.

Which should it be? Rabbi Aqiva or “The Mick”?

I knew that choosing Rabbi Aqiva would be a correct choice. I think I sensed that it would also be a safe choice. But – something would not let me go in that direction. The problem, as I thought about it, was that I had never actually seen Rabbi Aqiva. No matter how much I had learned about him, he still remained, in some fundamental way, lost in the dark. Lost to me. Not really my hero.

I felt that it was important that I describe someone whom I had actually seen and experienced (- although I had only seen Mantle on TV or listened to his games on the radio). Those sights and sounds sent me into fits of joy or despair, awe or frustration. My feelings were happening in real time along with Mickey’s exploits. That seemed very real to me. So I felt it would be more honest to choose him.

I started writing about Mickey Mantle in Hebrew. I wrote about his speed and grace and power. And then I got to the main point: that he accomplished all this while being injured and in pain. How much faster he might have run! How many more home runs he might be hitting! He was not just a hero. He was a middle-schooler’s version of a tragic hero. I remember that I had to look up the Hebrew word for “bandages” in the dictionary so that I could describe how he played even though he was all taped up. I worked hard on the paper and handed it in with peace-of-mind.

Now, our yeshivah day-school had a weekly program in honor of Shabbat. Every Friday afternoon we would all gather in the lunchroom and the Principal would talk to us, offering a little sermon, or teaching, for the week. The Principal was a man in his thirties, a caring man who was building this yeshivah from the ground up. I liked him and looked up to him.

That Friday we assembled. The program began as always. And then I began to hear the Principal speak with agitation and strained emotion: “How can it be that one of our wonderful students, when asked to offer a portrait of his hero, can choose to write an entire composition about a ballplayer?! Has he never heard of the Torah greats of our time? Of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein? Of Rabbi Aharon Kotler?” He then went on to lament that the yeshivah had failed its students. We had not been exposed to contemporary Jewish figures of stature. He resolved that we would take a school trip to the Lakewood Yeshivah, to see the “Major Leagues of Torah learning,” so to speak. And, some months later, we did.

The afternoon of that assembly I was assaulted with a complex of emotions – embarrassment, confusion, sorrow, resolve and interest. It very much pained me to be the focus of this outrage and disappointment. I had never imagined that my essay had so much significance such that it would become an issue for the entire school. And I felt ashamed to have failed so badly.

Nevertheless, with all my sorrow and humiliation, I was also conscious of possessing a different awareness that I could not deny. Despite the rabbi’s alternating expressions of outrage and sadness, I knew that I was ultimately right. I knew that I had made the only honest choice possible for me at the time. I knew that the rabbi had failed to appreciate the good qualities and values that I had celebrated in my essay. I knew that I was a young boy, but that I was right. And I knew that my rabbi, whom I trusted and admired, was wrong. That afternoon I learned that such a thing was possible.

But I was also intrigued by the rabbi’s complaint. He did not complain that I had not chosen Rabbi Aqiva, who lived in the dark past, millennia ago. He mentioned rabbis who were alive today, who he claimed were giants of the spirit. He claimed that, while Mickey Mantle was beating out a surprise drag bunt single down the first-base line, these sages were accomplishing great things for us and for the world – creating institutions of Jewish learning, lighting up the Torah as never before, saving the lives and binding the wounds of a Jewish community fresh from the crematoria. What was the Hebrew word for “bandages”, again?

And I, I had to admit, I had never heard of them.

Some 50 Rosh Ha-Shanah’s have passed by since then. A lot has changed. I have learned a lot since then, about Mickey Mantle and about Rabbi Aqiva and about all those who followed in their footsteps.

Of Rabbi Aqiva I learned that his wife had defied her wealthy and powerful father to marry him because she loved him deeply and saw something extraordinary deep inside him. They married when he was forty and did not know an alef from a bet. But, with her help, he then turned his life around, and went to learn the letters of the Torah side-by-side with their son.

Of Mickey Mantle I learned that he married his wife because he could not bring himself to defy his father’s orders. I learned that he was convinced that he would die by the time he was forty, as other males in his family had. So he drank and caroused as much as he could, measuring the value of living in terms of physical pleasures and thrills. Because they were what was most valuable, he didn’t care what they cost. So he paid the price, undermining his amazing athletic powers, shortening his career, and all but destroying his wife and the lives of his four sons.

Rabbi Aqiva was put to death at the legendary age of 120, with a smile and the words of the Sh’ma on his lips. Mickey Mantle bitterly surprised himself and lived to 64 – enough time past 40 to learn to bemoan how he had betrayed his body, his soul and his family. To his great credit, he died a ba`al teshuvah – a true penitent. As he lay dying, he pleaded with the world not to see him as a role-model, but to learn from his mistakes. He tried his best to reconcile with his wife and family.

So is this simply a sharp contrast between opposites, a comparison of light and dark? So, does the final score show that Rabbi Aqiva finally beats out The Mick as my hero?

Not quite. I will always love those memories of The Mick. His swing, even when he missed, was a thing of awesome beauty. His running took your breath away. His grin was the epitome of innocence. And he taught me about imperfection.

But, I have learned that his life and the values surrounding that life are not the keys to a better understanding or practice of living. To seek them there is as useless as looking for Seymour’s keys under the lamppost.

For us the keys are hidden in the dark. We cannot move the lamppost. But we can bring a candle or, to use the double meaning of the British word, a torch, and move toward where the keys really are. Shomrei offers us candles, torches and matches.

As we recite during the Shofar service –
How fortunate are the people who know the sound of the

shofar;
Eternal One, may they walk in the Light of Your shining Face.