Rosh Ha-Shanah Sermon, 5776

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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!

But – not so fast! Let’s remember that Ms. Stein, as she lay dying, and after uttering that seemingly ultimate query, “What is the answer?” – is reported to have followed up on that remark by saying, “In that case, what is the question?”

If these are the Ten Days of Answering – then, in that case, what is the question they are responding to? I hope to share some thoughts with you during these days of Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur about what those questions might be. And then we can hope to explore what kinds of answers we can try to seek. I propose that we look at the first questions ever asked. What were those questions and what answers have been offered in response?

So let us return – these are also called the Ten Days of Returning – let us return to that first day of Creation which Rosh Ha-Shanah celebrates. Our tradition tells us that it is not the very first day of cosmic Creation that we commemorate today, but it is the sixth day of that Creation that we recall. We begin counting time from the day that human beings were created.

Our Torah tells us that, almost right away, on that very first day, our lives elicited a question. The first question recounted in the Torah is the question of the serpent in the Garden. But any contemporary reader of the text can tell you that the serpent is simply our own inner voice. So the question asked by the serpent is actually the question we ask ourselves.

What was the first question we asked ourselves? Let’s recall the context. The first human couple is placed in a veritable Garden of Eden. A place similar to Montclair. Nice, green, peaceful, comfortable. Oh, wait. It wasn’t a Garden of Eden. It actually was the Garden of Eden! The Garden of Eden is their home and their world and they have all their needs taken care of. So what is the very first question they ask themselves?

The serpent gives voice to their question: “Is it really so that the Almighty said that you could not eat from every tree of the Garden?” (Gen. 3:1)

The question sounds so innocuous. The shrewd serpent is seemingly just making a little small talk, just asking for a little information. How could such a harmless question lead to such disastrous and world shattering results? Is this trivial inquiry really the first question that humans grappled with?

Or is the question more significant? God had placed the humans in a place of beauty and plenty. But they were told that there was one tree, one tree out of all the thousands or millions of trees in that garden, one tree that they could not eat from. And the shattering question that directly issued from that limitation was – Can it really be that we cannot have everything? Is it really possible that God would not allow us to eat from every tree?

This simple question expressed the most painful and horrible thought to occur to these God-like creatures, beloved by God, coddled and pampered by their Creator. It introduced into the Garden the first moment of pain. It raised the painful possibility that we cannot have it all. No matter how driven we are, no matter how intelligent or good-looking or talented or connected or wealthy or lucky – or good. Just to ask the question is too discomfiting: Can it be that God will not give us everything?! It cannot be!

To disprove this absurdity they eat of the very tree that God has denied them. See! We really can eat from every tree in the Garden. See! Nothing is denied to us! We really can have it all!

But, of course, that is precisely how we discover that we really cannot have it all. The Torah describes Eve eyeing the fruit, contemplating how wonderful and delicious the tree promised to be, just as soon as they would grasp of it and taste it. So they take a bite. We are curious. How was it? Was it really as luscious as it looked? But the Torah says not a word about how the fruit actually tasted once they bit into it. Nothing. We have lost all memory of what the fruit actually tasted like. Instead we are told that their eyes open and they see how naked they are and how naked they have been. Instead of having everything, they feel stripped and bereft of everything. Now they really know that they cannot have it all.

That tree represented this basic, unshakeable fact. The tree stood as the limit of our possibilities and it stood for the fact that our possibilities are limited. By reaching out toward that limit, by touching it, grasping the fruit and eating from that tree, Adam and Eve thought they could erase that limit. By taking hold of that tree they thought they could supply an affirmative answer to the question, “Can’t we have it all?” They thought they could answer, “Sure. Can’t we?” But, instead, they turned that uncomfortable question into its own answer: “No, we can’t.”

We need to learn to live with that answer. The expulsion from the Garden of Eden is a blessing compared to the suffering that we cause when we reject the answer to this first question: “Can’t we have it all?” – for when we fail to accept it we destroy ourselves and others through self-deception and frustration, through greed, resentment and envy, corruption and oppression. We need to learn to live with that answer, and to strive to understand what that answer really means to us. If we are ready to accept that we cannot have it all, what are the implications for us personally, as families and communities? What are the social, political and global implications?

That question is the first one we asked ourselves, and only the beginning of the answer is clear. But that is not all. As the Torah continues the story of Creation, She mentions a second question. This time the question is not one the serpent asks. It is one thrown at us by God.

As it happened, just after we realized what we had done by eating from the tree, God was looking for us, hoping we would keep God company for a leisurely afternoon stroll together in the Garden. But we hid from God, among the leafy trees, ashamed of our nakedness and ashamed of our shame. And God could not find us. So this question hurtled out of God’s mouth: “Ayekah? Where are you?”

Where did that question come from? Our first question, “Can’t we have it all?” came from within ourselves. It came from our selfish sense of omnipotence and of entitlement. It came from a very sure sense of place, for it came from a sense of being at the very center of the universe, a sense that everything and everyone around us is significant only to the extent that we find them attractive, useful, tasty or meaningful.

But this second question – “Where are you?” – where does it come from? It comes from God. Unlike the first question of our history, it is not meant rhetorically; it is not uttered out a sense of independence and defiance. It comes from a sense of yearning that is the opposite of a sense of omnipotence. Instead of coming from a sense of certainty, it comes out a sense of puzzlement. Instead of presuming to supply the answer along with the question, it comes from a sense of not knowing the answer. And instead of coming from a sense of independence, it comes from a sense of utter dependency.

The question was hurled out into space. Was it meant for us? God knew we were somewhere, but where? If we were nowhere to be found, how could God address us? Did God know that we could hear Her questioning voice? Did God expect an answer?

We heard the voice and the question. And we offered an answer. The Torah tells us that Adam replied: “I heard Your voice in the Garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.” (Gen. 3:10) We notice that the Torah does not tell us that Adam and Eve emerged from hiding when they responded to God’s call. They did not reveal their whereabouts at all. Their answer to the question – “Where are you?” – is not, “Here we are” – but, rather – “We are in hiding. We are still in hiding. It does not matter where we are physically. Wherever we are, we are in fear, in shame, in our nakedness.”

That was our answer then. Is it our answer now? Is that the best we can do? I have acknowledged more than once our present reality of fear. Indeed, there is much to be afraid of – in this world and in ourselves. But are we meant to dwell in fear permanently, essentially? Are we meant to answer the question – “Where are you?” by saying – “We are hiding in fear”?

During these Days of Answer we should look toward one of the prayers especially recited at this time. As I have discussed before, Psalm 27 addresses this issue. It begins: “A psalm of David’s – The Eternal is my light and my salvation, of whom shall I be afraid?” But the psalm is not a simplistic rejection of fear. It acknowledges our need to hide sometimes. We need our spaces of privacy and safety. So the Psalmist says: “On a bad day, when God hides me away in God’s shelter – God’s sukkah – I feel as if I am raised upon a rock!”

Here, too, we hide. But we do not hide from God. We hide within God’s shelter. The word used by Adam to explain to God that they were hiding – va-eha-ve – refers to running away in terror and hoping never to be found. No one is supposed to know where we are. But the words for hiding used by the Psalmist – yitzp’neni, yastireni – convey an enveloping presence that accompanies our hiding. We do not hide ourselves, but are hidden by a protective, caring Power. And it expresses a readiness to wait out the situation and to re-emerge at the right time. We are strengthened and encouraged by that sheltering embrace.

So far we have studied two primal questions from our existential beginnings. The first question was one we asked of ourselves, and we did not succeed in giving a clear and constructive answer to it. The second question was asked of us by God, and we gave the wrong answer to it.

During these Ten Days of Answering we are given the chance to give better answers to these questions. We already know the questions. And I intend to suggest in my other talks with you that there are a couple of other questions we must answer. But so far, this we know – we need to give better answers than Adam and Eve did, and these days were given to us in the faith that we can.

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