YK 2021

 Faith and Hope in 5782

I’m a walker.  I like the rhythm of walking, how my jaw resonates with each pounding footfall, breath punctuating whatever podcast plays for distraction, education or entertainment.  Walking sustained me through the early days of the pandemic and now, alone in a city I do not know, walking is the best part of my weekends - time outdoors, winding along unfamiliar streets past charming cupola-topped houses of the 1700s, random field of sunflowers, jagged sidewalks pushed up by old rooted trees, the smells of the local bakery or putrid trash heap, un-mufflered motorcycles roaring and just last weekend - soul music blaring around a corner.   

It was Sunday morning, barely 10am in what I thought was a residential neighborhood.  But as I followed the music I found myself in front of a tiny building on a corner with an even tinier sign: Congdon Street Baptist Church.  Behind the church, a parking lot.  In the parking lot was a band, leading services for masked and socially distanced worshippers - maybe a dozen strong - all Black, all standing and singing, arms raised to the sky. I stopped and watched, caught up in their collective rapture.  Then, suddenly self-conscious and out of place in my sweatpants and baseball cap, I moved on.  

But the moment stayed with me for the rest of the day and made me think:  What did it take for those congregants to gather, Sunday after Sunday, in a small cracked-asphalt parking lot, only hard folding chairs to sit on in the hot humid air, sweating in masks, separated by by social distance?  They were dancing, raising their hands and voices together despite all obstacles.  What brought them there, week after week, mask after mask, to the sweltering parking lot?  Was it faith or was it hope?

When our kids were little, we kept Shabbat, every Friday night without fail.  And from the time Nathaniel was six years old, every Friday, Matti would turn to him and ask, “Why do we have two challah on Shabbat?”  Anxious to please his father, the boy would stumble for an answer.  Friday after Friday, for weeks and then months, he struggled until his Jewish education kicked in and he knew the biblically correct answer about God and manna and all of that junk.  But every week, Matti would ask a second question.  “Nathaniel,” he would say, “why do I ask you this question every week?”  Years passed, week after week, the same question would go unanswered.  Some Fridays, Nathaniel would joke- cuz he’s funny and clever and incredibly charming.  Others, he would snap back in irritation - cuz he’s a normal kid and got frustrated with himself and his dad.  But never did he have the right answer.  Every Friday night, year after year, he showed up to the shabbat table, knowing he’d be on the spot, knowing he would fumble for the right answer - the answer that would please his father.  

Then one Shabbat, some time before he was Bar Mitzvah, Nathaniel looked at his father and said, “You ask me this question every shabbat because I’m different.”  THIS was the answer Matti sought week after week for so many years.  At the age of eleven, Nathaniel wasn’t likely thinking about this Friday night ritual in the context of faith or hope.  He was merely doing as his father asked - digging deep to find a unique answer to a question that remained the same.  Until that Friday when he recognized that although the question remained the same, although the ritual was consistent, HE had changed.  And so did his response.  

My ritual is the Modeh Ani.  My day begins with it, recited silently - to myself - for myself - a reminder of gratitude, a reminder to be present, to pay attention.  Most days, I try to find a quiet moment to take three steps back, stretch my arms to the sky, bring my hands to my heart and pray for the strength to be a better human, wife, mother, friend, to take a breath before I speak, to think before I react. I do this, day after day, week after week, returning to a ritual in order to return to myself so that I can be for something other than myself.  Is that faith?  The words are the same every day - the words of the Modeh Ani, the words of my personal prayer.  The degree to which I am present, the intention or focus I may or may not have as breath meets lips and tongue and teeth to form words shifts daily.  But some days - not as many as I’d like but more than I probably deserve - I take three steps forward into the physical world and feel emboldened, galvanized, and yes, sometimes even hopeful.  

So maybe Faith is in the doing.  Hope is in the feeling that the doing has meaning that ultimately will yield fruit.  It comes in an instant at the shabbat table - the lightning flash moment that you are different - you can and have changed - and that change manifests as new perspective - a new take on whatever box you feel stuck in.   

A movement from faith to hope - I have faith that my morning ritual is good for me, like eating lots of vegetables and not eating too much sugar.  The practice started as an idea - an intellectual pursuit of a spiritual practice.  But in the embodiment of ritual - entering a physical space (yes - the three steps forward and back thingy), closing my eyes and speaking the same words day after day, something happened.  What began as forced routine became welcome practice.  Sometimes that practice takes up three minutes of my day, sometimes thirty.  Some days the feeling that I’m doing something correct for myself and in doing so for the people around me comes easily.  Some days - most days - it doesn’t come at all.  And still I get up, find a corner and say the words I need to say, praying to feel the ‘something’ that must be optimism.  Faith, for me, is discipline.  Hope is what is born of it.  

And why do I mention this as we enter what you may be sick of hearing from me:  Yom Kippur is my favorite holiday of the year and Kol Nidre my favorite service of my favorite holiday.   Blah blah, yes you know - the spirituality, the community, the chest-beating, the cell phone I don’t look at for 25 hours and of course, my insistence on giving my annual drash that focuses on a different miniscule aspect of the liturgy each year. Enough already.   But here we are.  Its YK 5782 and its not that different from 5781.  Yes, we have vaccines.  Baruch Hashem.  But we also have variants and uncertainty and borderline insanity.  How, in the midst of all of this, do we hold on to hope?

So this year, my drash is about that old chestnut, Kavanah: not just showing up, but showing up with intention.  Because showing up with intention has the power - every now and then - to turn faith into hope.  Those people, outside the Congdon Street Church showed up with intention.  My son, every week of his childhood at the shabbat table, showed up with intention.  I want to be a person who shows up with intention - not just during Kol Nidre services, not just on Yom Kippur, but every morning when I carve out time for the Modeh Ani, every moment I race to an answer without thinking, or react without considering my reaction.  I want to be the person who stops, who takes a moment to consider the words I’m about to speak, the impact they might have on anyone nearby.  I want to live intentionally.  And in doing so, live hopefully.  Living hopefully means being present for myself so that I can be present for others - my husband, my children, my friends.  Living hopefully is putting on my oxygen mask so I live long enough to help someone else put on theirs. I fail most of the time.  But still I keep trying.  Yom Kippur offers us the opportunity to acknowledge our failures and move forward with the hope that we can and will do better.  It offers us the chance to do better.    

This reset button we get to push every year - this moment of deep connection to ourselves and our community whether they’re with us in body or spirit - is the reminder that routine is not enough - showing up is not enough - and sometimes even intention is not enough.  Sometimes we show up and close our eyes and say the words and the feeling eludes us - the best of intentions leads no where.  So what do we do?  We show up again.  We say the words again.  We try harder.  And finally, finally we find ourselves aloft on the melodies that bring us back year after year, time after time, and in those brief moments we are reminded of why we do the work - and what it means to truly feel the rewards of Kavanah. We are reminded to hope.

G’mar chatimah tova.