The following is the sermon Rabbi Olitzky delivered at Congregation Beth El on the first day of Rosh Hashanah 5782/2021. The text of the sermon follows the video.
I’m so grateful for Jewish summer camps. Camp is one of the many ways and places that helped me fall in love with Judaism. For my daughter, Cayla, who spent her first summer at overnight camp this year, it became a safe space, and almost normal. Special thanks to Camp Ramah in the Poconos for taking care of her, and to all the summer camps out there for taking care of all of our children, for giving them a quote-unquote normal summer. And it was intense to even get her to camp: we had to show proof of a negative COVID test in order to drive unto the camp grounds, and then slowly car-by-car, pulled up as one child – and no adults – got out of the car one at a time for additional COVID testing. And camp began in pods, which grew larger and larger with each camp-wide negative COVID test. The thinking was, well, if the NBA could have a bubble, then so could Jewish summer camp.
Rabbi Norman Cohen shares a story about when the bus to camp would meet in his community’s parking lot. He’d gather to send off his youngest congregants as they loaded their luggage in the undercarriages before ascending the few steps of the coach bus prior to a couple hour ride towards their summer utopia. He reflected on the first time he saw a mother crying saying goodbye to her daughter who was going to sleepaway camp for the first time. Trying to comfort her, he responded, “don’t worry. She’ll be back.” But the mother kept crying and responded through tears, “no she won’t. She’s never coming back. Not this child. My daughter will be a different person when I see her in four weeks.”
I thought of that story as I put on my sunglasses on a cloudy and rainy day to mask my tears during drop-off. I knew that my daughter would come back a different person, for the better, but different nonetheless. And I’ve been reflecting on that same story over the past year and a half. I frequently would say, “this is how it is until things return to normal”; “we are on Zoom until we’re back to normal”; “we wear masks until things are normal again.”
But there is no real “back to normal.” There is life as a community and society prior to this pandemic, and there is life now, still during this pandemic, and after. But after the pandemic will not be like before. Many may be returning to our sacred space for the first time in a long time, and while this is the same sanctuary that we gathered in for Purim a year and a half ago, prior to temporarily shuttering our doors, it is also different. We have returned home, different than before.
God tells Abram, Avram, “Lech Lecha m’Artzecha, M’moladatecha, u’mi’beit Avicha el Haaretz asher areka,” “Surely Go for your own sake. Leave behind all that you know. Leave your land, where you were born, your family’s home, to a land I will show you” (Gen. 12:1).
And Abram, accompanied by his wife Sarai, do just that. Parashat Lech Lecha ends a handful of chapters later with Abram and Sarai entering into a covenant with God. Abram becomes Abraham, Avraham, and Sarai becomes Sarah. The changing of a name is meant to signify more than just one’s place in this covenantal relationship with the Divine. Changing one’s name signifies a major transformation. And this transformation was not a sign of the covenant; it was an impact of the journey. Abraham and Sarah, after leaving all that they knew and all that was safe and comfortable to them, after going on this Lech Lecha journey, could not return back to normal. After life’s experiences, they could not be Avram and Sarai. They understood that they were different. We must understand that too. This pandemic has changed us. It has changed us as individuals and changed us as community. We cannot go back to ‘normal,’ to how things were before because that was striving to meet the needs of different people. We are not the same and what is ‘normal’ is not the same either.
Tomorrow, as part of our Rosh Hashanah Torah reading, we read the Akeidah, the binding of Isaac, narrative. In this very complicated text, we read about the complicated nature of Abraham following a command to sacrifice his son as a sign of blind faith. In this reading, Abraham brings Isaac on a journey, climbs a mountain top, binds him up, sharpens his knife and raises it in his hand in preparation for slaughter. Only then does an angel of God interfere. “Abraham! Abraham!” So distracted, the angel must call his name twice to get his attention. And the angel says “atah yadati ki yereh Elohim,” “now I know that you are a person of faith and believe in God.” Now.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, the famous Polish Hasidic leader of the 19th century asked why does the angel say now is proof that Abraham is a person of faith? Why not when you took his son on the journey or up the mountaintop? Why not when you bound him up or took knife in hand? Because now, he untied his son. Aside from the family drama, and likely expensive therapy bills that came from this experience, Abraham had an idea of how life would be. It was difficult for him, but it was a path that he ultimately excepted, and now, with the angel saving his son, preventing him from such a sacrifice, Abraham’s perceived journey became altered. What he thought life would be like changed. As Rabbi Norman Lamm described, “it is human nature to not retreat from whatever path one is on in life, to mold the future along the doctrines of the past. We do not want to change, we cannot change,” he said, “because doing so potentially deems our past invalid or inauthentic.” What the angel is suggesting here is not that Abraham is a person of faith because he was willing to sacrifice his son. By the angel declaring that “now” Abraham is a person of faith, the celestial being is declaring that Abraham is a person of faith because he has changed. He was willing to change. He didn’t dig his feet in the sand, stuck in his ways. He understood that people change. The reality of the world around him and his relationships with those around him forced him to change.
And so, we stand here, some of us seated together in sacred space, some of us on our couches, attempting to create sacred space together at home, wanting things to be back to normal, but they’re not; hopeful that maybe by 2022 they will be, but they won’t. Because society is forever changed. We as a community are forever changed. And we as individuals are forever changed. And as the angel declared to Abraham “atah yadati ki yerei Elohim,” that now, as we embrace such changes, we can do so knowing that such changes are part of our process to connect and reconnect to the divine and to become holier versions of ourselves.
When we blow the shofar, we do so with four separate notes: Tekiyah, Shevarim, Teruah, and Tekiyah Gedolah. Tekiyah: we are whole. Shevarim: we are broken and different than before. Teruah: we have shattered our ideas of the past. But then even when we expect to return to Tekiyah, to return to how it was before, we ultimately conclude with Tekiyah Gedolah, with one final elongated blast, longer and louder than before. It is a sign that we change constantly, and even when we think and hope that we will return to a previous state, in reality we are changing to a different, fuller, more authentic state. We are ultimately becoming a Tekiyah Gedolah. For there have been things that have been extremely difficult about the changes to our realities over the past 18 months, aside from the health concerns that were the catalyst for all these changes in the first place. But I believe, there were also necessary changes that each of us made to become a Tekiyah Gedolah. Once we realized there was no going back, once we realized our realities would never again be Tekiyah, we embraced such changes and became more whole and more holy as a result. So how have you changed?
Some of us have learned to not sweat the small stuff and not let the small things annoy us. We try to be reminded of the bigger picture, of the continued blessings in our lives. Others are angry all the time. At the government. At the world. At those who see the world differently than us. At family members or colleagues who are less concerned about health, safety, and each other’s well-being than we are. Some of us have eaten with family every single meal, a sliver of light. Others, have eaten alone, our loneliness only exacerbated by this pandemic. Some of us love Zoom, and the comfort of staying connected to family members near and far, or taking a work meeting in the comfort of sweat pants. Others prefer to never look at a computer screen again and may opt out of any social, educational, cultural, or spiritual experience if it begins with the word “virtual.” Some yearn for a physical embrace. I am a hugger and I have a year and a half worth of hugs stored up and all I want is to hug people more. After spending so much time not embracing each other, any opportunity to do so is one to take advantage of. Others are hesitant to be close to others and for them, hugs and even handshakes may be a permanent fixture of a past life. Some of us have binge watched every single show that Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ or any other streaming service has to offer as a way to disconnect from the real world every once and a while. Others now only watch the news. Some have begun commuting back to work. Some will never take the train again, and opt for driving, fearful of being in a crowded place with people they don’t know. Others will never commute again, having permanently transitioned to working remotely, have changed careers, or reprioritized other aspects of their lives, putting work on the backburner. Some have a mask to match every outfit; it has become a clothing accessory. My children wear masks everywhere and often remember to grab them when I forget. In fact, they are so used to them, that they will come home from school and be on the couch for over an hour, having forgotten to take their masks off.
Some of us can’t wait until we can shed our face coverings, here or elsewhere, and see each other’s smiles again. Others may forever mask up when we are in a crowded public place.
In this moment, I feel like an angel is calling out to us repeatedly, and telling us atah Yadati Ki Yerei Elohim, now, you return to synagogue still masked, still socially distanced. Or you transform your couch into a pew, your television screen into a bimah. Now, you – now we – have committed to embracing this changed reality and our changed lives. We have embraced that things will never be normal, like they were before, for we have a new, different, definition of normal. The world has changed. And we have changed. During the month of Elul, these weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah, we are taught to do a Cheshbon Hanefesh, an accounting of our souls. We are tasked with reflecting on the year that has passed, on what we did right, and what we did wrong, and how we hope to change for the better in the future.
The entire High Holiday season is about change – a personal change – and a promise to be the best versions of ourselves. We didn’t need ritual, or a holiday season, to remind us about the need for change this time around. We had reality swoop in and force us to change, force us to adapt. Do we still yearn for what was, knowing that is impossible, or do we embrace what is?
The book of Lamentations ends with a repetition, and thus emphasis, on the penultimate verse: Hashiveinu Adonai Elecha v’Nashuva, Chadesh Yameinu k’Kedem, Take us back to You, God, and Return us, Renew our Days so that they are like they once were. We ritually repeat these words, time and time again, not because we expect things to go back to how things were, but so that we can remember how things were – and not forget – even if we know and accept that life and reality is different now.
When we picked our daughter up from camp, there were many tears: tears of joy to see us, tears of sadness for leaving her new favorite place and newest best friends, and tears from her parents, accepting that with each thing that she said, and each expression that she made, she was different, a little bit older and more mature, shaped by camp and life. Our little girl didn’t return. Someone else did, changed by life’s experiences.
But like her, we all – changed by our experiences – become a Tekiyah Gelodah, a different, changed, renewed, versions of ourselves. Our names may not have changed, but we have. And certainly the metaphorical journeys we have been on as individuals, as community, and as society, are just as extensive as Abraham and Sarah’s. Gone is the world that we once knew. Now is a new reality, far from the land we dreamed that God would show us. But we embrace this change.
For, atah yadati ki yerei Elohim, now, as different people living in a very different world, may we connect with the divine, and the divine spark within ourselves in the year to come. Shana Tova.
Rabbi Jesse Olitzky 