Blogs

I

     The year was 1986.  My sister and I were visiting family in San Francisco.  It was our first flight without our parents, and our first vacation as teenagers together.  We were intoxicated by all of it – Chinatown, the Victorians up and down the hills.  So many people outside enjoying the temperate December weather.  The magic of actually laying our eyes on the Pacific Ocean.  Even the Tower Records in North Beach.  That’s where I got this (hold it up) – my first Joni Mitchell album.  From the opening chords, that was that.  I was hooked – a devotee for life!

    She had me imagining the sweet simplicity of sitting in an outdoor café over hot tea and lemonade, and the Bohemian life of a Lady of the Canyon. And oh, the misfortune – the injustice of not having been born early enough to even have the option of being at Woodstock!  Then of course there was the classic Circle Game.  The seasons still go round and round, as that song has grown up with so many of us.  And it still grows.  And we do too.

     Maybe I wasn’t paying attention, or enough attention at any rate, but never in my life did I think I’d be standing in front of you with the message that they did it.  It really happened.  They paved paradise.

II

     Not many people know – I certainly didn’t until recently – that the White House Rose Garden dates back centuries.  It all began with the desire on the part of our founders to plant trees enhancing the setting’s sense of purpose and majesty.  Since those roots (no pun intended), the Rose Garden has been used for joyous and occasionally whimsical events, as well as for noteworthy speeches and addresses.  Chief among them?  Seventy years ago, an emotional President Eisenhower paid tribute to Jonas Salk there.  He had at long last, after years of diligence and hard work, successfully developed the polio vaccine.  (pause)

     What does it mean for such betterment, for momentous steps forward like this one to be acknowledged against a backdrop of color and radiance? 

     What does it mean for us, sitting here this morning as the year turns forward and we turn with it – hope and trepidation, joy and sorrow filling our hearts?

     What beauty might we yet seek, in a world that too often feels torn asunder?  If it really is true on some level “ that we don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone” (hold up album again) … now is the time to be curious about these questions.

III

     Hiddur Mitzvah.  That’s the Hebrew phrase referring to the beautification of mitzvot as we perform them.  This idea extends to ritual objects exquisitely hammered out of silver, B’nai Mitzvah certificates and Ketubot, or wedding contracts artfully decorated.  We actually need look no further than the windows of our own sanctuary.  The stained glass isn’t strictly necessary, is it?  But can you imagine this place without it?  In the words of our liturgy early in this morning’s service, “how beautiful, and how good.”[1]

     The colors and vibrancy of our windows tell us where we are – maybe even something about who we are.  I’ll always remember our Bat Mitzvah student last year who made the connection between the “Bereishit” up here (gesture) and the first word of her upcoming Bat Mitzvah portion.  How her eyes lit up!

    Then there is our Mitzvah Garden just beyond these windows, and our freshly repainted Little Free Library courtesy of one of our gifted college students.  These endeavors give what sustenance we can give… to those who are hungry, to those who crave stories.  Those who fight for themselves, for their families, for their imaginations.  And so, we extend our hands, with dignity and with vibrancy in a world that cries out for both.

     Those who came before us are not strangers to what often feels like a struggle to blossom in the midst of unforgiving conditions.  Our ancestors nearly without exception faced times during which they were unhoused, unloved, unsure.  Times when the color and lushness they sought was overwhelmed with settings that were grey, immutable and unyielding instead. 

     Their longings then are akin to our longings now.  We lean into the promise articulated by the prophet Isaiah: “The arid desert shall be glad/ The wilderness shall rejoice/ And shall bloom like a rose.” [2]  Elsewhere, the Psalmist assured a Jewish community in exile: “The righteous shall bloom like a date palm; shall thrive like a cedar.” [3]

     From our past, the exultant parts and the painful parts too, we have been catapulted into a present where it seems all the wrong things are in danger of becoming the enemy, or already have.  Empathy.  Solidarity.  Even… flowers?!  Oh, America. 

     From the belly of these circumstances,  we plaintively and determinedly ask: how might we begin again in a world that would stanch the uniqueness – the beauty - of the song each one of us sings?  How will we bloom now?

IV

     Our Sages of old taught in praise of the reed: A person should always be soft like a reed… not … stiff like a cedar.[4]  This was not a statement meant to encourage spinelessness or caving in on important issues.  Rather, the teaching expounds, a cedar’s strength can actually be the source of its downfall in a storm, whereas a reed, with its propensity to bend will emerge tempest tossed from that same storm.  But it will emerge.  A model of humility and flexibility, over time the reed was and is chosen most often as the instrument for writing a Sefer Torah, rather than a tool made of metal akin to those used in war.

     In a world that would give us carte blanch to harm each other when we disagree, or to divisively categorize everyone into “us and them,” or to jettison previously treasured relationships, might we too be like the reed: breathing deeply, listening and claiming the right to be listened to in turn, having faith that openness and flexibility can be  instruments of strength, and can bring us somewhere better. 

     Elsewhere, the Book of Job reflects that  “There is hope for a tree/
If it is cut down, it will sprout again/ And its tender shoots will not cease.
Though its root may grow old in the earth/ And its stump may die in the ground/ At the scent of water it will bud/ And bring forth branches like a plant.”[5]

     We have all seen them.  Those blades of grass and tiny wildflowers growing out of cracks in the sidewalk.  Small green shoots, reminding us if we look closely enough that much is imperiled but all is not lost.  That blossoming from the middle of unlikely places can happen.  Maybe those roots in the Rose Garden are lying in wait, and their time to bring new blossoms forward will come.  So will ours.

    And finally, a story from a contemporary Jewish sage, Rabbi David Wolpe.  He relays that when his father was only 11 years old, his own father – David’s grandfather - died suddenly.  As a young boy in a more or less traditional Jewish community in Boston, Gerald Wolpe used to walk to the synagogue daily to say Kaddish for his father.  After a few weeks of this sad routine, the ritual director of the shul, Mr. Einstein, happened to be walking by the Wolpe home and said to the young boy, “You know, this is on my way and I thought why not pick you up and we’ll walk together… that way I won’t have to walk alone each morning.”

     And so through the seasons – the golden New England fall, the cold winter, the humid Boston summer – the two of them walked together and Gerald Wolpe was not alone.

     Years later when he grew up, became a rabbi and was married with a baby son, he went back to Boston and called Mr. Einstein.  “You know, I would love you to meet my boy,” he said.  Mr. Einstein was now well into his 90’s and didn’t leave his house much, so he said, “I would love to meet him.  Why don’t you all come here together.  I’ll give you directions.  You’ll come by and we will meet.”

     “The journey between my childhood home and his was long and complicated,” Rabbi Wolpe relates. Mr. Einstein’s home by car was a full 20 minutes away.  I drove in tears as I realized what he had done.  He’d walked for more than an hour to my home so I would not have to be alone each morning.  With the simplest of gestures, the act of caring, he took a frightened child and led him with confidence and faith,”[6]

     This story just might hold the most powerful key of all.  One walked beside the other and never said the words, but allowed his presence to say for him, better days will come.  You will live to see them.  And you will blossom.

V

     At the threshold of the New Year, my hope for all of us is that we may do this for each other.  There will be days where some of us will feel the fullness of the world’s blessings, faces turned towards the sun.   And others will feel wilted and dispirited and scared.  Then the days will come when those who felt broken feel whole, and those who knew wholeness will feel it tremble.  It has never been more essential than it is now that we take care of each other, helping each other to walk forward together.

     Did you know that the ideal ground for roses to bloom is soil that is loamy?  Loam refers to soil that comes to be through a combination of clay, silt and sand.  A mixed multitude if you will.  It is earthy, crumbly grounding, but somehow yields flowers that vie for our attention, tumbling over each other in all their delicacy… all their brilliance. 

     From the loam of our days, frightening and shape shifting though they are, our legacy as part of the ongoing story of the Jewish people is also one of color and tenacity – discerning paths where there are no paths, rising from the rubble to bloom again and again, everywhere we are planted.

     To those who seek to keep us isolated and confused, let us respond by leaning in and taking action in whatever ways our hearts steer us. 

     To those who attempt to persuade us of the superiority of grey gardens, let us remember how the Song of Songs croons: “I am a rose of Sharon … a lily among thorns/ an apple tree among the trees of the wood.”[7]  Ours is a verbal and studious tradition, but color and beauty light up this world too!

     To those who want us scared, let us remember that we descend from a 75-year old man who answered God’s call of “Lech L’cha,” leaving everything he knew behind in order to cultivate a journey filled with vitality and blessing.  We are always, always braver than we think.

     Paradise is unlikely in our lifetime, and so in the words of Rabbi Tamara Cohn Eskenazi:

     “Now what?  (pause)  The seasons return, and now is our turn to sing these words: ‘Arise up my friends, my beautiful ones, and go forth.  It is time to hear your voices and it is time for you to blossom.’” [8]

     Ken Y’hi Ratzon.  May it be God’s will.

(Dedicated to Janet Gutterman, who loved flowers, and loved social justice even more)