Our Online Library: High Holy Days Sermons and Creative Liturgy

by Rabbi Yael B. Ridberg

A well-known midrash (Genesis Rabbah 39:1) tells us that Abraham was traveling from place to place when he came upon a birah doleket, a castle alight, and gained consciousness of God for the first time*.

What exactly did Abraham see? Some say that the castle was radiating brilliant light.  Others maintain that the castle was burning, enveloped in flames.

These are two very different readings of the word doleket – alight – with very different implications for our perspective on the world: one emphasizes the world’s beauty and the other highlights its potential for destruction.

My teacher and friend Rabbi Roly Matalon pointed me towards this midrash

when I expressed to him how difficult a time I was having dealing with my own despair about the world and how helpless I felt to effect any change.

I was feeling particularly numb, no major crisis or disaster to respond to this year, but I felt a certain degree of inertia, paralysis, and compassion fatigue.

It seemed that in the span of just a few weeks we witnessed the bridge collapse in Minnesota and the instantaneous discussion about the safety of all bridges everywhere.  We witnessed the terrible tragedy in the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah, and the inability to rescue the miners, or ultimately, retrieve their bodies.

We are two years post Hurricane Katrina and the insurance issues, the health crises, and the terrible depression among people living or returning to the Gulf Coast is devastating.

Although tourism is up in Israel, and there has been relative quiet in Jerusalem and the North, the community of Sderot continues to be

showered with qassam rockets.

The situation in Darfur continues to worsen and it seems that no matter how many articles as Nicholas Kristof writes in the NY Times, decisive action has not been taken.

And then there is the war in Iraq.  I recently watched the HBO special called

Alive Day Memories.  Executive Producer James Gandolfini interviewed ten soldiers and marines severely wounded in Iraq, who reveal their feelings on their future, their severe disabilities and their devotion to America. The documentary surveyed the physical and emotional cost of war through memories of their "alive day," the day they narrowly escaped death in Iraq.

While we read the names each week of those who have died, I have realized that I have done nothing to support the troops who have come home, or those still stationed there.  I am ashamed that it has taken me 4 years to realize this.

We are all easily distracted by what the media deems to be the important stories of the day: The rise and fall of celebrities, the chronicles of their lives and addictions.  But did you know that last week tens of thousands of people came to an anti-war rally in Washington DC – I didn’t even know about it,

and when it made the paper it was buried so deep I nearly missed it.

Of course, it is too easy to innumerate the places and events of our communal lives that are reason for despair and hopelessness.  What I seek are the expressions of light and warmth that happen usually when we are not looking.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, whose centennial we commemorate this year, writes in A Passion for Truth (p. 34):  “One may look upon the world with enthusiasm and absorb its wonder and radiant glory; one may also see and be shocked by its ugliness and evil. The prophet Isaiah heard the angels proclaim: ‘The whole earth is full of God’s glory’ (Is. 6:3);  Job, however, maintained that ‘the earth is given to the power of the wicked’ (Job 9:24).”

Heschel challenges us to see both of these things in the world: as we travel from place to place in our daily lives, we ought to see beauty and delight, as well as violence and human degradation.  The birah doleket in which we live is both bathed in glorious light and engulfed in destructive flames.  On these holy days, we both celebrate the world in its radiant glory and are shocked by its ugliness.

But, as Rabbi Matalon taught we must go beyond bearing witness and being shocked: strengthened by the knowledge that light is possible, we must use the light to expose the ugliness and begin to fix it.  “…We celebrate and we claim responsibility.

We celebrate and we reject the status quo of our lives and of our world.  We celebrate and we refuse to submit to the tyranny of our own apathy, hypocrisy, cruelty.”

How we do this is what concerns me.

The Chasidic masters, followers of Rebbe Nachman of Bratzlav, taught us to see any evil in the world as a mirror into ourselves: what we see in others exists in us. 

Rebbe Nachman was a great grandson of the founder of Chasidism, the Baal Shem tov, and lived in the 18^th century.  Despite living at a time of tumultuous change – through the industrial revolution, the American War of Independence,  and the french Revolution, R. Nachman developed supreme optimism and down to earth wisdom.  In that age too, feelings of emptiness or as I might say today, Paralysis, might overwhelm, but his message was one of hope and joy, and how even when we think that all is lost, sparks of light are waiting to be released.

He speaks often about “the Empty Chair” – a metaphor for the alienated self.

Rebbe Nachman teaches how to fill the empty chair by leaving sadness and despair and finding hope and joy.

It is because of his God-wrestling that Rabbi Nachman taught “kol ha’olam kulo gesher tzar me’od  v’ha’ikar lo lefached klal: the entire world is a narrow bridge, and the essence is not to fear.” 

We sing this song often and it wasn’t until I started preparing this sermon that I suddenly realized just how powerful and uplifting these words could be. 

I want to feel that there is an entire movement of people taking these words seriously.  More importantly, I want leadership that takes these words seriously.  Every time I turn around what is really lacking is leadership.

When appearance trumps substance in presidential candidate debates; when average Americans make YouTube videos and question those candidates with far more passion, conviction, and intelligence than the candidates put forth in their answers, tt is hard not to fear for our future, it is hard to walk that narrow bridge with confidence.

Tonight I want to share some stories of people who are walking the narrow bridge and are not afraid to make a difference.  They are not afraid to keep hoping and working for a better world.

In Los Angeles, a woman named Sylvia Levin celebrated her 90th birthday the same way she has marked each Friday for the last 34 years.  She traveled to Malibu, set up her card table and chairs outside the First Bank branch there and spent the next two hours asking passersby at the Malibu Colony Plaza shopping center if they're registered to vote.

Every Friday is Malibu day for Levin. Saturdays are Venice days. Sundays are spent at the farmer's market in Westwood Village. Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, she's outside the post office at Westwood's Federal Building.
Six days a week for 34 years Levin has walked or traveled by bus around Los Angeles to sign up people to vote. So far she's registered more than 46,700.  She knows: she's kept track.  In an article last week in the LA Times, Levin said: "Voting gives you the right to voice what's in your heart on paper -- on the ballot," she said. "People who are registering for the first time in their lives leave this table just flying. They know they've taken a big step."

 Kol halom kulo, gesher tzar me’od, V’haikar lo lfached klal.  The entire world is a narrow bridge, and the essence is to give people their voice to make change.

 Last Novemeber, when I went to Israel, I took two days and volunteered with Livnot u’lehibanot, To build and be built, which is a community service

and Jewish education program in the city of Tzfat in the North.  The war with Hezbollah last summer raised public awareness of the condition of the bomb shelters.  Many residents were unable to enter the neglected shelters

and were forced to hide underneath stairs and buildings.  Only then did it become apparent that efforts must be made to upgrade the outdated structures.

 Livnot seized and embraced the opportunity to repair the shelters.  So for two days, I painted bomb shelters primarily at an absorption Center for Ethiopian immigrants.  It was so inspiring to be with Israelis who saw it as their obligation to do what the government had neglected, and to see them doing this work for the newest arrivals to Israel.

 Kol halom kulo, gesher tzar me’od,V’haikar lo lfached klal. The entire world is a narrow bridge, and the essence is to help people live in safety when threatened.

 In the days surrounding the 2^nd anniversary of Hurricane Kartrina, I watched a lot of Anderson Cooper.  In one of his reports on recovery efforts, he said that if New Orleans stands a chance at rebuilding, the city will have the 1 million volunteers who have streamed into the city over the last 2 years to thank.  He profiled 2 volunteers who left their lives in Washington, D.C.,

to help Hurricane Katrina victims.  Liz McCartney, a former teacher and lawyer Zack Rosenberg, created the St. Bernard Project to help rebuild houses in the St. Bernard Parish neighborhood of New Orleans.  The pair found a way to rebuild homes there for just $10,000 apiece—about $40,000 less than FEMA says it pays for a trailer.

Depending on the number of volunteers, Liz says they can finish a house in eight to 12 weeks.  By August 2007, 69 families had already moved into new homes.  While the clients face significant barriers, the problems these families face are easily solved by St. Bernard Project.  They raise funds for donated materials and recruit volunteers.  They put them together, homes get rebuilt, and residents finally get to move back home.

 Kol halom kulo, gesher tzar me’od, V’haikar lo lfached klal. The entire world is a narrow bridge, and the essence is to help people rebuild their lives one family at a time.

 Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his book Who Needs God, speaks to this when he writes, “It makes an immense difference whether we see ourselves as isolated individuals at war with the rest of the world, or as links in a network of human beings working for each other’s happiness as well as our own and depending on other people to help us find what we cannot get for ourselves.” 

 Voter apathy in America, unsafe bomb shelters in Israel, and devastated communities in New Orleans are but three examples of the birah doleket –

the castle alight that is truly in flames.  Syvia Levin, Livnot u’lehibanot, and the St. Bernard Project are three examples of how to see the beauty and light that radiates from the birah doleket the castle alight with warmth and comfort.

 It is true that we can only do so much to heal the world and work for justice.  But what we can certainly do is take care of other people, and by lifting up others, we lift up ourselves.

 As we enter into the holiest time of the year, let us assert together as Heschel taught, that there can be meaning beyond the absurdity that we witness, “that we have the power to create and change, that there is a higher path than the one we currently tread, that our actions matter.  Above all, we affirm the castle in which we live does not have to burn inevitably to destruction, but that our deeds, filled with Torah and love, will cause our world to shine.” (Roly Matalon)

 Kol halom kulo, gesher tzar me’od,V’haikar lo lfached klal. the entire world is a narrow bridge, and the essence is to have hope.

 Gmar Hatima Tovah