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Yom Kippur 5768-2007 - Di Menschen Tracht un Got Lacht: We Plan and God Laughs
 

by Rabbi Yael B. Ridberg

Last summer, my mother called me with devastating news.  The seven year old son of one of my closest friends in high school had just drowned in the pool at the JCC camp where he was enjoying a wonderful summer.  He was swimming under the watchful eyes of counselors and lifeguards.  But he died.

 The family and community of course were devastated. My friend emailed me that there was no way she could sit in the synagogue and pray on Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur.  What had she ever done to deserve this anguish?  And even more so, what had her beloved son ever done except live a happy life.

 I wondered then, what does it take to go through this?  How does a mother, a father, raise themselves up from their grief and put one foot in front of the other?  I knew that my friend was not the first mother to ever lose a child too soon and without warning, but it had suddenly hit home to me how fragile, how vulnerable everything really is most of the time.

 I cannot imagine what this past year was like for her.  Yet last week I received an email announcing the birth of their new baby, a son.  New life after terrible death.  This is not a new concept, but neither is it always so easy to realign our lives when our plans and our expectations go astray.

 Indeed, life is lived on a narrow bridge between fragility and stability, and the longer we live, the more likely we are to experience the disruptions and dangers that lie beneath the surface.  But what are our choices in these moments?  When our plans go awry and are expectations are dashed, what choices do we have?  Some might say that the only choice is to push through

and accept whatever difficulties and loss come our way.  But we know that there are other choices that people make.  Some opt out of life all together

because they cannot contend with the grief and sadness and the demons that live in the open wounds of life.  Some declare there is no God, no faith, no judgment since who could believe in a God that “would let such terrible things happen.”

 The amazing thing is – no matter how long we live, no matter how much experience we gain, how much money we amass, or how much happiness we enjoy, we never get better at avoiding the inevitably difficult moments that life deals to humankind.  We can only get better at managing our response to these derailments and difficulties, we cannot avoid them entirely.

 Part of that response has a lot to do with Jewish tradition and community, and how our religion accepts and responds to our sense of vulnerability,

and provides, should we choose to accept it, a context in which stability can be regained, where hope can be embraced, and joy can be experienced once again. (R. Hirsh)

 I don’t speak Yiddish, but when I would visit my grandparents z”l they would often use Yiddish expressions that despite their brevity, would speak volumes.  I can only imagine that at apt moments they would have recited the well worn Yiddish proverb di menschen tracht un got lacht – Men plan and God laughs.

 Like many Yiddish proverbs, it has its funny side, but there's an edge to it.

It recognizes that the universe is still in many ways impenetrable. “We can chart the structure of the genome; we can chart the courses of the stars; but we can't come close to mapping out the future. We make our plans; we strategize and build and set up structures of meaning, and then life comes along and blows a hole in them.” (Janet Marder)

 It is such a simple piece of wisdom – even if theologically unbelievable, it reminds us just how little control we have over our own lives.  It is in the moments when we encounter unexpected, uncharted territory in life when we must confront our fears and limitations.  Here is where we struggle the most, but here is where we can potentially find meaning as well.

 Year after year the prayer on RH & YK that has the most personal resonance for me  is the unetaneh tokef – the prayer that speaks plainly about the uncertainty and fragility of life.  Mi yichye u’mi yamut?  Who will live and who will die?

 This theology is from another time and place when believing that regardless of what transpired, all was in the hands of God.  As Reconstructionists we may no long find such theology acceptable, but we would do well to consider these words seriously, and recognize the common truth about human existence that underlies the poetry of this prayer.  Life is contingent, and we never know what the future holds.

 Unetaneh tokef provides a text of great power. The prayer is not supposed to be an easy prayer to chant, it has a different function and can truly be a “purifying practice.”  It burns away all of your negative baggage and emotions.  It probably has a positive effect on you if are experiencing a strong emotional pull away.  The confrontation with this prayer can be painful, but I believe it is also beneficial, for it challenges us to consider the options we face when coping with the unpredictable nature of our lives.

 The Bible contains two books which deal primarily with tragedy and loss,

stories which follow a somewhat similar narrative but which  pursue strongly divergent interpretations.

 The Book of Job and the book of Ruth tell two stories of the confrontation with contingency and derailed plans, and offer two different choices for how to deal with those disruptions.

 I am indebted to my friend and teacher Rabbi Richard Hirsh for pointing out to me the power of these two texts on this question, and sharing his sermon on the comparison.

 The book of Job, one of the most if not the most difficult books of the bible,

makes three interrelated points: First – that human suffering is not necessarily deserved.  Second, if you do hold that suffering is deserved, you will inevitably mischaracterize the sufferer or God; and third, unfortunately, there is no good understanding for why humanity has to suffer.

 While Job begins as a story,  it is soon more of a philosophical discourse on life.  It’s main teaching is that life simply isn’t secure, and that when, not if, you face tragedy and a derailment of your life plans, it is a good idea to have some room in your life in which it can be absorbed.

 Job is of course visited by several friends, each of whom offers an interpretation of why job is suffering:  Perhaps he has sinned and doesn’t know it, maybe his punishment is to teach a lesson, and maybe, as Job’s wife tells him, he should just curse God and die.

 What do any of the options offer Job?  A quick fix to unanswerable suffering and grief?  Job is inconsolable and finally God speaks to him but does not offer a divine explanation, only impresses upon Job that there is no real explanation.

 As Rabbi Hirsh wrote: “This is life, and this is God, and what you get is not purpose but presence: The assurance that life itself is greater than any one

Individual life and that God’s presence pervades all of the miracles of creation.”

 Last summer I read the eulogy of Israeli writer David Grossman for his son Uri who was killed in the conflict with Hezbollah.  In it he talks about how, when he went to tell their daughter that Uri was killed, after she cried, she said, "But we'll continue to live, right Abba?  I want to learn guitar, and we'll still go on tiyulim together, and we'll live right?  Grossman said, yes, we will live."

 The way he said it was not without profound sadness, but it also contained the recognition that they will continue on.  They will never "get over"

the loss of their son - how could they?  But they can learn, and I imagine,

eventually will learn to reposition their lives in Uri's absence.  Not forgetting him, not pretending he didn't exist, but learning to live with that loss and its impact on their lives

Finding faith and comfort when something like this happens is so hard. 

Sometimes we want to be able to say/hear that there was some determination made for the terrible things that we experience, because then we feel comforted by some grand plan that is bigger than us.  I, on the other hand, simply cannot believe in a God or religion that brings suffering.  To me, God/faith is what helps us deal with our suffering, it is made manifest in the ways people come together in crisis, the things we learn aboutourselves, and the beauty that can be found in what continues on after tragedy. 

The book of Job ends in such a strange way.  In which everything seems to be back on track.  ‘God restored Job’s fortunes and God gave Job twice what he had before…so Job died old and contented.”

This ending to the story is hardly one any of us really experience as reality.

Sometimes, we can and do recover in certain ways what has been lost.  We might find love again, we might be able to rebuild our lives, or like my friend, bring another life into the world.  But most of the time stability is regained not by replacement but by a restored understanding that although

life is messy, unpredictable, and can break our hearts life is an amazing gift

The story in the Book of Ruth tells of Naomi’s experience of famine, the loss of her husband, and the subsequent death of her two sons in such succession that we can readily experience the bitterness she says has engulfed her life in the span of 10 years.

Naomi is not visited by well meaning friends seeking to offer platitudes for her grief or explanations for her suffering.  But she returns to Bethlehem to her community, and they embrace her as well as her forthright and angry attack that God has made her life bitter.

God is not a character in the Book of Ruth, so Naomi does not have a divine revelation like Job.  Her redemption begins with the return to community

and her daughter in law Ruth’s powerful statement of commitment to her, her people, and to God.  Stability comes back to Naomi through Ruth’s strength and companionship, and through her finding a husband for Ruth

in her kinsman, Boaz, and the grandson born who becomes the ancestor of King David.

Could there be a more real-life account of life after tragedy and loss?  Naomi evokes our empathy and admiration because she exemplifies continuity and strength.  My friend, although she asked questions like Job’s friends, about the nature of suffering has lived a life more like Naomi’s since she and her

family have allowed life to go on, despite their loss.

In contrast to the story of Naomi and Ruth the story of Job doesn’t seem real to me.  Yes, we might be hit in spades with difficulties, but is there really a Hollywood ending to our woe?  Job’s fortunes descend and ascend within

a timeframe none of us can imagine.  Naomi’s cycle of life is more recognizable since each one of us can probably tell a story that parallels love, loss, and new life.

So what do we learn from these two stories about pain and suffering, and about hope and redemption?  From both Job and Naomi we learn that there is comfort to be found in our darkest moments.  Job finds that support and presence, even though he suffers greatly before he does. Naomi finds that support and presence through community, in ritual, and in knowing who she

was before tragedy struck,  and who she has become in its aftermath.

The redemption Naomi finds is by the acknowledgement that community and ritual and identity create “safe resting places for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don’t have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down.” (Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love)

Di menschen tracht un Got lacht – We do plan and plan and plan, because that is what we should do because it gives our lives meaning and purpose!

The Psalmist teaches: Sabeinu vaboker hasdecha u’neranenah v’nismecha b’chol yameinu -- Give us at daybreak the plenty of your love, enable us to dance and rejoice throughout our days!  Samcheinu k’yemot anitanu, shnot ra-inu ra’ah -- Let us rejoice for as long as we have suffered.

On this Yom Kippur, in the moments before we will rise for the service of Yizkor, let us acknowledge the truth of truths, that we will continue to swing on the pendulum that is life – between stability and fragility, between life and death, between resignation and redemption.  “May we be able to be fully present and fully conscious of the transience of life, and the relentless advance of time, and to find in this moment hope, not despair, meaning not emptiness, affirmation not abandonment, connection not isolation, purpose not futility.” (R. Richard Hirsh)

 Gmar Hatima Tova – May our journey towards teshuvah be inspired.

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