29 Elul, Wednesday, September 23
The Sufi mystic Rumi put in
this way:
“Come,
come whoever you are! Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving, come. This is not
a caravan of despair. It doesn’t matter if you’ve broken your vows a thousand
times, still, come, and yet again Come!”
The poet welcomes us all, no
matter who we are or what we have done or how others might view us or how we
view our fellow travelers. No matter what we may have done in the past year, no
matter how many times we have tried to change (and how many times we have
failed), we are welcome back, to keep on trying.
Like the poet’s welcome, our
tradition teaches that God is eager for us to return home.
I know that for many people,
the synagogue hardly feels like “home” and God is not the one we expect to find
there. I’m sad about that, not just because I find a welcoming home there, but
because I don’t know of many places in our high celebrity, low tolerance, and
intensely divided culture where we truly feel welcomed for who we are.
I experience Rosh Hashanah
and Yom Kippur as a place and time for us to face our own humanity and to
embrace everyone else’s. Why else would we recite an inconceivably long list of
sins as if “We” were responsible? When I pray for “all of us” it’s because all
of us have flaws. All of us feel alone and vulnerable. And, out of the social contract
of this spiritual community, all of us are responsible for each other.
I may not love every person,
or be loved by everyone. But together, we share in and create a common sense of
the transcendent -- that which is far beyond what any of us can control, can
own, can be or do. That is the transcendent mystery that we sometimes refer to
as God.
So it doesn’t matter so much
who I know or who knows me. If I take my place in the community and act
responsibly, knowing that I am doing the best that I can, then I can open
myself, with compassion, to the truth that others are also doing the best that
they can. Even if we fail, we know that teshuva is always available.
As Rabbi Jonathan Slater
explains in a commentary on the Hasidic text Birkat Avraham,
“Failure is not a
flaw, and it is not irreparable. It just happens, sometimes willfully, but
often through inattention, a well meaning mistake. Knowing that we are accepted
even when we make a mistake, knowing that we are connected to God and can
return in any moment through teshuvah, frees us meet whatever comes our way….
“When we know that we
are fundamentally acceptable, that whatever we offer will be received with
grace and welcome, we are liberated to give of our whole selves. We will not
hide away those parts that we fear are unlovable, we will not withhold our
whole beings from others. Nor will we expend energies pursuing endeavors that
we believe will satisfy others, that we hope will make us seem ‘good’, ‘complete’
– enough – all the while knowing that it is not enough, since we are not
enough. We will be free to apply our efforts to precisely those things we are
good at, with ambition, intention and hope. We can try new things and fail – or
succeed! And, we will know that we are accepted.”
I pray that during these Holy Days and into the year
ahead, we can each know that acceptance and love. I pray that we will not be
afraid to take risks, to create, to share, to invent, to reach out, to teach,
to learn and to love. To say “thank you” out of true gratitude. To admit our
mistakes honestly and say “I’m sorry.” To speak the words “I love you.” Before
it’s too late.
Thank you for joining me on this journey toward a new
beginning. May we all find the welcome and acceptance to be able to face our
mistakes with tenderness and judge others with kindness.
Shanah tovah umetukah
Wishing you and yours
sweetness and goodness in the year to come!
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