Hoffman. The Legend of Rabbi Amnon. P Ibid. 4. Ibid.

Transcription

1 Who Shall I Say is Calling? Unetaneh Tokef as a call to change our lives for the better. 1 Rabbi Jordan M. Ottenstein, RJE Beth-El Congregation, Fort Worth, Texas Rosh Hashanah Morning, 5776 A story is told of Rav Amnon of Mainz, a rabbi of the Middle Ages, who was the greatest of his generation, wealthy, of fine lineage, well built, and handsome. The nobles and bishop began asking him to apostacize, 2 to convert to Christianity, but he refused to listen. Yet, after continually pestering him with the same question, Rav Amnon told the bishop, I want to seek advice and think the matter over for three days. 3 But, the minute he left the presence of the bishop after saying these words, he began to feel guilty. He was unable to eat or drink, the guilt he had over even saying that there was possibility he might leave Judaism was so great. And so, on the third day, he refused to go to the bishop when summoned. The bishop then sent his guards to bring Amnon before him against his will. He asked, What s this Amnon, why didn t you come back as stipulated that you would take counsel and get back to me and do what I asked? Amnon replied, Let me adjudicate my own case. The tongue that lied to you should be sentenced and cut off. No, the bishop responded. It is not your tongue that I will cut off, for it spoke well. Rather it is your legs that did not come to me, as you promised, that I will chop off, and the rest of your body I will torment. 4 After being tormented and tortured, Amnon was returned to his community on Rosh Hashanah. He was brought into the synagogue and set down next to the prayer leader. When it was time for the kedusha, for the prayer that sanctifies the holy name of God, Rav Amnon interrupted and spoke the words: unetaneh tokef k dushat hayom, let us proclaim the sacred power of this day, for it is awesome and full of dread. And upon finishing these powerful words, the words we chant every year on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Rav Amnon died. Three days after his death, he appeared in a dream, and taught these sacred words to the leader 1 Unless otherwise noted, each reference sites: Hoffman; PhD, Rabbi Lawrence D. Who by Fire, Who by Water. Jewish Lights Publishing. Woodstock, Vermont Hoffman. The Legend of Rabbi Amnon. P

2 of the community Rabbi Kalonymous, who promised that the Jewish people would say them year after year. A lengend, for sure, but as Carleton Young said to Jimmy Stewart in, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. 5 There is no confirming evidence that an Amnon of Mainz ever existed, nor that this story ever took place, and yet this story, and the liturgical poem that accompany it have become the central thematic prayer of our High Holy Day liturgy, almost as recognizable as Avinu Malkeinu, Kol Nidre, or the blast of the Shofar. Composed during the times of the Crusades, where many Jews were killed by Christian armies on their way to conquer the Holy Land, the survivors, like survivors in our time, sought to come to terms with the massive deaths of the innocent as best they could. 6 And today, it is almost impossible to separate the poem from the legend. Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, liturgist and professor at the Hebrew Union College in New York comments that, for some, this poem, which asks who will live, and who will die, is of such sublime poetic beauty that it would be criminal to expunge it. Others cringe at its message and would gladly do away with at least some of it as a piece of liturgy Yet others find the Amnon story compelling, if not as a historical set of facts, then as a witness to Jews who truly did die al Kiddush Hashem, [for the sanctification of God s holy name]; still others would prefer jettisoning the poem because of its association to martyrdom and a theology of martyrdom that we have difficulty maintaining today. 7 So, the question is, in the 21 st century, when we read that today, on Rosh Hashanah our fates will be written, and next week, on Yom Kippur, they will be sealed, what to do, and how to react to this liturgical piece? Do we believe it, do we understand its true meaning, and how can we proclaim these words out loud, year after year, if we have such glaring questions about their veracity? And in fact, for many in this room, and in fact, for the state of Texas, after this past year, great questions are posed by this poem. For when we read, who by fire, and who by water, one cannot help but think of the life-giving, yet also devastating rains that fell upon our state, causing flooding throughout our county, Dallas, Houston, and in other places. Untold property damage occurred and lives were lost. And were these losses, or the ones from illness, other natural disasters, or random violence Divine punishment for our sins? Unetaneh tokef would seem to suggest that the answer is yes. For the poem assumes a vertical relationship between God, the [ruler], and human beings, [God s] servants. [God] has the 5 Print the Legend. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Youtube.com. Directed by John Ford. Paramount Pictures Hoffman. Un taneh Tokef as Poetry and Legend. p p. 25 2

3 power, and we are the slaves, simply and passively dependent upon [God s] goodwill or bad plans for our future [it] seems to say There is nothing you can do but accept the decree. 8 And yet, being a Jew empowers us to act as God s partner, not as God s slave. We know that our actions do have consequences, and yet there is no set formula, no steadfast set of rules that mete out our rewards and punishments. For we know that in this world, the wicked often succeed and the good often suffer. But the power of Unetaneh Tokef does not come from its literal meaning. On the contrary, used as metaphor it has the ability to put our lives in perspective and to place us exactly where we need to be placed during these Yamim Nora im, 9 these Days of Awe. Merrie Lovinger Arian, who serves on the faculty of the School of Sacred Music at the Hebrew Union College in New York remarks about how mindlessly we move through our daily existence We proceed with and innocence, assuming a certain predictability and pattern to the events that might unfold. At best, some of us proceed with intentionality, yet even so, a certain naivety is likely to accompany us along the way How easy it is to forget how blessed we are, how easy to lose sight of our embarrassment of riches. Yet how little it takes to be reminded of just how vulnerable we are. 10 A phone call about an elderly parent or a child, a doctor s words telling us not to worry, it s probably nothing, but we would like to follow up. How quickly our perspective changes. Somehow you forgot to notice the calm, but when the waves begin to churn, they are all you can think about. 11 And this is the true power of the Unetaneh Tokef, and indeed the power of the Holy Days. They force us to take a step back and imagine our own mortality, to examine our lives, undergo a period of chesbon hanefesh, an accounting of our souls, and decide if we are the type of person that we really should be. In his song, Who by Fire, singer-songwriter, Leonard Cohen writes a modern day adaptation of the list from Unetaneh Tokef. He says: And who by fire, who by water, Who in the sunshine, who in the night time, 8 Horvilleur, Rabbi Delphine. Is Un taneh Tokef Palatable? p Arian, Merri Lovinger. Stark and Inescapable. p

4 Who by high ordeal, who by common trial, Who in your merry merry month of May, Who by very slow decay, And who shall I say is calling? And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate, Who in these realms of love, who by something blunt, And who by avalanche, who by powder, Who for his greed, who for his hunger, And who shall I say is calling? And who by brave assent, who by accident, Who in solitude, who in this mirror, Who by his lady's command, who by his own hand, Who in mortal chains, who in power, And who shall I say is calling? 12 And who shall I say is calling? Each one of us. That is the power of Unetaneh Tokef. It forces us to call ourselves and ask these difficult questions. And yet, Unetaneh Tokef provides an answer too. We read of the potent anecdote to the judgment: u tshuvah, u t filah u tzedakah ma avirin et roa hag zerirah. Repentance, prayer, and charity can temper the harshness of the decree. These words tell us to take stock of who we are, and, if we do not like what we see, then there are three paths to take that can help us change the course and direction of our lives. The first: t shuvah, repentance. Rabbi Eliezer taught, Repent one day before your death. His students, baffled, asked him, But how can we possibly know when we will die? Rabbi Eliezer replied, All the more reason you should repent today, just in case you die tomorrow. 13 The teaching of t shuvah is that you don t have to be a static, stagnant being, dwelling perpetually in the mistakes of years past. You can choose to make t shuvah, affirming that life is dynamic and people change. Find the courage to ask for forgiveness from the people you have hurt. Find the strength to forgive those who have hurt you and the audacity to forgive yourself. Open your hearts and embrace the people around you most 12 Cohen, Leonard. Who by Fire? Excerpted from Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs. McClelland & Stewart. Canada Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 153a. 4

5 importantly those you most often take for granted. 14 Commit to make a change for the better. But really, the Hebrew word t shuvah comes from the word meaning to turn. Let us turn from that which leads us to sin, temptation and evil, and turn to the better so that we may engage in the other two ways to change: t filah and tzedakah. The first avenue for change, t shuvah, is, ultimately, something done that looks inward. Even the forgiveness sought from and given to others starts with an internal realization. But t filah and tzedakah are external; they deal with our relationships with the world around us. T filah, prayer, according to Rabbi Karyn Kedar, engages us in the question of faith. A simple utterance gives word and voice to what we do not and cannot understand. In prayer we yearn for reconciliation between what is and what is possible. Prayer is the touching, ever so gently of what is holy and eternal and good. Prayer is the imperative to offer words of gratitude even in the face of derision and adversity. Prayer is wonder. 15 In order to change who we are for the better, we need prayer, we need a sense of wonder, and a connection to what is bigger than ourselves. For, by doing this, we are able to shrink the ego of ourselves and engage with God, and with others, in the creation of, what Martin Buber called, I-Thou relationships. Through these relationships the other becomes a holy vessel, just as important as we are. Through t filah, we are able to create and maintain holy connections with creation and maintain the sense of wonder that will allow us to do good. The final way that unetaneh tokef teaches us that we can change our lives is through tzedakah. Often translated as charity, tzedakah is, at its core, the deliverance of justice and righteousness. Tzedakah arises from the awareness that, no matter how deep our suffering and pain, there are other people who need us. Life is a communal activity beyond the self-interest, not a solitary act of selfpreservation. When we are in pain and confronted with mortality, the imperative of tzedakah becomes a gift. We are not the center of our universe. Giving is the way to reach beyond our circumstance and enter into the world of legacy, an existence that transcends mortality. We must give away our money. We must give away our time. We must give away our kindness. It is just and right. 16 Tzedakah is what allows us to change the world. It is what opens the possibility for true healing and hope, not only for those we have helped, but for ourselves as well. Through the threefold formula presented in unetaneh tokef, we truly have the ability to lessen the harshness of the decree. In other words, when we examine 14 Brous, Rabbi Sharon. At the Edge of the Abyss. p Kedar, Rabbi Karyn D. The Dance Between Fate and Destiny. p p

6 our lives and do not like what we see, we have the ability to change our viewpoint and our actions. We have the ability to make a change to who we are through t shuvah, connect with the other and find holiness through t filah, and make a lasting impact for the betterment of our world through tzedakah. That is the power of unetaneh tokef. While the legend of Rav Amnon is just that, a legend, and the poem cannot be taken literally, the lesson is this: for Rav Amnon, fate was knocking, but he summoned up the courage to do one more giant mitzvah: to compose this prayer [since ultimately,] unetaneh tokef empowers human beings to insist that fate alone need not determine who will live and who will die. 17 We are reminded by this poem, and by these Holy Days, that human life is fragile, vulnerable and finite. But each one of us possesses the ability to change our outlook through the threefold prescription that we are given. There is just one final question left to answer: Who shall we say is calling? It is each one of us. Shanah Tovah. 17 Loptain, Rabbi Asher. Empowering Human Beings to Challenge Fate. p