Yom Kippur - 5785/2024 Rabbi Nanus

  • 5785/2024
  • Rabbi Nanus
  • Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur - 5785/2024 Rabbi Nanus

Yom Kippur 5785/2024
Rabbi Susan Nanus
Resnick Family Campus
Wilshire Boulevard Temple, Los Angeles

 

HOPE

Did you act justly in your business practices?
Did you set aside time for Torah study?
Did you try to have children?
Did you cultivate wisdom?
Did you hope for the Messiah?

According to the Talmud, these are five questions that you will be asked after you die and reach the gates of heaven. Five questions asked by the heavenly court about what you did and how you acted during your lifetime. 

Were you honest in business?
Did you make time to study Jewish teachings and practices? 
Did you try to have a family, or in my interpretation - encourage and support the next generation?
Did you improve and refine yourself through acquiring wisdom and understanding?

And then there’s that fifth question. Did you hope for the Messiah? Meaning “Did you hope for a Messianic age? Did you hope that life would get better? That people would be better? That the world itself could become a better place for us all?

At a time when so many of us are feeling hopeless, and helpless, that can be a tough one.  

With everything that is going on for us personally, in this country, in Israel, across the globe…How do we hold on to hope? 

And what is the point? What are we being asked to do, exactly? Wish with all our might that things will get better? Fantasize about something that we really want, and believe that it will happen? Be positive and optimistic when every day we hear about more violence,  more suffering, more hatred, more insanity? 

Actually, no. Because that’s not what hope is at all. Hope is not just an emotion. Or a dream. Or a thought.

Hope is a catalyst. Hope is a seed that grows into action.

As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explains, “Hope is the struggle against the world that is -- In the name of the world that could be, should be, but is not yet.”

And it’s very, very Jewish.

Im eshachaych Yerushalayim, Tishcach yimini. If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let me forget my right hand!

Those words were written 2600 years ago in 586 BCE by an unknown poet when Jerusalem was sacked and the first Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians. Thousands of Jews were either murdered or deported to Babylon to be slaves in exile. 

And yet, what was the message of this poet in the Book of Lamentations after describing the carnage and the terror and the destruction? What was the message that we still read every year on Tisha B’Av? 

“We will not forget our homeland and our beloved Jerusalem. And though we cry and suffer and are devastated, we still believe in God and Torah, and we will live as Jews and die as Jews in the hope that someday, we will return.”

And in that case, they did return. Fifty years later, Babylonia was conquered by Persia, who then allowed the Jewish population to return home and rebuild their lives.

In 1878, when a series of brutal pogroms were raging across Ukraine and Russia, and this new idea called Zionism was just catching on -- another Jewish poet named Naftali Herz Imber, wrote something in a very similar vein:
As long as deep within the heart
A Jewish soul yearns
As long as the eye looks eastward
Gazing towards Zion,
Our hope is not yet lost.
The hope that is two thousand years old,
To be a free nation in our land,
The Land of Zion, Jerusalem.


The name of that poem is called “The Hope. In Hebrew, Hatikva, which we just sang a few moments ago.  How could that young, hopeful Ukrainian Jew ever imagine that his words would become the national anthem of the State of Israel?

“To be a Jew, says Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, is to be an agent of hope in a world threatened by despair.”

Two weeks ago, I went to the Nova Exhibit, which presents the devastating massacre of 400 innocent, beautiful young Israelis on October 7, who were dancing for peace and love and harmony.  If you were there, then you remember that after witnessing the death and destruction, after listening to the survivors’ testimonies and seeing all their photographs, the exhibit ends with hope.

In the final video, the young survivors express their determination to continue to love and bring light and believe in the goodness of humanity, as they vow to the world that We Will Dance Again.

Every Holocaust survivor I’ve ever talked to has always said the same thing. “Where there is life, there’s hope.” Things can change. Things can get better. Our job is to hold on and keep going as long as possible. 

There was a group of Czechoslovakian Jewish women in the Terezin Concentration Camp (you may know it as Theresienstadt) who all slept in the same freezing, unheated barracks and were starving and ill from malnutrition. Food was all they could think about, so to keep their spirits up, to keep their hope alive, they began to share recipes. Each night, another woman would lovingly describe in detail how she prepared her specialty – Chicken schnitzel dipped in potato latke batter with red cabbage salad on the side. Plum-filled dumplings topped with melted butter, walnuts and sugar.  

As they listened, the women could practically taste the food, feeding their hearts and memories of home and family.  They felt like themselves again. They felt stronger mentally and physically, and decided they must save these recipes for the future. 

Stealing a pencil stub, scraps of paper and even onion skins, they wrote down every detail, every ingredient, and sewed them into a ragged little pamphlet, hoping that someday, if not them, then someone else would make these delicacies again. 

Many of those women survived.  And after they were liberated, they took those tattered pages and published them into a book. It’s called “In Memory’s Kitchen – A Legacy from the Women of Terezin.” 

Hope is that inner spark that ignites our will to persevere. 

All my life, I wanted to be a mother. I am the oldest of four siblings and I was always taking care of the younger ones. As a teenager, I was a camp counselor. In college and all through my 20’s and 30’s I taught Hebrew School. I loved kids and I hoped, I imagined, I visualized that one day, I would get married and have children of my own.

But time passed, and that didn’t happen. So, at a certain age, I came to a decision. If I wanted to fulfill my hope, my dream, I would have to do something about it. It was now or never. So, I decided to have a baby on my own.

Now, this was 32 years ago and it was not a very common occurrence, but I believed that if I persisted, if I took the steps, maybe it could happen. Maybe I could still be a mother.

It was this hope that carried me through as I found a doctor and arranged to be artificially inseminated.  I went through the procedure three times but it didn’t work. The doctor did some tests and she discovered that I needed surgery. I thought about it and decided okay, if this is what it takes… l’ll do it. Afterwards, I tried again, and this time I got pregnant. It was a boy and I started to think about names, and my future – finally as a mother. 

And then, in the fifth month, I had a miscarriage and lost the baby. And as I lay there in the hospital, empty and bereft, I thought to myself – No. Absolutely not. I am not ready to give up. I will be a mother no matter what. 

A year later, I walked into Orphanage #2 in Moscow, Russia to adopt a beautiful baby girl and bring her home. Her name is Liliana and she is now 30 years old. 

I am well aware that sometimes we do everything possible, and it still doesn’t work out. We are not naïve. Not everything can have a happy ending or a good result.

But studies have shown that having hope makes life more meaningful, and helps us become less depressed or anxious, more resilient and motivated.  It even strengthens our immune system.

How many times have we heard stories of people with terminal illnesses who say, “I just want to live until my granddaughter’s wedding, my grandson’s Bar Mitzvah, until my family gets here from the East Coast? And they often do.

How many times have we met or heard about people who have endured catastrophic injuries and relearned to walk, talk, play sports, have successful careers and live meaningful lives? Sometimes even more meaningful than before the injury.

Hope pushes us to face our deepest challenges. It allows us to take the journey, even if we don’t always reach the destination.

It is at the core of Judaism and has helped the Jewish people survive for over 3000 years. The essence of our teachings and our world view all embody the idea that even in our darkest hours, the light will return again.

The Psalmist sings, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.”

The Torah urges us to Choose Life. 

The Kabbalah teaches that we are put on this earth for two reasons – to elevate our souls and help repair the world. 

Even our holidays offer hope. Pesach teaches that even slaves can be reach freedom. Chanukah inspires us to fight for our beliefs. Purim reminds us that even one person can make a difference.  

And Yom Kippur is the most hopeful of all.  Today, we pray for forgiveness. For another chance to repair our relationships and correct our misdeeds. We pray for health and safety. For justice, tolerance, kindness and compassion. For civility and peace. We pray that we and our loved ones may live for another year.

But --There is a verse in our Shabbat siddur, right before the Amidah, which says:

“Pray as if everything depends on God. Act as if everything depends on you.”

As Jews, we have to live our hope. We have to be our hope. We must struggle to help create the world that could be, should be, but is not yet. 

There is a beautiful story about a man who saw children starving, injustice flourishing, and violence in the streets. He cried out, “Ribono shel Olam, Master of the Universe, the world is in such turmoil. Everything seems wrong. Why don’t you send someone to help and change things for the better? And the voice of God answered, "I did. I sent you.”

Shana Tova.