"READING THE WRITINGS"

Lessons for Living in Every Season
Part 1


"LIVING IN AN UNFINISHED HOUSE"

A Sermon for Rosh HaShanah Eve 5763
September 6, 2002
Rabbi Edward Paul Cohn
Temple Sinai
New Orleans, Louisiana


My dear friends and gentle hearts,

Sometimes words, even though we live in a sea of them, have the ability to powerfully redeem us from the ordinary.

You remember Todd Beamer on United Flight 93? He talked to Lisa, the GTE operator, for about 13 minutes and told her what to tell his wife, and he told her about the few others who were going to try to take over that plane from the hijackers.

The phone was left off the hook so that she could hear Todd's prayer for Divine assistance, the prayer that ended with that determined summons: "Let's roll!" And so they did, probably saving the White House and countless lives, crashing instead in a deserted Pennsylvania field. "Let's roll!" he said, and those words will forever live, wherever the 9/11 story is told and remembered.

Well, it's Rosh HaShanah 5763-about a year later, and the sacred dust has settled and been swept up by the tons and tons. But so much of the outrage, the confusion, and the pain of that day remains unrelievedly acute. My thoughts and observations which I want to share with you during these High Holy Days are drawn from sacred books, each one of which was written by people not unlike ourselves, who were left to wrestle at Life's Ground Zero with circumstances they could not simply explain. Our focus this year, following the two previous years, when we have deliberated on Torah and last year, Prophets, will be on the final division of Hebrew Scripture, K'tuvim: the Writings, sometimes called by their Greek name, the Hagiographa. You'll find these books toward the back of the Bible.

We've hardly time for detailed background on them, but we'll be "Reading the Writings," which includes such Biblical jewels as the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ruth, Lamentations, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. No, they haven't a single unifying theme. In fact, as we'll see, some of these were so highly controversial as to be begrudgingly admitted by the rabbis into the Bible at a conference held at Yavne in the year 90 CE, 200 years after the Prophets were canonized, and 350 years after the Torah. So the writings are recent-and they are so relevant to our times and, I believe, to our needs.

The argument is often made that as our Hebrew Bible proceeds, God's silence becomes more and more noticeable. I mean, God can't keep silent for four minutes in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It's always "Vayomer Adonai-And the Lord said."

Then, with the Prophets, perhaps you'll remember, God speaks through them--"Coh Amar Adonia-Thus saith the Lord."

But now, more and more, God becomes silent, and by this third portion of Scripture, K'tuvim, The Writings, we men and women are challenged to do the thinking, to put the puzzle of life together for ourselves and to make sense of a world of surprise.

One year after 9/11, you and I need to "Read the Writings" because these precious books remind us of life's fierce symmetry. Here we encounter, with precious little sugar coating, all of life's raw emotions: the ecstasy of physical love, the courage of faith, the joy of praise, the thrill of victory, but also the loneliness of disappointment and death, the bitterness of treachery and the lament of defeat. Quite simply: here are lessons for living in every season to which our lives may bring us. And tonight, what it means to live "In an Unfinished House."
I. The Illusion of Permanence

In his remarkable new book, Learning to Fall, which I have been touting now for three months, 30-something Philip Simmons, suffering from the severe and progressive effects of Lou Gehrig's disease, offers each one of us this crucial awareness:
On some level all religious feeling begins with a sense that our true home lies elsewhere. . . . But in our desire always to be everywhere than here,  we can lose what measure of heaven may be ours on earth. . . .We cannot summon the future, we cannot remake the past. The present moment is the unfinished house in which we dwell.

And then Philip Simmons concludes with this knowing observation:

Only in. . . building a house of peace in the present moment. . . .only in such work can we be made whole. We are here, in the unfinished house of the now, for the duration. The joy is in the building.

Now, what do you think that means, "The joy is in the building?" It means don't forget we're temporary fixtures, though we can be and often are fooled by an illusion of permanence.

So let's "Read the Writings" and turn to my friend Kohellet, Ecclesiastes.  Solomon, in his old age, is credited by Jewish legend with authoring The Book of Ecclesiastes, but don't put too much stock in that thesis, okay?  Whoever wrote it was a genius, and by the way, we've got a lot in common with Kohellet.

He set out to make money, and he tells us that he accomplished his goal:

I multiplied my possessions, I built myself houses and planted vineyards. . . I gained more wealth than anyone before me.

But he sees people lose their wealth, and then lose their health and proceed to get sick and die. So Kohellet determined to have a grand time:  wine, women and "party-on." But finally, even Kohellet was forced to conclude:

I have examined the evidence and come to the conclusion that nothing endures or makes a difference. Everything I pride is only vanity.

The evidence of my life prompts to conclude that life has no meaning because, PhD and no D, rich and poor, celebrity and nobody-we're all going to die. Now what?

Do you remember that cartoon in The New Yorker some years ago depicting the tombstone of "James Paul Smythe, 1914-1998," and his epitaph read:
Never sick a day in his life-
And now this!

But Kohellet rebels at this despair and concludes, from something deep within which overrules his nihilism and insists that in spite of it all, a human life has to have meaning. We are more than beasts in the field.

Yes, we are temporary, and we are destined to live in unfinished houses, but we can still find rich meaning in our lives-however long.

The truth about is not that we are children of time seeking the eternal. It is that we are creatures of the Eternal journeying for a little while in time. So yeah, go eat your Sugarbuster bread in gladness and drink your Diet coke in happiness, says Kohellet. But, don't forget to stop in for breakdst at Brennan's and a burger at Camellia Grill, and fried chicken at Mrs. Dunbar's. In the world of the ephemeral, lasting meaning can be found when we are smart enough to embrace the everyday pleasures of life.

"Reading the Writings"  ---  the Book of Psalms:  

Leem-note Ya-may nu, cain ho-dah, v'nah-vee L'vav chochmah:  Teach us to number our days that we may get us a heart of wisdom, even though our time is short.

So Number1-Watch out for the Illusion of Permanence:   Life is an Unfinished House!
II.  Don't Be Indifferent to Love

This leads us to my second point of concern. We also need to remember the words of blind pianist George Shearing. When he was asked, "Mr. Shearing, have you been blind all your life?" he answered, "Not yet."   Not yet!

The happy news is that there is still time left to avoid one of life's gravest miscalculations: our indifference to love. Don't be indifferent to love.

Let's go back to our texts: Reading the Writings, --- this time, Shir Ha-Shirim/Song of Songs.  This book, too, is credited with authorship by King Solomon --- not in his old age (Ecclesiastes) but rather in his hormone-driven, lusty youth.  Listen to this sexy text, would you!
Behold, thou art fair, my love. . . .
Thine eyes are as doves. . . .
Thy hair is as a flock of goats. . . .
Thy teeth are like a flock of ewes all shaped alike. . . .
Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet. . . .
Thy two breasts are like two fawns. . .
Which feed among the lilies.

No chauvinism here; we men are equally admired:

His head is as the most fine gold,
His locks are curled, and black as a raven.
His eyes are like doves beside the water brooks. . . .
His body is as polished ivory. . . .
His legs are as pillars of marble. . . .
Yea, he is altogether lovely.

And then we read the well-known words,

Set me as a seal upon thy heart,
As a seal upon thine arm;
For love is strong as death. . . .

As you can imagine, that sensual, erotic imagery was going to be controversial with the men who decided what's in and what's out of the Bible. To make matters worse, there's no mention in this book of God! But wait; we can read it as an allegory: as a man loves his mate, so does God love His people. So the "R" rated book made it into Scripture, and the importance of human love in an otherwise lonely world was underscored for all time.

Don't, for God's sake, be indifferent to love! Love is more than our sex drive gratified. It meets our desire to matter, or as someone put it, "to be somebody's somebody."   Says the philosopher Martin Buber, "Those who love bring God and the world together."   And I want you to take this reality home with you:  The love we have given away is the one thing, not even death, can ever take from us!

You know what I think? When all is said and done, the clearest human intuition is the intuition of love. Some idiot once said that love is blind. Nonsense; don't ever think it. Love is perceptiveness. It is love that saves, and it is the only thing that perceives reality beyond oneself, and sets you free to know and understand someone else for their own sake, because you love them. "Reading the Writings": Song of Songs  ---  "Ani L'dodi v'dodi lee --- I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine."


Here's how writer-director Sam Keen described genuine love in a recent interview with Bill Moyers. Don't sleep through this one if you're married or ever hope to be. Says Sam Keen,

When we think about love, we think about conflict as the antithesis of love.

That's not my experience. . . . Love requires the ability to live with somebody, but also to stand against them, to enter into conflict with them, to be able to say no. . . as well as yes. . . . Marriage is designed, I say, so you can fall out of love into reality. . . because you got to face the fact that you're married to a failure and so is your wife. . . . I mean, we all fail each other in these important ways and we have to go on loving in spite of the way we fail. . . . Unconditional love doesn't come at the beginning of a marriage; it comes at the end.

Straight talk, one person's opinion on a subject of crucial import. Just ask those who waited in vain for their love to come home on September 11th. This love is nothing about which to be indifferent. It's the one thing which, having bestowed upon another, even death cannot take away.

And listen, before we go fixing others, I think we need to pause and ask --- "Hey, do they need 'fixing' more than loving compassion?"


Parents, it's your turn now. Last April The New York Times dedicated a front page story to a boy named Justin Chapman who was once declared the smartest boy in the world. Did you see it? This eight-year-old, lauded as a genius, featured on a BBC documentary, keynoter at conferences on gifted children-scored 298 when his IQ was tested at six. He aced the SAT with a perfect 800 on the math section. And now, following high school at five and University of Rochester at six, Justin is an undeniably bright eight-year-old burnout, and thanks to his mother, a notorious fraud.

Suicidal, he now tells a psychiatrist that he wants to be someone else. And you ask, what happened? Well, Mom faked the IQ tests, falsified the SAT scores, and do you know how she explained her actions?
She just wanted to open doors for him that otherwise would have remained closed.

Sometimes our notion of love, our refusal to accept our children until they meet our expectations, or gratify our ego needs, can make for tragedy. Love calls us to be selfless-to deny ourselves. Don't be indifferent to love.

So let's review what we've said:

As we look to the New Year we have to beware of--
III. The Inconsequence of Faith

And I have one more lesson for "Living in an Unfinished House."


We need to hear it on this eve of our New Year, and it is this:

Beware of assuming the Inconsequence of Faith!

Because Faith matters!  "Reading the Writings."  Listen to this:  The Book of Psalms --- "Be still, and know that I am God."

If we give it a chance, our Judaism, this wonderful and wise faith of ours, can make a huge difference in the lives you and I lead, and in the way we view the world.

Professor Joel Kovel of Bard College, in a recent journal article, agrees that September 11th was an event of unique horror for not only our nation but the entire world. Looking at that day in the perspective of history, Dr. Kovel reminds us:
The bad things that happen are repetitions of bad things that have always happened-war, racism, maltreatment of women, religious and nationalist fanaticism, starvation.
But then Kovel insists:
To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly Romantic. . . . If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places-and there are many-where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.


And Dr. Kovel concludes:
We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.

Do you believe that?  Judaism believes that! I do!  You know what they say?  "The one not busy being born is busy dying."  Experts claim that our physical growth peaks between 15 and 25.  Someone said,  "After 25, life is out to get you!"

Intellectual growth peaks between 35 and 50.  Our wisdom, they say, peaks between 55 and 70.  But listen; our spiritual growth goes on forever!  If, in this New year, we are not busy being born, well then, we'll be busy dying.

Faith has its consequences! "Be still, and know that I am God."

Well, that's it. Friends, the New Year beckons, and as Todd Beamer said-"Let's roll!" So when your friends ask you, "Hey, what did Cohn have to say over at Sinai?" You go ahead and tell them what you always say:  "He was terrific!  He's no great genius, but he did have this to say: Then the rabbi said:

Our Judaism is our human response to being alive and having to some day die. So the purpose of life is to live in such a way that our lives will prove worth dying for.

"Go out," the rabbi urged us, "and embrace the future-with trust to face the darkness, and with joy to redeem the day!"


Amen.