Rabbi Michael P. Sternfield
Chicago Sinai Congregation
15 West Delaware Place
Chicago, Illinois 60610
Kol Nidre 2007
For hundreds of years, this night has been identified by a melody that is sung only once a year. We do not call this Yom Kippur eve; rather it is Kol Nidre Eve. There is a heightened sense of sanctity that makes this night’s worship like no other, and the haunting melody of Kol Nidre is what makes it so. It doesn’t matter that the words in the Aramaic language are incomprehensible and perhaps even irrelevant to most worshipers. Who, except perhaps the most cynical among us, could help but to be imbued with a sense of both the mystery and the awe of this night? I can only speak for myself, but for me, Kol Nidre is not so much a religious service as it is a religious experience.
I have sometimes felt that it might be better if there was no sermon on Kol Nidre eve. Oratory seems almost unnecessary tonight. But, of course, I realize that this is what is you expect of your rabbi, so I suppose I had better come through! Nevertheless, to deliver a sermon on Kol Nidre is a risky enterprise.
For that reason, you may initially find it incongruous for me to introduce the theme of this sermon with an unlikely reference, namely the television series “The Sopranos.”
As almost everyone knows, this was the final season of “The Sopranos.” The suspense had been building for months as to how the series might conclude. Almost everyone anticipated a dramatic and probably violent ending, but of course, no one knew what the ending would be.
And so, the final episode came and went, and what happened? Well, we don’t really know. In the last several minutes of that episode, the Soprano family is sitting in a restaurant. Periodically, several various suspicious looking figures enter the restaurant and we are sure that this must be the final dramatic moment. But nothing happens. As the hour draws towards its conclusion, the suspense is almost unbearable. And then, at the most innocuous moment, the camera focuses on Tony eating an onion ring and the screen goes dark. And that was it. Ten seconds later, the credits roll and the show was finished.
Millions of viewers were sure that their cable had suddenly gone on the fritz at the world’s worst moment. That’s actually what I thought. But, in fact, this was the way it ended, with nothing resolved, just lights out.
Many people felt cheated that there was no resolution. They cursed the writers for having copped out.
The Sopranos hardly can be considered a philosophical or theological treatise. And yet, with its total lack of resolution, I found this final episode to be especially compelling and true to life. Most of the time, we are accustomed to novels, motion pictures and television programs ending with some kind of final resolution. Whether the ending is a happy one or a tragic one, there normally is some kind of resolution, but this time there was not, and that was caused many people to feel cheated. I would say that the ending was brilliant, precisely because of the writers’ refusal to wrap everything up in a tidy package.
The unsatisfying conclusion of “The Sopranos” is a much more accurate reflection of the way life actually is. We would like to know how life turns out. But the simple truth is that life is not that tidy.
The screen went dark. I would say that this is an apt description for the end of that journey we call our lives. The end, whether it be a sudden death or a terminal illness almost always comes unexpectedly, not that we have any reason to imagine otherwise. We all make our plans. We all dream our dreams. But, most lives are anything but predictable.
The old adage has it that people make plans and God laughs. But we persist nevertheless. Do you know what the most popular section of almost every newspaper is? I’ll tell you: it’s the horoscopes. Since time immemorial, people have looked to the stars to gain some foreknowledge of what is yet to be. Psychics continue to make a living interpreting tarot cards, reading palms and gazing into tealeaves, all for the supposed purpose of prognostication. Everyone wants to know how things will turn out, and of course, we all would like for things to turn out well; or at least to have a peaceful and painless conclusion.
I’m not sure that if we had some way of knowing that we would develop cancer or lose our cognitive faculties because of Alzheimer’s that we would really want to know this in advance. Even if we were to be able to predict the date of our death at some advanced age, would we really want to know that date? I doubt it.
One of the most compelling passages in the Memorial Service for Yom Kippur goes as follows:
“The eye is never satisfied with seeing: endless are the desires of the heart. We devise new schemes on the graves of a thousand disappointed hopes. Like Moses on Mount Nebo, we behold the Promised Land from afar but may not enter it. Our lives, at its best, are an endless effort for a goal we never attain. Death finally terminates the struggle Then, joy and grief, success and failure, all are ended. Like children falling asleep over their toys, we relinquish our grasp on earthly possessions only when death overtakes us.”
The end of life aptly could be compared to the dark screen at the end of “The Sopranos.” No matter how elaborate or hopeful our plans may be, we simply cannot predict what is coming next, when our end will come, or in what manner.
It has been said many times before: Life turns on a dime. And only a fool should pretend otherwise. One day we are healthy, happy and optimistic, and then suddenly... I don’t have to finish this sentence. We have all seen it happen to people we know, and it has also happened to some of us. (And it’s not all bad. Life has unexpected and serendipitous surprises as well: a stroke of good fortune, an unexpected reunion with an old friend, a windfall profit.)
Belief in an afterlife is the way many religions have dealt with the anxiety of simply not knowing. I would say that the Jewish religion tends to be more candid than certain others. Although we may hope for some kind of existence after death, we do not express much about its nature. Live well and do your best to make the world a better place, and leave the rest to God, and it will be all right. That’s about as much as Judaism has been willing to promise. And as unsatisfying as this vague answer may seem to be, I personally find this to be both honest and reassuring.
Even though, as a rabbi, I am a teacher of Judaism, I would say that Zen Buddhism may offer the most useful take on this entire matter. Zen teaches that all we actually have is this day, this moment. We have memories of what has happened before, but these are only memories of what was. And we have plans and dreams, and also fears, of what is yet to be. But who can say which of these will ever come to pass, or when? And so, we should simply do our best to live in this moment, because it is all we actually have.
Quite by coincidence, in the same week of “The Sopranos” finale, a most interesting piece appeared in Newsweek magazine. In the “My Turn” column, Matthew Wolf wrote an essay entitled: “Reaching My Goal of Having No Life Plan; when I stopped worrying about where I’d be in the future, I started getting the most out of today.”
“I once was a goals junkie… My romance with goal making began in high school when I read an article claiming the real key to success was detailed goals. I embraced the concept. By the time I graduated, I had very specific plans for my future (few of which happened). When I entered college, my first essay for freshman composition was about my goals for, yes, the next 10 years.
Later, when I became a teacher, I preached goal making to anyone who would listen: friends, students, colleagues and a stranger on a plane. Twice I was even paid to speak on the serious business of goals…
It was about then I got a wake-up call. Several, actually. There was the divorce, the lousy job market in my field and the stress-related health problems. The very ideology I was forcing on others wasn’t working in my own life. I finally understood what John Lennon meant when he said, ‘Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.’”
I would not suggest that Matthew Wolf’s self-proclaimed enlightenment is the ideal, but he does give us something to think about. We all make our plans, including long-range ones, as we must because this is the mature and responsible thing to do. But to live out our daily existence with a sense of certainty is no more than a hope of how things will turn out. Maybe yes, and maybe no. And to concentrate our energies so much on the future may well deprive us of the joy of daily living, and that would be a tragedy. People make plans and God laughs, as if to say, “And you thought you knew how it would end. How mistaken you were!”
Suppose, for a moment, that when you place your head upon our pillow tonight and close your eyes, that this is it, the end. The screen goes dark, and whatever you had been planning and hoping for no longer matters. It could happen. The challenge we all must all deal with is how best to live with that definite possibility. The question, then, should be: If my life was to end now, would it have been worthwhile?
The contemplation of just how unpredictable life is should help us to see things in their true light. Of course, we make our plans and we dream our dreams. But we have to live in this moment because this is all we have. As each day comes to a close, we should be able to recite a “sh’hechiyanu,” a prayer of thankfulness for all that we were able to have done this day, with the comfort of knowing that, if it was to be our last, that we have not wasted it.
Two thousand years ago, Rabbi Eliezer offered this advice: “Repent one day before your death. “ This is not as morbid as it may sound. Since we don’t know when that day will come, the rabbi taught, we need to live virtually every day, as if it may be our last. It is a blunt reminder to more fully grasp the here-and-now…. before our screen, probably without much warning, goes dark.
A moment may come, perhaps a moment such as Kol Nidre, after we have wondered and planned and dreamt, when we let go of the desire for certainty, when we stop putting so much stock in that future which may or may not come to pass, and accept that all we have is this moment, this day, this year. Therefore, let us be grateful to God for this day, for the blessings of home and love and friendship. And let us be appreciative for the happiness that has come to us out of our labor, and for the opportunities for service and love that are ours in the here-and-now, and leave the rest to God.