Rabbi Michael P. Sternfield
Chicago Sinai Congregation
15 West Delaware Place
Chicago, Illinois 60610
Rosh Hashanah 2007
As you probably know, it is customary to greet one another on Rosh Hashanah with the words: “L’shanah tovah tikateivu” meaning “May you be inscribed for goodness in the Book of Life.” And of course, that is what we all wish for the coming year: life, health, happiness, fulfillment and peace. I certainly wish that for each and every one of you, for my own dear ones, and for myself as well.
And yet, I would have to say that, as heart-felt as this greeting may be, it is somewhat problematic. L’Shanah Tovah is based on the well-known historic legend: “On Rosh Hashanah it is written; on Yom Kippur it is sealed: who shall live and who shall die, who shall see ripe age and who shall not, etc.” The legend essentially says that during the High Holy Days, God opens the Book of Life, and before the sun sets on Yom Kippur, God will have inscribed our destiny for the year ahead, and perhaps beyond.
Now let me ask you, in all candor, do you believe this? Do you actually believe that what will happen to you in the year ahead will already have been decided? I don’t believe it personally. Although this legend is included in virtually every High Holy Days prayer book, it actually runs contrary to one of the most important principles of the Jewish religion, namely that our lives are not pre-determined. The Jewish religion, throughout history, has firmly rejected the concept of fate. Yes, it is true that some things do seem to be “b’shayrt,” just meant to be, and there are aspects of every person’s life, coincidences, serendipitious occurances, and just plain weird happenings, that are simply inexplicable. Nevertheless, Judaism affirms the principle that the future is not pre-ordained.
So, what are we to think about this Book of Life? Is this just a myth, or a pious invention devised by ancient rabbis to scare the you-know-what out of High Holy Days worshipers? I have really struggled with this problem. Tonight, I would like to present an alternative view, which I modestly believe to be a better and also theologically consistent interpretation of the Book of Life. A clue is offered from one of the Biblical names for Rosh Hashanah. In the Book of Leviticus, The New Year is called “Yom HaZikaron,” the Day of Remembrance. The task assigned to us on this is to look back upon that what has happened in our lives. This is called in Hebrew: cheshbon ha-nefesh, meaning an accounting of the soul.
I would suggest that the Book of Life is not God’s ledger of future events. Rather, it is the record of what has happened to us since last year.Rosh Hashanah most appropriately should be a Yom HaZikaron, a day devoted to remembrance and gratitude: for the gift of life itself; for our health, our family and friends, for the many experiences that have enriched our lives, and also for the difficulties and challenges that we have confronted. I believe this is how Rosh Hashanah best should be observed. This is the enduring value of these High Holy Days, namely to help us appreciate more fully the countless blessings that are ours. To use a simple metaphor, I would say that looking through the rear view mirror best fulfills the High Holy Days. We cannot see what lies on the road ahead even though, of course, every one of us has our hopes and dreams. But we can look back, from where we have come, and if we do, it is easy to recognize that there is so much to be grateful for.
When asked to pray at the family dinner table, Bart Simpson offered the following words: “Dear God, we paid for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing.” In one sense, of course, Bart may be correct. The Simpson family, like almost all others, did earn their own money. But on another level, Bart is missing the bigger picture. The grateful person senses that much goodness happens quite independently of our actions and sometimes even in spite of ourselves.
An especially essential element of gratitude is the realization of undeserved merit. We need to recognize that we have no particular claim to the gifts and benefits that we have received. We certainly are not more deserving than the billions of poverty and disease stricken people who make up the preponderance of the human race. God did not choose the United States of America to bestow such abundance upon because of our moral superiority. That’s for sure. Why we should be so blessed; why we should receive such a cornucopia of gifts every single day we cannot possibly understand. But we certainly have countless reasons for which to be profoundly grateful.
In this commencement address at Ithaca College, the writer and entertainer Ben Stein told graduating seniors something worth repeating and remembering, “We are all heirs to a society of freedom and plenty that most of us did absolutely nothing to earn. It just fell into out laps.”
In our culture that so often seems to celebrate self-aggrandizement and perceptions of deservingness, gratitude so often is a neglected sentiment. But if we are honest with ourselves, as we should be especially during these Holy Days, we need to recognize that we are not ultimately producers but mostly the recipients of so many gifts.
America, in particular, has come to believe in the myth of our own self-sufficiency. We do not like to think of ourselves as indebted. We would rather see our good fortunes as our own doing, as if to say that we are entitled. And, I must say, this feeling of being superior, has led to the national arrogance that has in turn contributed, in large measure, to the resentment that much of the rest of the world feels about America these days.
The great humanitarian and scientist Albert Schweitzer believed that gratitude is actually the secret to life. In one particular sermon, he summarized his position by stating “the greatest thing is to give thanks for everything. He who has learned this knows what it means to live.” Conversely, those who fail to feel gratitude for life’s blessings cheat themselves out of their best experience of life.
In the inaugural Thanksgiving Day proclamation of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln, of blessed memory, warned of the danger of forgetting just how blessed we are:
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand that preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”
Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Day message could just as appropriately be a message for the High Holy Days: to look back in gratitude and to realize how incredibly blessed we are. And this is the purpose I believe we should ascribe to the Book of Life.
But what if you are not feeling especially grateful? What if things have been going poorly for you? Perhaps you lost your job, or had your marriage fall apart, or have confronted serious, even life-threatening illness, or lost someone precious.
It is one thing to feel grateful when good things are happening, and life is going the way we want it to. It is a much greater challenge is to feel grateful when things are not going so well.
The more I think about this, the more I have come to believe that an authentic, deeply held sense of gratitude about life actually requires some degree of contrast or deprivation. One more fully appreciates a mild spring after a harsh winter, or a gourmet meal following a fast. Gratitude often blooms in the very soil of adversity.
You may have heard me say this before, but it is a thought worth repeating because I believe with all my heart: We may enjoy the good times of our lives; we should enjoy the good times of our lives, but the good times teach us nothing. We do not grow or become transformed by happy experiences. Rather, we grow both in wisdom and in compassion only through the painful and difficult times. And for these too, we must, perhaps reluctantly, feel grateful nevertheless.
As the great French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre has written: La vie humaine commence de l'autre côté du désespoir. Human life begins on the other side of despair.
Jean-Paul Sartre, “Les Mouches”, III:2
A few years ago, Oprah Winfrey was interviewing Elie Wiesel on her television program. She asked him whether, after all the tragedy that he had witnessed; he still had a place inside of him for gratitude. His reply:
“Absolutely. Right after the war, I went around telling people, “Thank you just for living, for being human.” And to this day, the words that come most frequently from my lips are thank you. When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude . . . For me, every hour is grace.”
Our prayer book expresses it so well: “We do not ask for a life of ease, for happiness without pain or disappointment. Instead, we ask You to teach us to be uncomplaining and unafraid. In our times of darkness, help us to find Your light. In our loneliness, may we discover that many spirits are akin to our own. Give us strength to face the future with hope and courage, so that even from life’s discords and conflicts we may draw blessing…” (Union Prayerbook, Sinai Edition)
As I am about to conclude, I also must express that it is not enough for us to feel grateful. We must also have the desire to do something in return. To do thanks. To give thanks. To give things. To give of ourselves. In order for gratitude to become more than just a feeling or a sentiment, it needs to lead us to acts of care and compassion for others.
This comes not from a feeling of obligation, like a child’s obligatory thank-you notes to Grandma or aunts and uncles after receiving presents. Nor is this a matter of feeling guilty because we have so much and others have so little. Rather, it is the simple passing on of the gift. Of those to whom so much have been given, much is expected. And yes, I must say that those who are blessed with abundance and yet who continue to be stingy and self-serving have reason to feel guilty.
We have been taught during this sacred season to take stock of our lives. Along with offering prayers for that which is yet to be, we would do well simply to count our many blessings. I can think of no better way of capturing and retaining the spirit of this sacred season than by reminding ourselves of just how blessed we are every single day. The Book of our Lives is overflowing with gifts too numerous to count. Would that the spirit of Rosh Hashanah should carry over into all of our tomorrows, endowing each of us with the impulse to share more of ourselves with those who have so much less!