Assignment Recap
Dear friends,
It was beautiful kicking off the year with you. Many of you asked for a reminder of the assignment I gave to complete between now and Yom Kippur. This note will focus primarily on that.
A week or so ago, when I was consulting with Holly about this very assignment she reminded me of that week of good will, that Et Ratzon that followed the September 11th terrorist attack. We recalled together how the entire city was washed over with positivity and warmth in the face of the disaster. We remembered the impossibly long lines to donate blood, the people helping one another on the streets, strangers sitting together on stoops; an active community of millions. During that horrific moment we found a way to act, for one another, for goodness. That is the action that Hannah Arendt defines as freedom, and what I am suggesting we search for this week.
The question at the heart of the assignment is what can we do with what we’ve learned? What can we do in this world that is so cracked, despite our limited capacity?
This past year we’ve all learned things about how to better live our lives. Think back and reconstruct those lessons. They could be lessons you’ve learned about your own life, your family unit’s, your city or society at large. They could be lessons you learned because you had a different angle or more space to think, or they could be lessons thrust upon you by the trying circumstances you were in. However you reached these understandings, see if you can find a small way to realize one of these lessons, to pass it forward.
On Monday night I conjured Hannah Arendt and her idea of action, which must involve other people, and cannot be solitudinous. So you want to look for a way to actualize what you’ve learned that isn’t only for yourself.
One way to think about it that might be helpful would be to ask yourself what helped you this past year, and then to pass that outward. If, for example, a friend’s phone calls helped keep you happy you might think of a person that would perhaps be lifted by a phone call, and call them. Maybe a physical activity like sports or yoga helped you, and there’s someone you know who might get a boost from some yoga classes or a session with a personal trainer or whatever activity it is. Maybe you learned that music is important to you, and you can send some people a song or two, or invite them to listen to some music together, or send them to a concert. Maybe a random kind act that someone did for you stayed with you and you want to make a meal for a homeless person, or volunteer somewhere. Many of us sensed a major change in our internal landscape after the elections. Maybe there’s an election you can make calls toward, or text out the vote or volunteer on some particular issue. Maybe you discovered Shabbat this year and want to invite someone over for dinner on a Friday night soon.
It doesn’t have to be a big action. My hope is that it will help us define one of the lessons we’ve learned, and that it will allow us to step beyond our doubts and to do a small deed of goodness, as a way to express our gratitude for what we have learned. Maybe it will move us one step toward knowing that God is good, that the world is good, that we are good, that despite all the difficulties, goodness abounds.
I look forward to hearing about your thoughts and actions on Yom Kippur during the morning service.
I also want to remind you to bring cloths of any kind to weave into our collective standing loom, which Suzanne Tick so beautifully described on Monday. This will be an opportunity to literally weave our community’s intentions and prayers for the new year together in the way this Shul knows best: through art. You can cut them up into strips, or just bring them in as they are for whichever service you can attend on Yom Kippur, and we will have scissors and markers there in case you’d like to write a word or a prayer onto the cloth.
May this shabbat bring us the peace that will move us to action.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha