Saplings and the Messiah, a hopeful look to the future Rosh Hashannah sermon 2021
Once there was a terrible drought in the land of Israel. It was already the end of the rainy season and the beginning of spring, but no rains had fallen all winter long.
So the people sent for Honi the Circle-Maker. He prayed, but still no rain came. Then he drew a circle in the dust and stood in the middle of it. Raising his hands to heaven, he vowed,
"God, I will not move from this circle until You send rain! Send enough to fill wells, cisterns and ditches"
Then the heavens opened up and poured down rain in buckets. The wells and the cisterns overflowed, and the wadis flooded the desert. The people of Jerusalem ran for safety to the Temple. "Honi!" they cried. "Save us! Or we will all be destroyed like the generation of the Flood! Stop the rains!"
Honi said to them, "I was glad to ask God to end your misery, but how can I ask for an end to your blessing?"
The people pleaded with him, and he finally agreed to pray for the rain to stop. So God sent a strong wind that blew away the fierce rains, and the people gathered mushrooms and truffles on the Temple Mount.
I was not sure whether to read this story knowing how beautiful the weather was predicted to be today, just in case I might jinx it. The last thing we want right now is torrential rain, even though we are blessed to have these marquees. I obviously know that there is no way that my reading of a story can have any effect on the weather patterns, and yet we all do this, moments where we say or do something minute but worry that it might have an effect on the planet around us. We worry that it might bring us bad luck, or might put into effect the opposite of what we want. Bringing an umbrella staves off bad weather, so it's worth having it, or so we say.
The story of Honi is about the ability to jinx, to control the uncontrollable. It's part of the performative magic, in this instance in the creation of a magic circle, that Honi enters and through his long and intense prayers he manages to affect God/the weather. In the story the people are desperate, for they were dependent on the rain without which their crops would die and they would face starvation. And so, they are lucky enough to have a miracle worker that can magically control the weather.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a Honi today? Someone that could help us control the uncontrollable?
We’re in a strange place right now, as one member I spoke to said: “I have such hope but also trepidation for this new year”. We have had so many false starts, so many changes, but there’s a sense of hope-fully, this time, maybe we’re approaching a tipping point. We know there is no ‘normal’ but we’re taking slow steps towards what it will look like to live in a world with Covid, with spikes in numbers, and with going back into classrooms and offices, even venturing onto a nearly fully packed tube train. It’s a very cautious journey we are all on, daring to organise more than three weeks ahead now, yet always with a Plan B in place, and an Insurance Policy for the Emotional impact of Covid on standby; just in case that trip can’t happen, or we cannot celebrate at a party after all.
And it’s the necessity of this emotional insurance policy that is so draining. Normally, after the summer, most people are refreshed and feel a quiet sense of optimism, maybe slightly tinged with panic about the beginning of the school year or new projects at work. Yet this year many people have expressed a sense of wariness and of uncertainty. One of the new university students put it this way: “Normally we have a sense of what will happen, we know what questions to ask: “How will I keep in touch with my old friends, what will it be like to move away from home, what expectations will university lecturers have of us? But now we don’t know what to expect at all, we don't even know what the questions are that we have to ask ourselves?”
I think this aptly sums up where many of us are at: we are hopeful but we don’t even know what the questions will be anymore. We just wish for some form of predictability and control.
So, this Rosh Hashanah I’d like to give everyone a wand that can magically control Covid and remove its impact on our lives. But we know that no one can do this, yet we all want one. And this need for control of the uncontrollable pops up in so many interesting places, and I don’t mean just in religious settings, or on the therapist's couch. One of the most surprising instances I’ve heard of late was in the radio programme “The Infinite Monkey Cage’, where only last week they took, and I quote: “an upbeat look at all the different ways our Universe might end...On that cheery note the panel vote for their favourite apocalyptic ending and wonder what they might be doing and what they hope to have achieved when the final moment comes”.
It is not strange for a comedy programme to try and interject a bit of humour into what has been and still is a very difficult time. But predicting the end of days is ironically just another way of trying to control the uncontrollable. It is also nothing new, even when the language is scientific rather than religious.
In our tradition it begins with the appearance of an enigmatic character that will usher in these end times - the Messiah. A word of comfort - don’t worry I am not about to burst into song and rouse everyone to call forth the Messiah. As progressive Jews we are wary even of the idea of the Messiah, as it has caused so much trouble and devastation in our long history.
It's a murky area and not something we seek to focus on nowadays, especially not the idea of a personal messiah; rather, if we must talk about it, we refer to a messianic area, a time ushered in by our actions rather than a person. So in using a quote about the Messiah I am conscious that it has to be done with great care.
Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai taught: “If you have a sapling in your hand, and someone says to you that the Messiah has come, stay and finish the planting, and then go to greet the Messiah.”
(Avot d’Rabbi Natan 31b)
If the end of time has just been heralded by the appearance of the Messiah, would you not drop everything you're doing and try to catch the news on your phone? Why would you stay and work the land if the end of time was at hand? Or if it really is the end of days - would you not rush to seek forgiveness for those who you have hurt, so that you can appear before the Holy One, with a clean slate?
Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai lived during the sacking of Jerusalem by the Romans. It was a time of violence and great uncertainty. You would have thought that he’d be most eager for the Messiah and the end of such a horrific period to live in. And yet, despite what must have felt like the end of the world, he tells us to focus on planting, to engage in an act that is practical, hands on and has represented ‘hope’ since ancient times. It is an act of control. Whatever the future brings, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai asks us to have patience, to not hurry, but to do what you can in that moment, for you cannot know what the future will bring, you cannot rush it, but you can control this moment.
And it is an act that speaks to us in these days of uncertainty. Though I encourage anyone to join me in actually planting saplings, I also think that there are symbolic saplings that we need to continue to plant and water. And it has to do with what we can and cannot control.
The process of teshuva, of looking at our actions this past year is a process of controlling ourselves for the better. By reflecting and seeking forgiveness, or giving forgiveness, we hopefully change and thereby act differently in the future. We can try and affect the relationships between us and others. And for the behaviours we cannot control, we turn to God/the divine/that which is bigger than ourselves and ask for help on Yom Kippur.
Whether we receive forgiveness, however, is not in our control.
But the process of teshuva is not only about what we have done wrong. It is also a reckoning about what we have done right; this is something that we often forget, especially when the world around us is more harsh and testing. Teshuva can also be about lifegiving saplings in our hands. So just as we write our ‘sin list’, or fill in the little cards you’ve been given for our communal vidui, we should also create a positive confession[1] as in the following vidui by Rabbi Avi Weiss:
We have loved
אָהַבְנוּ
We have blessed
בֵּרַכְנוּ
We have grown
גָּדַלְנוּ
We have spoken positively
דִִִּבַּרְנוּ יֹפִי
In times of trouble it is easy to only see the negative, to be swathed in the darkness, and to forget that every little sapling of action matters, even if we don’t know the outcome. And though we have learnt that we may not have control over bigger matters, we do in the smaller ones, and one of them is this. We should not forget to look at all the things we got wrong this year, and try and change, but the work is only half done. We also have to look at all the positive and right choices we have made, and how we will build on and strengthen them; for they are like saplings in our hands that need planting and watering and may grow beyond anything we may have imagined.
So I share three questions for you to ask yourselves this Rosh Hashanah - as you look back over the year, at the actions, behaviours and rituals you have done that have helped to sustain you;
What are the things that helped you personally; the running, yoga, meditation, knitting or something else which you can take with you through what may be a long and hard winter ahead of us?
What are the things you did to help others?
And what are the things others did for you that made a difference?
We have raised up, We have shown compassion, We have acted enthusiastically, We have been empathetic, We have cultivated truth...We have repaired.
Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai taught: “If you have a sapling in your hand, and someone says to you that the Messiah has come, stay and finish the planting, and then go to greet the Messiah.”
Yochanan’s teaching ends on ‘go greet the messiah’ - go greet the future, welcome what is beyond the here and now, what is beyond our control. The emphasis I think is on ‘go greet’, open up, be hopeful even if at the same time we hold trepidation of the unknown.
May we all be able to write our lists - both those of wrongdoing and those of rightdoing, and may we all continue to plant new saplings as we greet our future.
Shana tova