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March 23, 2024
Author(s):
Cultivating Hope During Seemingly Hopeless Times
March 23, 2024 — 13 Adar II 5784
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
By Dr. Irle Goldman
Thank you to Barry Bergman for inviting me to speak at Brotherhood Shabbat and to the Brotherhood.
I must tell you that whenever I have entered this sanctuary, I am reminded of the Starship Enterprise of Star Trek….and now I have the honor of speaking from the Control Room, And I flash to Spock communicating “Beam me up Scotty”…
For me, this is a metaphor of how we use the spiritual power of this Sanctuary to create a Place For Healing.
A true story: When my 40 year old son Adam Goldman-Yassen was in second grade, they brought the class to the Temple Emanuel sanctuary…and they showed them around and said of these chairs back here, “ These is where the rabbis sit.
And Adam, having been brought up the the Newton Centre Minyan, the precursor of Minyan Ma’Or, A LAY-LED CONGREGATION, raised his hand and asked :“What’s a Rabbi?”
I share that story with you because I believe Psychotherapy is the attempt to create a secular clergy to supplement what the religious clergy can offer.
We are ALL the Purveyors of Hope.
We are those people appointed and even licensed by society to offer hope and possibility and structure to aid people in dealing with each of our suffering.
Let me show you These two books: Chumash and Siddur.
Let me suggest to you that This Chumash is the document describing the most difficult crises of the human condition (which we continue to deal with) It starts with Adam and Eve happily living in Eden for 3 sentences, and follows with the fratricide of the first two brothers and then the descruction of all humanity except for Noah’s family…it ends with God not letting Moses, his best friend, the only person God speaks to Face- to face- into the Promised Land.
A Description of the Tragic consequences of the Human Condition throughout history. Hopeless Times?
And the Siddur…the Treatment Plan..,one part of what our tradition has to offer us in dealing with these crises.
So, how to deal with these difficult, (and find some hope) challenging and even gruesome times in Israel (where I am just back from a two week trip) and our country and the planet.
So what do I have to offer you during these difficult time? (Take in what you’d like and throw way the rest)
A) COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS: Let’ start with the Siddurs’ centrality of appreciating our Blessings, Mah Tovu, Birkot Hashachar, Simchah over and over.
B)Next level…getting the Meaning and Purpose of our lives, why we are put in this world… AM Hamityachadim shmoh (and in so doing we are pulling the Divine aspirations together also)
As we develop, over our lifetimes, the understanding of who we are and who we want to be, we have a better opportunity to be “ GOOD ENOUGH”. We will always struggle between our aspirational selves and our mortal selves…but the ultimate goal is to come to some sort of truce between these two sides, the side that describes as as created in dust and returning to dust and the side that describes us as in the Image of God….that is (hopefully) a lifelong struggle.
Perhaps it is the story of a struggling God and we, having been created in the image of God, struggling with our oun limitations and frustrations.
C) The Third Level
As my mother would often say,”Mensch tracht and gott lacht; People plan and God laughs
KOHELET/ECCLESIASTES Good things happen to Bad People and Bad things happen to Good
So Fairness is merely an illusion; Hevel
BEYOND Contentment vs Misery or Hopefulness vs Hopelessness is the acceptance of NOT Knowing. (Job) The Ultimate Transcendence.
How timely, because This is the world of Purim…a fantasmagorical Holiday ( A Wes Anderson movie)
With everything from a Fairy Princess to a Wise Uncle to an Evil Opponent who wants to do away wit us to a King who doesn’t quite get it all…all going towards the notion that we never can really know…and history keeps repeating Itself…
So Embrace the Illusory notion of this.
PURIM!: ADELOYADAH! We hope to get to the stage of inebriation (or transcendence that we no longer can tell apart. Cursed is Hman and Blessed is Mordechai!
(Abott and Costello to Rabbi Akiva laughing as he passed the ruins of the Temple)
Zachary’s response to a Palestinian movie being shown in his gym
JOB; Glatzer!; understanding as God says to Job, “Where were you when I created the world Perhaps what the message here is not what God said to Job but the description that God responded to Job.
Which brings me back to why I appreciate being invited for this Brotherhood Shabbat
The Brotherhood is one major way that community is created in our congregation
Coming together; in smaller groups
To be better able to
1) Count our Blessings
2) Figure our our purposes
3) Realize how little we really know
ALL IN THE SERVICE OF FOSTERING HOPE IN OUR LIVES!