November 13, 2021
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Parshat Vayetzei
November 13, 2021 — 9 Kislev 5782
Liminal
by Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
The story is told of a woman who feels that something is missing in her life. She has heard that there is a wise yogi, a spiritual virtuoso, who lives and radiates holiness on the top of a mountain in a remote part of India. She is told that this yogi holds court, and that people from all over the world make a pilgrimage to see him. It’s not easy. You fly to India. Then you take a three-day drive on crowded and unpaved roads. Then you climb the mountain, and it is steep. When you get to the top of the mountain, you wait your turn. There is a long line of seekers ahead of you. And here is the catch. The yogi is so in demand, there are so many people to see him, and he is reputed to be so smart, he just intuits things from a few words, that you can only say eight words to him. This woman, in search of something, desperate to find it, flies to India; takes the three-day drive on crowded and unpaved roads; climbs to the top of the mountain; waits her turn among the many seekers who have come to sit at the feet of the great yogi. At long last, after all that, she faces the wise yogi and says her eight words: Come home, Sheldon, it’s time to come home.
That is an old joke. When I started out in the rabbinate 25 years ago, this joke was told in the context of our children who could not find meaning in Judaism, so they sought it, and found it, elsewhere, in eastern religion. And the message of those sermons, to our children, was we have the meaning you are seeking right here. Come home. That is not so much our problem today. We have a different problem today.
I need to resurrect this joke, and the punch line, but not for the original reason. For a different reason. To get to that reason, I need to talk about the Oxford Dictionary word of the year.
Every year the Oxford Dictionary comes up with a word of the year which takes in the major theme of that year. In 2020, the word of the year was pandemic. No surprise there. In 2021 the word of the year was vax or vaccinate. No surprise there. As we head into 2022, what might the word of the year be? I would vote for the word liminal.
The dictionary definition of liminal is:
The quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage
When we are in transition, when we are no longer where we were, but we are not yet where we aim to be, that is liminal. And that is ambiguous and confusing.
Think about where we were last Thanksgiving. Our health and government authorities had advised us: stay home. Don’t do your usual big Thanksgiving meal. Don’t get together with your larger family clan. Don’t fly or drive to see loved ones. Don’t have loved ones fly or drive to see you. Do Thanksgiving by yourselves, your own pod, small, sad, different.
That is where we were. Thank God that is not where we are now. This year we can have bigger Thanksgiving celebrations. But we are not totally post-pandemic. We all know people who were doubly or triply vaccinated and still got a break-through case. We all read in the papers about a possible fifth waive. We all know that numbers of cases in some regions of the country fall, while numbers in other regions rise. Some in our families may choose not to be vaccinated. Some of our children might not yet be vaccinated. So we can have a larger Thanksgiving this year, but with some trepidation. Ambiguous and confusing.
Because we are in this gray zone, because we are in this liminal state, because we are not where we were, but not yet where we want to be, members of the same household, indeed spouses, may not see eye to eye on basic everyday issues.
I want to start eating inside in restaurants again. Restaurants are full of diners. Yeah, but I am not comfortable yet.
I want to go to a show on Broadway again. Theatres are full of theatre goers. Yeah, but I am not comfortable yet.
I want to fly somewhere, get away for the first time in two years. Airplanes are packed. Yeah, but I am not comfortable yet.
This challenge of being in a liminal space far transcends this gray zone of not yet done with the pandemic. In his book The Social Animal David Brooks identifies a new chapter of life, what he calls the Odyssey Years, which he defines as “the decade of wandering that occurs between adolescence and adulthood.” In broad strokes he defines this as the time between ages 18 and 29. He argues that “Adulthood can be defined by four accomplishments: moving away from home, getting married, starting a family, and becoming financially independent.” In 1960, he points out, 70 percent of American 30-year olds had accomplished all four things. In 2000, that number was 40 percent. Twenty-one years later, and in the wake of the pandemic, that number is undoubtedly smaller still. We have all heard the voices of the Odyssey Years.
I want to live on my own, I want to find love, I want to find my life partner, I want to start a family, I want financial independence, and I am doing my best to move in that direction, but it is brutal out there, and I am still working on it. Being a work in progress is ambiguous and confusing. So how do we think about the liminal space we are in?
The address for liminal in the Torah is our portion this morning. Jacob is literally in a liminal space. He is no longer where he was. He had to leave home. He is no longer sharing a home with his parents and brother. But he is not yet where he needs to be. He has not yet arrived, not yet fallen in love with Rachel, not yet married Leah, Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah, not yet had his 12 sons and his daughter Dina. When we meet him as our reading begins, he plops himself down in nature, exhausted, famished, on the run, using a rock as a pillow.
To be in liminal space is to contend with anxiety, edge, nervousness. To be in liminal space is to have a highly agitated interior life, always worrying about something, seldom at peace. God appears to Jacob in his dream. God could not be more reassuring: “Remember, I am with you: I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Moved by God’s reassurance, Jacob famously exclaims: “Surely the Lord is present in this place, and I did not know it.”
And yet, immediately after hearing God’s reassuring promise, Jacob is still worried. Still anxious. What if I lack the basics? What if I go hungry? What if I don’t have resources to clothe myself? What if I fail in life? What if I can’t find work, can’t find love, can’t find meaning, can’t find, can’t? What if I can’t? God, what if I can’t? Jacob is so worried that, even after the Creator of the universe appears to him and reassures him, that’s not enough to still his worry, and he still bargains with God for the protection he craves.
Don’t we all have that voice? What if things go wrong? What if I get a breakthrough case? What if I can’t find love? What if we can’t start our family? What if I lose my job? What if our children never find their way? What if I can’t? When we have not yet arrived, those questions will not be stilled.
What do we do with that edge?
One possibility is that that edge, that worry, closes us down. What if we can’t leads to we can’t and therefore we don’t. We live in perpetual lockdown. We just never get back to life.
But that is not Jacob’s move. Jacob has a different move. His edge and anxiety do not close him down. To the contrary, his edge and anxiety open him up. He removes the heavy rock covering on the well. He falls in love with Rachel at first sight and gives her a kiss. He works night and day to build and support his family. His edge makes him try harder.
That is all of our dilemma when we are in liminal space. Does our edge close us down or open us up? Does our anxiety cause us to retreat or to move forward with greater conviction? You are single and looking, and you have had 1,000 bad dates. Kissed 1,000 frogs. Do you say therefore I am done? Or do you say therefore I am going to try again?
That brings us back to what this liminal space means for us here at Temple Emanuel.
At minyan one night, I see a beloved member who is here for the 41-year yahrtzeit of his father. He used to come to shul every Shabbat, but had not been back in the building since March of 2020. His father’s yahrtzeit brought him back. After the evening minyan, we talked about the fact that we are open for business every Shabbat morning, but it has been so long since he was here on a Shabbat morning, he is not yet comfortable. Which is real. And understandable. And broadly shared. And everyone is entitled to make the judgment with which they are comfortable. But every choice has a cost. He loves being in shul, gets a lot of meaning and friendship and connection from coming on Shabbat mornings, and has not been back in two years. Do we reexamine the cost of the choices we make?
I say to you. We are open. We are here. We have had services every morning and every evening, 7 days a week, in person, since May. The gentleman I saw at minyan one night this week is here today, the first Shabbat morning in almost two years. Back home where he belongs.
So if you are thinking about coming, but have not yet come, if you used to come but are now reluctant, if you miss people and miss community, I say to you eight words: Come home, Sheldon, it’s time to come home. Shabbat shalom.