May 22, 2025
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Parshat Emor
We Are Cosmos 482
May 17, 2025 – 19 Iyar 5785
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
Fifty-three years ago, on March 31, 1972, the Soviet Union launched a spacecraft that was supposed to go to Venus. But it never made it to Venus. Some malfunction in the rocket prevented it from leaving the earth’s orbit. The Soviets named this spacecraft Cosmos 482—which became code in Soviet lexicon for epic failure. For 53 years, the spacecraft that could never make it to Venus circled the earth. Year after year never getting to where it was meant to go. Year after year stuck in a perpetual orbit. But it turns out that every year it lost a little bit of height in its orbital wanderings so that, last Saturday, on Shabbos, Cosmos 482 could finally find rest. Last Saturday, Cosmos 482 fell back to the earth, into the sea, without causing harm to people or property.
I am not a space person. I don’t follow NASA. But the minute I heard this crazy story, I thought to myself: There is a sermon in that! Because what happened to Cosmos 482 happens to every one of us in our own way.
Cosmos 482 was supposed to go to Venus. Instead, it was stuck orbiting the earth. Can’t every one of us here say: I was supposed to…Instead I’m…
I was supposed to be married. Instead I’m still looking.
We were supposed to start our family. Instead we are on a fertility journey.
I was supposed to be launched professionally. Instead, I go from job to job, and now I am in between jobs.
I was supposed to be retiring. Instead, I look at my 401k, and retirement is no longer an option.
I was supposed to be healthy. I eat right. Exercise regularly. Get plenty of sleep. Instead I’m in the grips of a medical challenge.
We all can say I was supposed to. Instead I’m. What do we do with that? Often what results is the three fs.
The first f is forever. It feels like I am in this bad place forever. I have had one bad date after another forever. We have been on our fertility journey forever. I have been looking for the right fit professionally forever. My husband, my wife, has been dealing with medical stuff forever. Forever!! Ugh!
The second f is frustration. It is easy to be happy when our life is working out. Much harder to be happy when our life is not working out. When we are stuck for what feels like forever, we can feel frustration.
And when that happens, the third f is friction. When we are not happy with our own life, it is so easy to take it out on others. I once heard a meditation leader say that often people who act in hurtful ways are hurting themselves. They are in their own pain, which causes them to radiate friction into the universe.
What do we do with these three fs, forever, frustration, and friction, so that we don’t enact our pain on other people?
We learn from Cosmos 482 that forever is not forever. The orbit was a long time, 53 years, but it was not forever. It came home.
Coming home is about making meaning out of all that frustration and friction that lasts forever. What did we learn? How did we grow? How can we emerge better and stronger?
The Hebrew Bible’s language for Cosmos 482 is bamidbar, in the wilderness. The Israelites wander in the wilderness for 40 years. It’s hot. Dry. Endless. It feels like forever.
And yet, surprisingly, when reflecting on the wilderness years, the prophet Jeremiah sees the wilderness years through a rosy lens, that the people of Israel were a young bride that just loved God. Jeremiah was talking to a generation of traumatized Israelites. They had seen the First Temple destroyed. They had been exiled. It felt overwhelming. Jeremiah says to them: We’ve been here before. We survived then. We can survive now. We are stronger because of what we endured in the wilderness.
We all have our version of Cosmos 482. We all have our version of wandering in the wilderness. Jeremiah’s question is: how did that make us stronger?
I see that spirit of I-am-stronger-because-of-what-I-went-through-in-the wilderness all the time. On Memorial Day weekend, our never- before-married 42 year old niece is getting married. In late August our never-before-married 42 year old nephew is getting married. They each had danced at everybody else’s wedding. They each had wondered would it ever happen for me? But it ain’t over till it’s over, and it’s never too late. The strength they harnessed in their wilderness years made them stronger. This summer they are dancing at their own weddings.
I see that spirit in so many spouses who walked with their spouses when the going got tough. When their life partner faced a long ordeal. Character is what happens when no one is looking. And when no one was looking, they were present for years as a loving caregiver. And after years of a happy and healthy marriage, and after years of caregiving, their spouse passes. And they wonder and worry, and their children wonder and worry, what will be? Somehow, some way, they not only survive. They thrive. They take classes. They travel. They learn new skills. They make new friends and deepen relationships with old friends. They spend time with their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. After their long love, after their faithful caregiving, after their painful loss, they find joy and blessing again. Stronger because of what they endured in the wilderness.
I see that spirit in so many people who got knocked down and managed to pick themselves up again. They lost their job but reinvented themselves and found a new field of work they love. They lost their health, but fought to regain it and are living with great urgency and joy. They had a falling out but repaired the breach because both parties realized in a cold universe, we need each other. They went through a period when, as Harold Kushner put it, quoting Khalil Gibran, they turned their back on the sun, and for them the sun was nothing but a caster of shadows, and somehow, they found their way again to feel and receive the sunlight. Stronger because of what they endured in the wilderness.
None of us makes it to Venus. But we all find our way home.
I was supposed to… Instead I’m…? Instead, I’m…finding a new way to thrive. It is not the life I thought I would live. But it is a life that is deeply beautiful just as it is. Shabbat shalom.