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September 7, 2021
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Rosh Hashanah 5782
September 7, 2021 — 1 Tishrei 5782
When the Going Got Tough, We Did Not Thrive
by Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
The story is told of a man named Max Gelberg who was 70 years old when his beloved wife of more than 40 years, Goldie, passed away. After mourning her for a year, he decides he has to live in the present. He is only 70. Life must go on.
For the first time, he starts to exercise. He joins a gym. He gets a trainer. He starts doing pushups and sit-ups and lunges and squats. People say to him: “Max Gelberg, is that really you? I didn’t recognize you. You look 60.”
That gives Max more juice and energy to keep going. Now he changes his diet. He stops eating read meat. No more bread, sugar or dairy. He used to love a glass of scotch at the end of the day. Now, all he drinks is ice water. But it works. He looks and feels even better and younger. People say to him: “Max Gelberg, is that really you? I didn’t recognize you. You look 50.”
Now Max is really into it. His workouts are increasing. He starts swinging kettle bells. His diet gets even stricter. Plant-based. It works. He looks and feels even better and younger. People say to him: “Max Gelberg, is that really you? I didn’t recognize you. You look 40.”
At this point, Max, who is retired, decides he is going to go to South Beach in Florida. He walks around the beach working out at the public work-out stations. One day, while he is on the beach, he meets a younger woman, they fall in love, they get married. After the wedding, Max walks his new bride to their limousine. Just then a car going the opposite way runs into him, and he dies.
When he gets to heaven, Max is angry with God: Why did you take me now? I was just getting started. I had so much more to go. I was a loyal and loving husband to my first wife. I mourned her. Then I ate right and exercised and found love again. What did I do wrong? Doesn’t your Torah itself say: it’s not good for a person to live alone?
At which point God says: Max Gelberg, is that really you? I didn’t recognize you. I was going for Max Goldberg.
When the going got tough, Max got going. When the going got tough, Max thrived. He became an ever-better version of himself.
But what about those of us who, over the past 16 to 18 months, when the going got tough, we did not thrive. In the memorable word of Adam Grant, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, we languished. What do we do with that disappointment as we enter this new year?
At the climax of our High Holiday season, the High Priest Aaron seeks atonement for three groups of people.
Aaron begins by seeking atonement for himself. God, I was not the best version of myself.
Many of us feel our own version of that. Perhaps we are disappointed in ourselves physically. We ate too much. We drank too much. We are carrying around the quarantine 15 or the Covid 19. We slept erratically. We had weird dreams and nightmares. We had to take sleeping pills or supplements to get to sleep or to stay asleep. We have appearance anxiety. We look at pictures of ourselves from before the pandemic. I can’t believe I used to look like that! So much younger. So much thinner. So much happier. So much healthier.
Perhaps we are disappointed in ourselves emotionally. Yeah, I knew I was supposed to find silver linings, and for a little while I did that. But as this thing wore on, it wasn’t silver linings I was feeling. It was depression. It was anxiety. It was a constant low grade feeling that something is off. That I am off.
Perhaps we are disappointed in ourselves relationally. I knew I was supposed to do a better job of reaching out to old friends. Calling relatives that I had fallen out of touch with. And I started doing that, at the beginning. But the truth is, as the months went by, I just ran out of steam.
When the going got tough, I was not at my best physically, emotionally, or relationally. What do I do with that now?
After Aaron seeks atonement for himself, he seeks atonement for his larger community of priests. Many of us have work to do here, to feel reconnected to our larger circle of family and friends. I have heard from so many people the same sort of confession. My world shrank during Covid, and I am okay with that. I used to come to Kiddush. I haven’t come in forever, and I am, surprisingly, okay with that. I used to see lots more people. I now see far fewer people. I am okay with that. I know that I should want to see more people again. I know that I should want to see my Kiddush friends again. But I am now in this weird space where I am okay with fewer people in my life.
How do we seek at-one-ment with the people with whom we have fallen out of touch?
After Aaron seeks atonement for the priestly class, he seeks atonement for all of Israel. We too need to seek atonement for our broader community. We are struggling to emerge not only from a pandemic but also from a hard period of division where many of us feel differently about the urgent issues of the day. Is Temple Emanuel still my home? I have heard that from all sides of the political spectrum.
How do we seek atonement for our relationship with our community if distance and alienation have crept in?
When Aaron seeks atonement for his three circles, one word is crucial. That word is confess, hitvadah. The Hebrew root, yad daled heh, means to cast off. Aaron casts off the sins of the people onto the goat, and then casts off the goat into the wilderness.
This ritual is about letting go. Let go of the toxins. Let go of the negative energy. Let go of the ill will. Let go of anything that weighs us down and prevents us from getting a fresh start.
If we want atonement, if we want at-one-ment, we have to let it go.
So here is a core prayer for this season.
Lord, let me be gentle and generous with myself. If I have disappointed myself, help me let it go. Give me the blessing of a fresh start.
Let me be gentle and generous with my friends and family. If they have disappointed me, help me let it go. And if I have disappointed them, help them let it go.
Let me be gentle and generous with my community, with Temple Emanuel. Nerves have been raw. Let people judge me, and let me judge others, charitably, lovingly, in the light most favorable. Where there has been hurt or misunderstanding, help us all let it go.
Gentle. Generous. Non-judgmental. That is what we need now.
NPR recently ran a segment about a remarkable doctor named Elizabeth Brown who has a medical practice in Charleston, West Virginia. West Virginia once boasted one of the highest rates of vaccination of any state in the United States. But in recent months, its vaccination campaign has slowed down dramatically—and dangerously. The NPR reporter talked to Dr. Brown about how she encounters people in her practice who, all these months later, still had chosen not to be vaccinated. The answer is: she is gentle, generous, and non-judgmental. It works.
To take just one example, there was the woman who absolutely refused a vaccine because she wanted to get pregnant, and she was convinced that a vaccine would impede her conceiving. Dr. Brown listened to her patiently. Non-judgmentally. Then Dr. Brown introduced her to a colleague who is a reproductive expert, and the two talked to this woman, heard her, and reassured her that there is no basis for this concern. In fact, the doctor who is a reproductive expert has a busy practice full of women who are or are trying to become pregnant, and she encourages all of them to get the vaccine. This woman felt heard. She was reassured. She got the vaccine. A similar pattern has happened with patient after patient.
We do not have Dr. Brown’s particular challenge. We are not dealing with vaccine hesitancy in West Virginia.
But all of us have our own version of her challenge. We all deal with disappointment, in ourselves, in our friends and loved ones, in our communities and country. Encountering these unvaccinated patients months after they could have gotten their vaccine, Dr. Brown could have been angry. She could have been judgmental. But anger and judgment do not work.
Let go of anger, let go of judgment, let go of disappointment.
Hold onto gentleness. Hold onto generosity. Hold onto being non-judgmental. That will free us from the disappointments of the year that was and open us to the possibilities of the year that will be. That is really you! Shana tova.