Gut Yontif – Shanah tovah!

It was sixteen Rosh Hashanahs ago. I was in my third year as Rabbi of Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Mississippi. Our son, Benjamin was only days away from turning two and we were eagerly awaiting the birth of our second child, due to arrive right around Thanksgiving. That Rosh Hashanah afternoon, after services were over, we were at home enjoying lunch and the company of several families from the congregation. One family had two school-aged girls and a toddler named David, who was just a few months younger than our Benjamin. As the afternoon passed, we enjoyed the sight of the two boys playing together. I recall David’s mom remarking, “Just think, one day they’ll be classmates in Sunday School.”

Six weeks later, Laura and I were out for the evening at a movie. With number two’s arrival only weeks away, we knew it might be a while before we’d have such a chance again. About twenty minutes into the film, a voice called out from the rear of the auditorium, “Rabbi Eric Gurvis! Is there a Rabbi Gurvis in the auditorium?” Laura and I immediately jumped from our seats, running up the aisle and out into the lobby. There, we found our babysitter Jana, who immediately assured us that Benjamin was fine and that a neighbor was watching him. A short while earlier she’d taken a phone call from young David’s parents. Something terrible had happened and they were in the ER at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Could I come quickly?

After sending Jana back to our house, we dashed from the theater and headed for the hospital. As I came through the double doors into the ER, my heart was racing and my head was pounding. This was before cell phones and I had no idea what to expect. What I found still haunts me to this day. There sat Jan, David’s mom, with the lifeless form of her young son in her lap. She was sobbing, as was her husband Matt, who stood behind her, trying desperately to comfort her even as he struggled with his own composure. “What happened?” I asked quietly. Somehow, David had crawled his way out of the family’s fenced-in backyard which backs up to the Ross Barnett Reservoir. Undetected, he fell into the water and drowned. The picture of Jan cradling her beautiful young boy in her arms is still fresh in my mind. She asked over and over, “Why did this happen? He’s such an innocent boy.” Flashing back to that Rosh Hashanah afternoon at our home with our boys playing, I struggled to be as helpful and comforting as I could. I could not mutter empty pieties. I cried with Jan and Matt. My heart ached for them. It also ached to return home and crawl into bed and cradle my own son. For weeks I found myself unable to sleep through the night without waking up from nightmarish images of David lying beneath the water – images which sometimes replaced Jan and Matt’s son with my own. It’s been sixteen years and I still think about David, Jan and Matt – and their two
older daughters. I still think about that tragedy, and its impact on our Jackson Jewish community, and the broader community. Truth is, I think about David every year at this time, as we turn the pages of our prayer books, and the U’netaneh Tokef prayer lies before me:

On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed:
How many shall pass on, how many shall come to be;
Who shall live, and who shall die;
Who shall see ripe age and who shall not?

From the Rosh Hashanah following David’s death, and even today, I have struggled mightily with this prayer. I know I am not alone. I suspect that many of you also struggle with the words of this prayer and those of other prayers during these High Holy Days when our liturgy is brimming with vivid imagery, an overwhelming sense of judgment and the importance of securing a place in Sefer HaHayyim, the Book of Life. At the same time, there is much about these Holy Days, the rituals, the liturgy, and yes, even some of the imagery that brings me a sense of comfort. I certainly am comforted as I connect with memories of High Holy Days from my childhood and my home synagogue. I find comfort in the familiarity of many of the melodies of this season. I still find myself transported back to synagogues of my past as I listen to the haunting and eerie beginning of the U’netaneh Tokef. I especially find comfort in hearing our voices join together as we intone the melodies for Avinu Malkeynu and B’Rosh Hashanah. At the same time, the words of U’netaneh Tokef force me to wonder: How can I recite the words “On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed: How many shall pass on, how many shall come to be . . .” and then face the all-too painful realities of life in our world? How can I find comfort in singing a melody when the words and the meaning are so jarring? I remember sitting in the study of my good friend, Father Craig Gates, whose Episcopal Church was directly across the street from my congregation in Jackson. I sat in his study an hour before David’s funeral, struggling with how I could stand before David’s family and comfort them in the face of this horrible tragedy. “Eric,” Craig said, “Instead of being angry with God, just let God in. God didn’t cause this tragedy. But God’s presence, as it emanates through you, can help you as you try to bring this family and this community a sense of comfort and peace as you face this terrible loss.”

Sixteen years have passed since David’s death and my wrestling match with U’netaneh Tokef hasn’t gotten any easier. I still wrestle each year. I wrestled a lot following the Oak Hill bus tragedy. I struggled over the words four years ago, as I know many of you did, as we read the words only days removed from the terror of 9-11. And, this year, in the past month or so, I have found myself emotionally right back where I was sixteen years ago, after David died in the waters of the Ross Barnett Reservoir. “Who shall perish by fire, and who by water?” has been very much in my thoughts as I watched the images on television in the aftermath of the tsunami, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. With each phone call I made to friends and former congregants in Jackson, a city swollen to double its size as it became a place of refuge for hundreds of thousands of evacuees from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, I found myself wrestling yet again. Several weeks ago, I told Rabbi Widzer I wasn’t sure that I could read the prayer in English this year. “Perhaps we’ll just sing it, and move on,” I offered. Almost two weeks ago, with the sudden and shocking death of our own dear Kathy Berman, I found myself struggling with an intensity I have not felt before. Do I really believe the fates of those in Southeast Asia, the Deep South, or even of Kathy Berman were sealed at Yom Kippur one year ago by God’s hand?

I remind myself that the language of our prayers is meant to be read metaphorically and allegorically. As with Torah, Midrash, literature, cinema, and with so many elements of our human experience, I know we are not meant to take all these forms of expression merely on a simple literal level. As a Reform Jew, I know this is especially true when it comes to our liturgy which I’m also not prepared to simply toss out. There are elements of our High Holy Days liturgy and its themes which can be powerful motivators guiding us towards living ethical and moral lives. The metaphors and allegories do, I continue to believe, play a useful purpose. While I do not literally imagine God on high opening books and recording names during these Days of Awe, I find the image helpful in focusing my attention inward, on my own life, words, and deeds. In spite of my liturgical wrestling match with U’netaneh Tokef, I nonetheless find these Days thoroughly gratifying on both emotional and spiritual planes. I remind myself that if I only hear the literal meaning of the words, and the images they evoke, I will fail as I strive to achieve the sense of comfort and uplift I seek from these Days and their rituals.

There is one piece of the U’netaneh Tokef which I do find particularly helpful. Ironically, it is precisely because I do force myself to take it literally. It is a piece of the prayer to which Rabbi Widzer made reference last night in his comments about our responsibilities. I want to share it with you again. Perhaps it will help not only me to refocus, but you as well. In the opening paragraph of the prayer, before we ever get to the troubling litany of “Who will live, and who will die . . .” we read:

“Let us now proclaim the sacred power of this day: it is awesome and full of dread. For on this day Your Sovereignty is exalted; Your throne will be established in steadfast love; there in truth You reign. In truth You are Judge and Arbiter, Counsel and Witness. You write and You seal, You record and recount. You remember deeds long forgotten. You open the Book of our days, and what is written there proclaims itself, for the signature of each and every person is upon it.”

I do not understand how God remembers all that has been forgotten. I can only struggle to remember what I must remember. I do not understand how God judges, or whether God judges. In spite of the heavy emphasis on the theme of judgment which permeates this season, I take comfort in the prayer’s declaration that “it is not the death of sinners, that [God seeks] but rather that they should turn from their ways.” The judgment doesn’t really bother me. And it’s not that I’m so good or unconcerned. It’s that I take comfort in tradition’s declaration that God really does want to keep us around and that we are given repeated chances to make something meaningful out of our lives. This doesn’t help me with poor innocent David, the four Oak Hill students, the thousands of innocents who perished on 9-11, those who died, or lost everything in the recent hurricanes, or, most recently with Kathy. These are painful realities with which I still wrestle, often in the quiet of those nights when sleep eludes me. But I am prepared to accept that there are mysteries in this world and our lives which I am not going to understand. I accept that there are forces over which I will have no control. Even as I profess my faith in God, I accept that with my limited human capacities, I cannot fully know or understand how God works in this world. It is a part of the challenge and beauty of my faith, and it’s one I learn from our Jewish tradition. Where U’netaneh Tokef works best for me is in those areas where I actually do have some control. While my page in the Book of Days may be viewed on high, it is ultimately I who must fill that page. And it is I who must sign off on it. “The signature of every human being is upon it.” That includes my signature, on my page in the Book of Life. In the words of an 11 th century Jewish thinker, Bahya ibn Pakuda, “Days are scrolls: write on them what you want to be remembered.” The U’netaneh Tokef offers me guidance, from the very heart of our Jewish tradition on how I might consider filling that page – through engaging in tefillah – in prayer which connects me to you, my community; through acts of tzedakah – acts of charity and the pursuit of righteousness which remind me that this world and my life within it are about more than just me; and through teshuvah – repentance which allows me, especially in these days, to hit my own personal reset button, to seize the chance to start anew, especially in my relationships with others. These opportunities are precious to me. My struggle with our prayer reminds me, as do all the tragedies which have forced me to wrestle again and again, that life is too short, and too uncertain. Therefore, I must get busy writing good stuff on my page, right now. Spending these days here with you is, for me personally, in these Days of Awe, a good start.

May you – and your loved ones, each write yourselves for a good year on your pages in the Book of Life. And through tefillah, tzedakah and teshuvah, may we reach out beyond ourselves, and join together in making 5766 a year of blessing, a year of healing and a year of peace.