Rebalancing Our Lives

What follows is my Rosh Hashanah morning sermon.

Let me begin with two personal stories.

This August Susie and I celebrated our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. And I share this not so that you can offer us mazel tovs and congratulations—although, thank you very much—but instead as an illustration. We celebrated not with gifts—despite last year’s sermon, but with the loving embrace of family and of course with the requisite Facebook and Instagram posts. Given that I am married to Susie—and of course tagged her in these photos—my posts received hundreds and hundreds of likes and comments. For a very brief moment, I felt like the center of the universe and as if the world revolved around us.

I am thinking of Simcha Bunim, the Hasidic legend, who said, “Carry in one pocket the saying, ‘For my sake was the world created.’”

Story number two. In June, a friend invited me to sail from Bermuda to New York after he raced his boat to the island in the biannual Marion-Bermuda race. I admit. I provided far more conversational know-how than sailing expertise to Robert and his fellow sailors. I also admit I had little notion of what I had signed up for. Until a few weeks before I never even looked at a map to discover that Bermuda sits all by itself way out there in the Atlantic over 700 miles from home. As we left Bermuda the experienced sailors went over the safety procedures: how to wear the safety harness, how to clip yourself to the deck, how to inflate the life raft (make sure it is tied to the boat before pulling the inflation cord) and other such details. After a few minutes of this talk, I said, “Worst case scenario the Coast Guard will come and rescue us.” And they responded, “Those Coast Guard helicopters can only go 150 miles from the coast—hence the name Coast Guard. We are on our own out here. It is just us and this big ocean. If we have to abandon ship,” they said, “we are on that raft until another boat responds to our distress call, changes course and picks us up.”

As the sun set, Bermuda faded in the distance. In the course of five days, there were moments of sheer terror when in the middle of the night twelve-foot waves crashed over the boat, rain pelted us from every direction and lightning struck all around us. And there were other moments of pure delight when the boat seemed to sail almost effortlessly. I thought then of ancient voyagers for whom this was the only mode of travel. I imagined my hero Yehudah Halevi’s journey from his native Spain to the land of Israel in 1140. He writes: “The sea is the color of the sky—they are two seas bound together. And between these two, my heart is a third sea, as the new waves of my praise surge on high.” (The Poet Imagines His Voyage) As my heart, as well as my stomach, surged, I gained a newfound appreciation for our ancestors who endured untold difficulties to reach the promised land or for my grandparents who suffered in steerage to reach our country’s shores.

And finally, there were moments of absolute wonderment and awe. We were alone and at one with the sea. We saw two other boats, and they were cargo ships, until sighting Montauk. Even though the ocean is ferocious it is also so vast and oh, so extraordinarily beautiful. It was just ocean and sky. The waves give voice to more poems. Pablo Neruda, the 1971 Nobel Prize winner, writes: “I need the sea because it teaches me./ I don’t know if I learn music or awareness,/ if it’s a single wave or its vast existence,/ or only its harsh voice or its shining suggestion of fishes and ships./ The fact is that until I fall asleep,/ in some magnetic way I move in/ the university of the waves.” (The Sea)

Simcha Bunim again. He says, “Carry in the other pocket the saying, ‘I am only dust and ashes.’” And it is this pocket about which I want to dwell this morning for that is the feelings I discovered on that sailboat.

My question is how do we inculcate such feelings of wonderment and awe without going to sea? How do we instill in our hearts an appreciation of the vastness and grandeur of this world? How do we train our souls to feel that our earth is beautiful and precious, fragile and majestic? How do we create these feelings of awe? In terms of the balancing act between the two pockets of which Simcha Bunim speaks I think we are doing a really, really good job of creating this feeling that the world was created for me and not such a good job of teaching I am only dust and ashes. You don’t have to be married to Susie to garner hundreds of likes. Anyone can do it. Just ask my students. You should not have to go on a sailing adventure, and throw up over the rail, to figure out that the world is awesomely vast, and I am so very, very small. (That’s not a height joke.)

So here are the lessons I learned from the university of the waves. I offer three simple suggestions for how to rebalance our lives and rediscover I am only dust and ashes. #1. Go explore the natural world. Get out there. Find your path to nature. It’s simple. Join us on our synagogue’s seasonal hikes at Sagamore Hill. These are not challenging hikes, but they are nearby and there’s plenty there to take in. There is the beautiful Long Island Sound. It is different every season. No matter how many times I walk that sandy trail to the water’s edge it is never the same. It could be high tide or low. The water can reach the bottom of the wooden bridge or not. Teddy Roosevelt loved the natural world and left us this gift right here in our own backyard.

Go and visit any one of our country’s extraordinary national parks. They are an unbelievable treasure, and they are indescribably awesome. This summer I ventured to Utah and went to Zion and Arches national parks. At Zion it is as if God painted different hues of red, orange, yellow and gold on the canyons’ walls and at Arches chiseled perfect stone canopies under which to find shade. I was flabbergasted by these parks’ beauty and grandeur. Take your children there. Nature offers a new discovery every single day if we but open our eyes to it. Or if we open our ears to it. Open your windows. Listen to the sounds of insects after the sun just sets, how the night comes alive with noise. Take in the chirping of birds as the sun begins to rise and a new day begins.

Too often we view nature as something to be conquered or tamed. Think about the language we use. If you love to mountain bike, then it is high praise to say, shredding the trail. If you are skier, then it is positive to say that you are tearing up the slope. Even our language does violence to the earth. Don’t get me wrong. I love my sports. I love your sports. (And apologies to the many golfers among us, but those poor little birdies you keep hitting.) I think such sports are great, especially those that bring us out into our world. But let’s pause and think about how we interact with the world. Too often our words are about how we control nature and how we successfully use it for our enjoyment and our accomplishments. We say things such as, “You crushed it. I killed it.” That’s not how we should be thinking about the earth.

Back to the university. The thing about sailing is that the wind often determines the path. We cannot always carve it the way we want. I exclaim with the Psalmist: “Let the heavens rejoice and the earth exult; let the sea and all within it thunder, the fields and everything in them exult; then shall all the trees of the forest shout for joy.” (Psalm 96) The earth shouts for joy each and every day if we but listen, if we but stop and look. Go, explore the natural world. It is teeming with life. It is overflowing with joy. It is waiting to be discovered. Slow down. Listen. Look. Tear up less. Take in more. Find your path to nature.

Suggestion #2. Reclaim Shabbat as a moment to be at one with nature. Too often we think that Shabbat is only what we do here in the synagogue. It is the prayers that we sing. It is about the services. Or it is about the foods that we eat. Love that hallah. And especially love that wine. Shabbat is more importantly about our connection with nature. According to the Torah it is the day that God rested from making everything. Listen to the Bible’s words. “The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array. On the seventh day God finished the work that had been undertaken: God ceased on the seventh day from doing any of the work.” Vayakhulu hashamayim v’haaretz. (Genesis 2) There is a sense that God not only rested on that first Shabbat but looked back at the work of the prior six days. Shabbat is an opportunity to take in God’s artistry—not ours. We are to breathe in the majesty of this day. We are to be at one with nature. We need to reclaim Shabbat for Reform Jews. Let us not think of it as a litany of forbidden don’ts but instead as an affirmation of nature.

Speaking of those don’ts the best part of the tradition’s prohibition against driving is the insistence on walking. I know it is impractical and I am not planning on walking from Huntington to our synagogue, but there is something about walking as opposed to driving. When we walk, we become better aware of our surroundings. The drive is about getting from point A to point B in the quickest and most efficient way. It is about not getting stuck in traffic or delayed at a light. The drive is harried and rushed. There is so much to do, so many tasks to squeeze into a Saturday. I have to get to the market, get this child to soccer practice and then another to the bat mitzvah party. There’s no time.

The walk is slow and refreshing. Even on my runs I am plagued by monitoring my pace and bettering my effort from my previous attempts. The walk is the antidote to this plague. Think about this. That Hannah Senesh song that our cantor sings so beautifully, “Eli Eli—my God, my God, I pray that these things never end. The sand and the sea. The rush of the waters. The crash of the heavens. The prayer of humanity.” is not really called “Eli, Eli,” but instead “Halichah L’Kasariya—A Walk to Caesarea.” It is not about so much about God but instead about discovering God in nature and in particular on the beach when going for a walk heading to a destination. It is about the unintended discovery of God when setting out for somewhere else. The intention of her walk appears to be to get somewhere. And then the serendipity of a poem appears. And there Senesh found not just God but the intimate “my God—Eli.”

Carve out a moment on Shabbat. It is impossible to imagine that we can do this every day in our busy lives. But at least one day a week, go for a walk—with family or by yourself. Leave the phone at home or if you must because you view it as a necessary safety device, turn it on airplane mode.

And this brings me to suggestion #3. Not so long-ago airplane mode actually meant a respite from emails, text messages and the incessant notifications on our phones but now there is Wi-Fi at 30,000 feet and it’s free on many flights. And this was perhaps the greatest lesson from my sailing adventure and the university I attended for those five days. In the middle of the ocean there is no cell service. It is kind of like that spot on Northern Boulevard at the bottom of the hill in Laurel Hollow except much bigger and lasting not minutes but days. Guess what. The synagogue managed without my constant communication. My family survived without my daily “I love you’s.” and I without theirs. My friends organized bike rides without me.

And more importantly, I survived and managed without knowing up to date news alerts about Israel or Ukraine, the White House or Mar-a Lago. I survived without seeing Shira’s or Ari’s latest Instagram posts or without knowing which East African country Ari was in at that moment. I managed—and my home managed—without being able to check the many Wi-Fi enabled devices I have installed. Of course, we had a satellite phone for emergencies, but thankfully there was no such need. The funny thing is that when you are hundreds of miles out of cellphone range, a lot less seems like an emergency. Our phones make everything appear like an emergency. A friend looks up from her phone and exclaims, “Did you know that Bonnie is on a cruise?” I look up from my phone in the middle of dinner and shout, “Oh my God, they’re forecasting heavy rains for tomorrow.”

On the sailboat, it was only the big, blue ocean and us. It was only the wind and the waves, the sun or the clouds, the moon or the stars and six small human beings on a boat that appeared ever smaller as the days progressed. Technology is pushing us away from nature just when the world desperately needs us to get more acquainted with it. There are many answers to this summer’s climate shocks and what we might do to lessen climate change, but they all begin in the same place. Become more attuned to the natural world. And that starts in the simplest of places, disconnecting from our phones and unplugging from technology. Very little of what we think is an emergency is really an emergency.

People believe the internet expands our horizons but in actuality it shrinks our circle down to the self. I have seen my students sit around a table in silence as they all stare into their screens. They are present but not really. One day this past year my students were hanging out before class started and taking pictures of themselves and I thought they were taking so many pictures. And so, I asked, “Is there ever a day when you don’t take a picture of yourself.” The look I received in response told it all. They thought it was the strangest question they have ever heard. In unison, and while still swiping through their pictures to see which was the most flattering of themselves, they responded, “No.” This struck me as a revelation. I was dumfounded. They take hundreds of pictures of themselves every day! I remain bewildered.

Again, we are doing a really good job at “For my sake was the world created” and a poor job, if any job at all, of teaching “I am only dust and ashes. Thus suggestion #3. Disconnect from technology even if only for an hour-long walk. Let me be honest. I am preaching to myself just as much as to others. This is a plea to own soul as well as to others. I am attached to my phone. It lives by my side. It connects me to a son who lives in a far-off country, to parents who live in a distant city, a brother who lives a plane ride away and every one of you. And yet it also interferes with becoming attuned with the natural world. It is a distraction when we should become more immersed with the outdoors. Mary Oliver, the incomparable poet of the natural world, who died only a few years ago, teaches that attention is the beginning of devotion. She writes: “Teach the children. We don’t matter so much but the children do… Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms. Attention is the beginning of devotion.” (Upstream)

We think we can master our lives. We devote ourselves to establishing routines. We organize our days around detailed schedules. We believe nature can be controlled or perhaps harnessed or that technology will rescue us from the damage we are inflicting on our planet. Instead, we need to take a step back and start at square one. We need to become attuned to the natural world. I should not have had to go to sea to figure this all out. I should not have to travel to the West’s national parks to discover this. Beauty and grandeur are right here in our backyards. Attention is the beginning of devotion.

I don’t have it all figured out, but I can say that this summer has been clarifying. I did not set sail expecting these discoveries. I did not hike the trails of Zion and Arches National Parks expecting to gain an even greater appreciation of my own backyard garden. This summer blessed me with these adventures. I sailed. I walked. I have changed. We need to let go of technology a little more. We need to reclaim Shabbat if but momentarily. We need explore the natural world and become attentive to its rhythms. I am but a tiny speck in our vast and embattled world.

Rabbi Simcha Bunim teaches: Every person should have two pockets. In one pocket should be a piece of paper saying: "For my sake was the world created.” When one is feeling disheartened and lowly, reach into this pocket and take out this paper and read it. In the other pocket should be a piece of paper saying: "I am only dust and ashes." When one is feeling too proud, reach into this pocket and take out this paper and read it. (Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim Later Masters)

For years I thought this teaching was about achieving the proper balance between it’s all about me and it’s all about the world. These days I am thinking we are out of whack, and we need to rebalance ourselves. While I am all for self-confidence and building up self-esteem, we have to expand our horizon of concern to the very trees that give us life and the ocean that nurtures us. The answer is to get out there and experience this world. Let us instill in our hearts a love for the natural world.

Say less “For my sake was the world created” and more often “I am only dust and ashes.” Our soul depends on it. Our world depends on it.