Our Jewish Stories--Our Jewish Lives Part III
Sermon, Erev Yom Kippur 5766
Rabbi Bruce Kadden

There is a story of Rabbi Amnon, a wealthy and renowned leader of the Jewish community of Mayence, Germany in the Middle Ages.  The civic authorities, under strong influence of the church, insisted that all Jews convert, so they approached Rabbi Amnon.  He immediately refused, but when they returned day after day, he finally said to them, “Give me three days to think about it.”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he realized what a grave mistake he had made.  How could he even consider conversion?  When the authorities sent for him on the third day, he refused to go.  They took him against his will, threatening him with severe punishment if he did not convert, but the rabbi defiantly said, “This shall be my punishment:  my tongue which denied God, let it be cut out!”  The authorities, however, said, “No, your tongue knew what was good for you.  Instead, we will cut off your feet which refused to come to us and will torment your entire body!”  So they cut off his feet and his hands, stopping before each blow to ask whether he was ready to convert.  But Rabbi Amnon refused.  Finally, they were finished and sent him home.

On Rosh Hashanah Rabbi Amnon insisted that he be taken to the synagogue and placed next to the prayer leader.  When the prayer leader got to the Kedushah, the prayer of sanctification, Rabbi Amnon asked that he be allowed to sanctify God’s name.

He began:  “Let all sanctity go up to You as I have hallowed Your name for the sake of Your kingdom and Your unity.”  And then he continued: “Unetaneh tokef k’dushat hayom/Let us declare this day’s mighty sanctity, for it is awesome and dreadful.”  He uttered the entire prayer; when he finished he vanished, taken up by God.

Three days later he came in a vision to Rabbi Kalonymus and taught him the entire prayer, which from that day on was recited on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, Professor of Liturgy at Hebrew Union College, strongly objects to telling this story to introduce the Unetaneh Tokef, and not just because it is unhistorical.  “[E]ven if it were true, the story would not deserve retelling,” he argues.  “Lots of real martyrs wrote lots of elegiac poetry that our liturgy rejected so as to preserve the synagogue for deeper truths than the false generalization that Judaism is one long tale of decimation and torture.” 

Hoffman raises one of the most important issues of contemporary Jewish education:  how do we appropriately honor and memorialize Jewish martyrs of every age, how do we recognize their commitment to Judaism under the harshest of circumstances, without allowing our acknowledgement of their pain and suffering to overwhelm our liturgy and ritual observance. 

In a broader sense, how do we avoid portraying the Jewish past as what historian Salo Baron called “the lachrymose view of Jewish history,” which presents our history as a long series of trials and tribulations culminating in the Holocaust?

Simon Wiesenthal, who recently passed away, wrote a book called Every Day Remembrance Day which chronicles pogroms and acts of anti-Semitism and persecution that have occurred in our history.  His book was quite controversial, not because there is anything wrong with recognizing such acts, but because it only presents part of our history.  “Where are all the great accomplishments moments of celebration?”  critics asked.

Jewish educators have long recognized that if we inundate our children with stories of pain and suffering, death and destruction, they will quickly get the message –intended or unintended—that being Jewish is neither safe nor sane.  If the story of Judaism we teach is mostly a story of pain and suffering, with a few heroes such as David, the Maccabees, Esther and Mordecai, and the Israeli army thrown in for good measure, it is not a very appealing story.

Why would anyone want to identify with a religion and people that has suffered so much persecution?  I suppose that there might be a few masochists among us, but most people, given the choice, would simply choose not to identify as Jews. 

Now, of course, most schools present a balanced view of Jewish history, but we, as a people, have not fully addressed the greater issue of how to acknowledge the pain and suffering of our people, without allowing it to overwhelm everything else that we do.

Yom Kippur is the appropriate time to examine this issue, because on Yom Kippur we come face to face with death.  Rabbi Yitz Greenberg points out that during the High Holy Days, our “tradition deliberately concentrates the individual’s attention on death.”  He points out that particularly on Yom Kippur, as we culminate this most important time in our calendar, we “enact death by denying” ourselves “the normal human pleasures.”

We not only fast, but also do not bathe for pleasure, put on perfume or cologne, wear comfortable leather shoes, or engage in conjugal relations.  Traditionally, one wears a white kittel, reminiscent of the burial shroud, and recites the Viddui, the deathbed confession of sins during the afternoon service prior to the holiday.  In the words of Rabbi Greenberg:  “Jews experience what a death sentence would mean by living as if dead for a day, giving up the fundamentals of dignified life.”

The liturgy itself forces us to come face to face with death.  Even without the morbid story of Rabbi Amnon, the Unetaneh Tokef text itself is graphically morbid:  “The great shofar is sounded.  A still, small voice is heard.  This day even angels are alarmed, seized with fear and trembling as they declare:  ‘The day of judgment is here!’ … On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed:  ‘How many shall leave this world and how many shall be born into it, who shall live and who shall die, who shall live out the limit of one’s days and who shall not, who shall not, who shall perish by fire and who by water, who by sword and who by beast, who by hunger and who by thirst, who by earthquake and who by plague, who by strangling and who by stoning,” and so forth until we are emotionally exhausted.

The final phrase, “But repentance, prayer and righteous deeds affect the severity of the decree,” fails to mitigate the overwhelming sense of despair. 

Unetaneh Tokef is not the only text that forces us to confront death.  The story of the 10 rabbis who were martyred by the Romans has been an important part of the Yom Kippur liturgy since the Middle Ages.  Rabbi Reuven Hammer points out that this passage is “only one of the many liturgical pieces written to enhance” our experience “by expounding upon the troubles and sorrows that Jews have suffered.” 

In addition to the story of the 10 rabbis, poems written about the slaughter of Jews during the Crusades, as a result of a blood libel, and more recently poems and readings about the Holocaust have been added to this part of the liturgy. 

Traditionally these accounts were placed in the musaf service, the additional service of Shabbat and holidays which replaces the additional sacrificial offering.

The message is clear:  when the Temple stood, our ancestors brought sacrifices; since that time, we have been the sacrifices.  Just as God looked with favor upon the sacrifices at the Temple, we hope that God will look with favor upon the sacrifices of our people and will put an end to our torment and suffering once and for all.

Death also makes its way into the liturgy with the inclusion of the Yizkor service, when each of us is called upon to remember our loved ones who have been take from us.  Rabbi Hammer explains, “It is as if on the day when we feel our own mortality most keenly and have brought ourselves closest to leaving this world, we wish to experience again the closeness of those who have already departed and whose presence is most sorely missed.”

This past year has been a year of death and devastation on both a global and local level.  First, there was the powerful tsunami which wreaked havoc in Southeast Asia, killing tens of thousands.  Then hurricane Katrina brought death and destruction to our own shores, virtually wiping out a large American city, flooding much of the south and killing many.  And just this past week, a devastating earthquake has killed tens of thousands in Pakistan and neighboring countries. 

Here in Tacoma, Temple Beth El experienced the death of members of our community in unprecedented numbers.  This summer it seemed like we were gathering at Home of Peace cemetery almost every week to say goodbye to a member, some of whom had been part of the community for virtually their entire lives.  It is always hard to lose a member of our community; but to lose so many vital members in such a short period of time challenged our strength and vitality.

At one point this summer, in the middle of all these deaths and just after learning of the tragic death of a 22-year-old who we knew quite well from Salinas, someone asked me how I was doing.  It is a question we are asked many times a day and usually answer fine and go on with our lives.

But I was not doing fine, and said so, recounting all that had happened, tears welling up in my eyes, allowing the anger, frustration and helplessness in the face of death come to the surface.  It really felt good.  I know that many of you have also felt this way as we have had to deal with so much death and loss of family and friends in such a short period of time.

Judaism is a religion that accepts the reality of death.  We do not deny it and we do not glorify it.  We do not pretend that it is pretty.  Although traditionally we believe that the soul is immortal and that there is life after death, we do not delude ourselves into believing that it makes up for this life. 

In Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Ya’acov teaches:  “Better is one hour of repentance and good works in this world than all the life of the world to come; and better is one hour of calmness of spirit in the world to come than all the life of this world.” (4:22)  This paradoxical statement indicates that the rabbis valued this life, but also acknowledged death. 

Death forces us to come face to face with our own mortality.  Tragic death forces us to confront the question:  Why do bad things happen to good people?  It would be easy to despair, to throw up our hands, to give up on hope and faith.  But Judaism insists that we not despair, that we continue to hope, that we “choose life.”

According to Rabbi Greenberg:  “In the Jewish calendar, the Yamim Noraim (Days of Awe) structure the imaginative encounter with death into an annual experience in the hope that the experience will recur to liberate life continually.”  In other words, our “encounter with death is in the service of life.”

It is no secret that encountering death helps us to appreciate life.  Those who experience a life-threatening illness often come away with a newfound appreciation for life and a commitment to make each and every day count.

In a similar way, when we encounter the stories of death that make up our people’s history, we must do so not for the sake of wallowing in death, but for the sake of life. 

Let me demonstrate what I mean.  We can teach the Holocaust, acknowledging the pain and suffering, the devastating loss to our people, but also recognizing the Righteous Gentiles who saved thousands of our people, the heroic fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the many others who resisted the Nazis in their own small way.

Indeed, while much attention has been paid to Righteous Gentiles in recent years, thanks in part of Steven Speilberg’s Schindler’s List, as well as to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, very little attention has been paid to the spiritual resistance that occurred in Jewish communities, ghettos and concentration camps. 

One example is the remarkable performance of Verdi’s Requiem which took place in Theresienstadt in 1944.  Irving Halperin, in his book Messengers from the Dead, explains that “Verdi’s work was essentially intended as a prayer to the dead” but the orchestra, which had overcome innumerable obstacles during 18 months of rehearsals, gave a performance which offered this message:  “You have marked us as the seed of Abraham and now we, prisoners in a Jewish camp, exult before you.  You have not broken us, you will not break us!” 

In that same camp, a group called “Helping Hands” was established among young people.  One of them recalled, “We gave a lot of thought to how we could not only be of assistance to the old people, but also bring them some joy.  We looked through the card index and found out the birthdays of the old people who were alone and on these days the scouts would bring them presents they had made or received themselves—a few flowers, a plaited loaf of bread, or cake they had saved from their rations; they sang songs for them and—in short—arranged a small party…we set up dramatic troupes, which on special occasions would put on shows in the grounds of the old and handicapped peoples’ houses…. Because it was forbidden to pick flowers from the garden, the children would bring them, hidden under their clothes, to the old people.  The old people, who were unable to believe that kindness still existed in the world, wept and when we had to leave them we would hear calls from the beds packed close to each other, ‘Come back again soon.’”

Jacob Greenstein, whose family lived near Minsk and who later escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto, writes of three children, Sima, Banko and David, who –three times a week—secretly escorted Jews out of the Minsk Ghetto and to the forests 50 kilometers away.

And there is this story from Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust by Yaffa Eliach:  A man and his son were walking among the barracks in Bergen Belsen when all of a sudden a stone flew over their heads and landed at their feet.  “What does that mean?” Wolf asked his son.  “Nothing,” he replied, just an angry Jew throwing stones.  “Jews do not throw stones,” his father said, “it is not what we do.”

“Maybe we should start,” the son snapped back.

When no one was looking, the father bent down and picked up the stone and saw that there was a note attached to it.  He slipped it into his pocket and when they were safely inside the barracks, he took it out and read the note.  It was from a Dutch Jew who said he had obtained a shofar.  If the Polish Jews, who were interred in another part of the camp, wanted the shofar for Rosh Hashanah, it would be smuggled to them in one of the coffee cauldrons. 

He shared the news with the other Polish Jews, who were in favor of the idea.  The shofar was successfully smuggled to the Polish Jews, but now they were faced with another problem.  Fulfilling the mitzvah required that each Jew hear the sound of the shofar, but if it were sounded aloud surely the Germans would hear and send all the Jews to their death.  A debate broke out among the many scholars in the camp; they finally agreed that the shofar could be sounded, with soft, muffled notes.  That would have to do.  The Jews held their service and the shofar was sounded.  The camp’s walls did not come tumbling down; nothing had changed on the outside.  But each of those who had heard the shofar came away a different person.  They had defied the Nazis by celebrating Rosh Hashanah and had a new sense of hope that one day they would indeed be free.

Each of these stories teaches that even in the face of death and destruction we can affirm life.  Even in the harshest and most brutal of circumstances we can maintain our dignity, our hope, our faith.

We cannot change the past.  We cannot erase the devastation of a tsunami, a hurricane or an earthquake, but we can respond to these catastrophes by reaching out to those in need, by demonstrating our love and caring.

We cannot literally bring the dead back to life.  But we can live our lives embracing their noble qualities and attributes so that they truly do live on through us.

We cannot defeat death, but we can assure—by who we respond—that death does not defeat us.

On this most solemn day of Yom Kippur, we come face to face with death in order to truly understand the meaning of life.  May the words that we read, the prayers that we utter, and the meditations of our heart inspire us to respond to death and destruction by choosing life.

[back to list of sermons]

[back to top]