How Should We Prepare for High Holy Days?
Fri, September 16, 2011
What was life like for a Jewish woman in the late 17th century in Germany?
We have the answer to that question, because one woman, Glükel of Hameln, born in 1646, married by the age of 14, widowed for the first time by the age of 43 left with twelve children to support, began writing a diary for her children after the death of her first husband, and then in the years following 1712, after the death of her second husband, a banker who bankrupted her at the end of her long and successful life as a business woman trading all over Europe to support her family.
She wrote to her children for their children, a living will to encourage her descendents to live ethical lives and she recorded for us, in her native Yiddish, key events in Jewish and world history from the false messiah Shabbtai Zvi to day-to-day life among the Jewish inhabitants of Germany’s Rhine valley. Among her descendents were Heinrich Heine, Samson Raphael Hirsch, the founder of Orthodox Judaism — and the great Jewish social activist and writer, Bertha Papenheim, who made Glükel famous for our time, by sharing her story with the world.
On September 19, 1724, at the age of 78, Glükel of Hameln died in the city of Metz, dependent on one of her twelve children, a situation she worked her entire life not to be in. As we celebrate her yahrzeit this weekend, I invoke her wisdom in an effort to answer the question, “How should we prepare for the High Holy days?”
Preparing for the High Holy days and answering this question over three hundred years ago, she said:
“Every day, every hour, and every moment of my life I have sinned, nearly all manner of sins. God grant that I may find the means and occasion for repentance…But, alas, … the ways of the world, have kept me far from that state.”
The Memoirs of Glükel of Hameln, translated by Marvin Lowethal:
I have sinned.
I want God to help me repent.
But, life has gotten in the way of this noble desire: I am just too busy.
Twelve kids to support with a business left to her by the man she married at age 14… you bet she was busy. But, not too busy to have the desire to approach the High Holy days thoughtfully… and penitent.
In their book, Preparing Your Heart for the High Holy Days, parts of which we shall study tonight after services, my dear colleagues and friends, Rabbis Kerry Olitzky and Rachel Sabath teach:
“The process of t’shuvah could be a full time job. But we have so many other responsibilities, that we have little time to ask others for forgiveness. We need to remind ourselves that even a small amount of time devoted to t’shuvah can change our lives and the lives of others.” p.56
They continue, “Fulfilling all of our responsibilities to our families, our workplaces, and our communities demands so much of us that we may wonder how we can squeeze in this ‘extra’ task of t’shuvah’ ” — the time to prepare for the High Holy days, the time to repent, reflect, and restore our lives. They encourage us to work our lives around this opportunity that the month of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah, affords us, not the other way around. For, you and I know that if we wait until we have free time to prepare for the High Holy days or anything in life… that spiritual and personal task will never get done.
People ask me how my three-month sabbatical was. I respond that it was glorious and wonderful, probably the first time I can ever remember that I had time just for me, with no other pressing responsibilities to anyone or anything else. My children are grown, I wasn’t building a house, I didn’t pressure myself to write a book for others… I took the time to center myself, personally, professionally, and most of all spiritually, after what had been a difficult and traumatic year. I came back with ZERO stress and a renewed spirit. I had some of my most spiritual moments of prayer and self-reflection. I feel at peace with God, life, friends and family in my life, and the universe, for the first time in maybe…forever. We’ll see how long that lasts now that I am back to the 24/7 rabbinic schedule, but I intend to try very hard to carry the lessons I learned during my sabbatical into the New Year:
I can’t wait until the next sabbatical to read a 900-page book.
I need to live days in silence in order to feel whole. You may not know it, but silence is my favorite state of being.
I need to be a person, connected to God, separate and apart from all the other titles and roles that I cherish.
I can’t be responsible for things out of my control – be it the choices of others or the survival of liberal Judaism in the 21st century.
I need to find time to walk in nature, and I need to get more sleep.
I need to take time to take care of me, so I can better take care of others.
And…
I need to remember that the High Holy days are about my relationship with God, my accountability to God, not to anyone else.
We need to be as honest as we can, to love as best we can, to forgive when and if we can, to conduct our lives with integrity and purpose, and not get drawn into distractions that take us away from being our best selves.
Preparing for the holidays has always been about sending New Year’s cards – for me, in the old fashion snail mail, for others via e-mail, which is more efficient and more ‘green’, but nevertheless fulfilling the purpose of setting life straight with the people around us. It is a time to take stock in who shall be in our lives and who shall not, whether it be because we fell out of touch or because the relationship no longer works, or something far worse. Preparing for the holidays is a time to love and cherish, to sort and to let go, to return and to repent, to recharge and to recommit, and yes, even to reject… in an effort to return to the best that we can be in a world that is increasingly complex and demanding.
And this synagogue, is a place that we need to be part of that preparation. We were painting the outside today, and they painted most of the inside while I was gone. So too with us, we work first to prepare our inner self for the most sacred days, and then we work on the exterior self and the image we present to others.
Preparing takes time. The home cooked meal always tastes better than the prepared food, at least at my house. The homemade gift touches the heart in the most special way; the effort expended usually reaps its reward.
I make a sacred promise to be prepared when we stand together on Wednesday night, September 28th. For preparation is for nought if we don’t show up for the big event. It would be like training for the Olympics and then deciding you were too tired to compete.
God says to Moses when he is preparing to come up to Mount Sinai… “be there.” Preparing is more than making sure there is a round challah on your table, apples and honey to dip them in, or High Holy day tickets in your purse or pocket. We need to “be here.” We need to bring our whole being, our past, our present, our regrets and our successes, our fears and our failures, our hearts and our souls, to God … not just in the silence of our personal places, but in community, as Adat Yisrael, the community of Israel.
Remember what Glükel said?
“Every day, every hour, and every moment of my life I have sinned, nearly all manner of sins. God grant that I may find the means and occasion for repentance…But, alas, … the ways of the world, have kept me far from that state.”
The Memoirs of Glükel of Hameln, translated by Marvin Lowethal
Don’t let life keep you from the repentance your heart needs.
Prepare along with me. The best is yet to be.
Shabbat Shalom
by Rabbi Amy R. Perlin Temple B’nai Shalom 9/16/11 – 18 Elul 5772