Today I want to let you in on a little secret. Four little words. Four words that just might change everything for you. But first, I need to tell you a story. This story is not a religious story. It’s not a story about a famous Hasidic rebbe. It’s not even a Jewish story. This story is made up. In fact, it’s a ghost story. And not only that, but it’s a ghost story from television. But that’s ok. All great stories find their way to television sooner or later. And, as Hamlet learned, there’s much truth to be learned from a ghost.
Here’s the story: A man is awakened in the early morning by a storm. He looks around, gets out of bed, and walks toward the balcony. Some weeks ago this man had been kidnaped, held captive, terrorized, beaten, and just as randomly, set free. Since that time he has been afraid, anxiety ridden. He has not slept well and he has no appetite. He can’t concentrate at work. He has gone to the jail to confront his attacker, to look into his face, but he feels no relief, only the same nagging fear. Now he’s standing on his balcony, looking at the rain. Standing next to him is the ghost of his father, who has been dead for years. (I told you this is a ghost story.) His father’s ghost says, “I’m proud of you, son,” and the man replies, “I thought if I confronted my attacker it would set me free, but it didn’t.” His father says, “you’re not even grateful, are you?” “Grateful for what,” shouts the son. “I should be grateful for the worst experience of my life.” Rolling his eyes heavenward the ghost replies, “infinite possibilities and all he can do is whine.” “Well, what am I supposed to do?” “Anything you want,” says the ghost – “you’re alive!” The man looks thunderstruck. “It can’t be that simple,” he says. His father, the ghost, embraces him. “What if it is?”
Watching this fantasy television interchange, I felt touched by something more than just an emotional response to a tv moment – it was moving, yes, but there was a ring of truth to that moment. I felt as if some great secret had been revealed. I understood that things happen in life, and that not everything is what you want. Some of the things that happen are downright unpleasant and painful, and some things you need to change, but it’s all part of life, and, somehow, it is all manageable. And I thought to myself: it just can’t be that simple. And yet, and yet, what if it is?
A woman of my acquaintance began to experience severe numbness in her right arm and leg so she wisely went to her doctor for a checkup. The doctor told her that it might be a pinched nerve. On the other hand it might be MS or it might be a brain tumor. He sent her for an MRI of her brain, which thankfully came back negative. Then he sent her for a second MRI of her neck. When I asked her about her experience she said, “During the first MRI when I thought I might be dying I was focused on that and didn’t sweat the other discomforts of having an MRI - being in the machine, not being able to swallow, laying still. But, during the second MRI, once I knew I didn’t have MS or a tumor, I was miserable...I kept needing to swallow, cough, open my eyes....I was extremely uncomfortable. I asked her why she thought that was, and she looked at me quizzically: “Don’t you see? You could die of a brain tumor. When you’re faced with that, you don’t notice the other things. It’s that simple.”
Can it be that simple? What if that old saying is true, that there’s nothing like the possibility of death to focus one’s attention. If we lived as if today were our last day, as if today were the day of our death, would we be able to let go of the small stuff? Would we become more forgiving? Would we be more grateful? Could it really be that simple?
Of course its probably impossible to live in that state of hyper-attentiveness for very long. But what if we took one day a year and made that our “deathbed practice day,” the day on which we contemplate the possibility that it is, in fact, our last day. Yom Kippur is that day. On Yom Kippur we wear white, symbolizing the white shroud in which we will be buried. We don’t eat, we don’t drink, we don’t bathe, we don’t engage in sex – we give up being ruled by our bodies. We let go of our hungers, our drives, our lusts and rehearse our deaths. At the moment of death what will we say? Who will we turn to? When we look back on our lives, what will be our regret? What righteous deeds will accompany us? Will we be filled with gratitude, or hopelessness?
Just a few weeks ago a member of the community came to see me. Her father had just died on the East Coast and she found herself filled with emotion for which she had no outlet. She told me that her father had been a virile, active man and that just a few days past his 50th wedding anniversary he had a little stroke. One thing led to another, and within two weeks he was in the hospital, on his death bed. His whole family was with him, holding his hand, stroking his face, talking to him, and every now and then he would open his eyes, smile and make everyone smile with him. When he died, she said, it was so gentle, and she was filled with gratitude – not just to be there with him at the end, but gratitude that she had the privilege to have him as her father. “At that moment,” she said, “ the day was dawning so beautifully, and everything was so easy, so simple, even the grief.”
On Yom Kippur we play act our own ending so that we might learn to start again. We take the time to see what burdens we have been carrying, what our “stuff” is, not because we are sinners and we need to repent, but because like most people, we just carry around far too much “stuff” in our lives. We carry around our baggage as if it was treasure, as if it was holy. Instead, much of our baggage weighs us down because it is filled to the brim with a lifetime of our accumulated resentments, unresolved angers and frustrations, our desires, our deepest disappointments, our most personal hurts. We can’t unpack these bags because we cherish their contents; we can’t let go of them either, so they become the furniture with which we decorate our lives.
There is a story told about the great nineteenth century Polish rabbi known as the Chofetz Chayim. He was one of the greatest Jewish scholars of his generation and he wrote the authoritative work on unrighteous speech. He was visited once by a tourist from America. This visitor was astonished (as only an American could have been) to see that the rabbi’s home was just a simple room filled with books. The only furniture was a table and a bench. “Rabbi, where is your furniture?” asked the tourist. “Where is yours?” replied the rabbi. “Mine? But I’m only a visitor here,” said the tourist. “So am I,” said the rabbi.
Could it be that simple? Is it possible that we have allowed ourselves to be seduced by the things in our life so that it has become impossible to see the simple truth: that we are just visitors here, we are just passing through? Is it possible that we have been carrying our burdens for so long that we have become literally “bent out of shape?” We have missed the simple truth: so much of what we carry around with us is so unnecessary, and just adds the weight of unnecessary suffering to our lives in which there is already enough sadness to go around.
Because we are oh too human, we frequently struggle against our experience. Like Jacob wrestling with the angel we allow ourselves to be locked in a battle with our feelings and experience, as if we can somehow overcome experience, make this exact moment different – and all we do is end up limping home. Jacob survives his struggle with the angel, and later with his raging brother Esau, his “other half,” only when he embraces them, realizing that he cannot change them. When we struggle against the experience of the moment, our minds and bodies tensing with the desire to fight it or escape it – all we end up doing is adding to our own pain. It’s hard for me to count the number of times I have been stuck in traffic and felt a rising wave of panic and anger at myself for being stuck again, late again, and I would sit there feeling as if I was about to explode, until my wife one day said to me: “We’re stuck in traffic. Being anxious and angry is not going to get us anywhwere any faster, so why don’t you just relax.” I looked at her and said “It can’t be that simple,” but she said, “what if it is.”
And this too, is Yom Kippur: a time devoted to looking at our experience of the past, not fighting with it or fleeing it but paying close attention to it and accepting our experience as it is. As much as we might wish it were different, our past actions were what they were. We need to accept our experience into our awareness, embrace it even, and forgive ourselves with compassion for those moments of human weakness. Because we have already suffered the consequences of our actions – flogging oursleves for what is past will not bring us release. It’s that simple.
But wait a minute! How could it be that simple? Do any of us wake up in the morning, thinking to ourselves ‘good morning, I think this morning I want to suffer more?’ Don’t we think we’d give up our pain, our suffering, in a minute if we could? If it was soooo simple, don’t you think we’d stop feeling so hurt if we could? Our pain isn’t phony, it isn’t made up, it’s real and it hurts and it’s overwhelming. The hurts of life are just overwhelming.
And that, too, is Yom Kippur. A cry for help, a cry that wells up from the belly, a primal, heart-breaking cry, a pleading, “ Shma Koleinu, Avinu Malkeinu, chaneinu va-eneinu, please, help me, do not forsake me, I know I should forgive myself, I know I compound my pain. I am trying so hard but I need Your help.”
The best possible response to suffering is compassion. The essence of Yom Kippur, of all Jewish practice, is reminding ourselves over and over that we are just human beings. We do not want to suffer. We want to feel good. And if we might quiet ourselves just a little we might find that still, small voice, a grateful, awe-inspired, voice of compassion.
As part of my job I go to a lot of shivah minyans. I spend an inordinate amount of time with people who are mourning. And yet I never cease to be amazed. When a mourner begins to talk about the person who has died, everyone in the room quiets down. We all listen, we are all attention. Relative, friend and stranger alike, we listen rapt to the sharing of the wounded human heart, and instinctively everyone knows exactly what to do: they offer words of compassion, they offer gratitude for the sharing, for a life lived, they offer an embrace for the grieving. I see it time and time again. It’s that simple.
But what if I’m trying to be compassionate with myself, what if I know I might suffer less if I just forgave myself and what if I still can’t do it?’
At times like that we pray, we ask for help and we wait ... we wait for the self-healing capacity of our own hearts to bring us relief. It’s not easy, but it’s that simple.
And, we can learn to feel grateful. Gratitude for the gifts we experience in our lives, gratitude that we are alive another day, that a day of infinite possibilities has dawned for us once again. A grateful heart is the source of the greatest comfort and courage. I was just reminded of this a few days ago by my newest spiritual teacher, a 13 year old girl named Hailey. I think she could be your spiritual teacher too. Hailey came to see me about her bat mitzvah. We talked about her schoolwork and her sports and her music and about the d’var torah she prepared for her bat mitzvah. In her d’var torah she talked about shabbat as a perfect opportunity to rest from the work you have done and to enjoy all that you have. And then she said, “You know, last year I got very sick. I woke up one morning and my throat was burning and I couldn’t swallow and it hurt terribly. I wasa sick for a good long time. And now, I just feel terribly grateful all the time, and things don’t bother me as much. I look out the window and I see the water and the mountain – the world is so beautiful – and I feel so grateful to be here, to be alive. You know,” she said, “sometimes it feels like it’s just that simple.”
Well I think Hailey might be right. Sometimes life grinds us down. Sometimes we feel life is just too painful, too difficult. We wish things had been different. We wish we had been different. But right now, This is how it is. And if we can see that clearly, perhaps we can accept ourselves and our lives with compassion. And then, with some luck and some work, we’ll know how to do it better the next time. Maybe it’s just that simple.
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