If Not Higher Rosh Hashanah First Night 2015
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| Opening Paragraph of If Not Higher |
For all that we Jews have, over the course of centuries,
prided ourselves on our love of learning and our respect for scholars, the
truth is that the good story teller always drew the larger crowd than the
greatest Talmid Hacham, even at the time that our sages were in
their heyday.
So, one Rabbi, the story goes, drew huge crowds with his tales,
while his colleague drew only a few with his scholarly lectures. The former saw
that his colleague was upset at the turnout, so he comforted him with a story.
“ Let me tell you a story of two men who go to market. You
sell the finest diamonds and emeralds and rubies, and I sell knickknacks: buttons,
threads, odds and ends of cloth. Which one of us will have more buyers? Why I will of course, because everyone can
afford to buy a cheap needle and thread, but very few can afford your precious
stones."
So while Talmudic arguments and pilpul were the
highlights of Jewish genius, a story well told was worth a thousand arguments.
"Do you want to know the One who spoke and the world
came into being? " The Sages advised,’ Study the Aggadah, the
legends and tales, for through them you will know him and cling to his ways and
qualities’.” (Sifre ).
Throughout the ages, Jews spun tales and stories that
embedded values. The short story, the tale, the legend, the parable reached a.
peak in the mouths of the Hasidic Rebbes, who found that they could break
through the black clouds in a person's soul fastest by a quick epigram, a
parable, or a short story, faster and with greater effect than with a long disquisition or a fiery sermon.
Hence, with your permission, tonight, instead of a
sermon, I will serve up a story, one not of my own doing, but by the Yiddish
master, Yitzhak Leib Peretz. It is one of the masterpieces of modern Yiddish
literature in which he took classical Jewish beliefs and presented them to an
audience that was no longer “frum,” no longer pious.
He was a master of the gothic tale, who wrote in
Hebrew and Yiddish, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Although himself a secular Jew, he
loved to delve into Hasidic and mystic lore.
The tale I will tell you tonight takes place during the
High Holy Days period, just during the time of Slichot.
In the
milieu of the story, in East Europe, it was the custom to go to Slichot,
for several nights just before the first crack of dawn before
Rosh Hashanah, .
It is a story of what makes for a true prayer for
forgiveness of sins. It is, as well, the classic story of true believer, the
Hasid, and the sceptic, the Misnagid. Chasidim tended to come from
Poland and the western Ukraine, Poylnish or Galicianer, people of
emotion and intensity; Misnagdim tended to come from Lithuania, hence the idea of Litvak, a cold harsh critical scholar.
This is the translation by Marie Syrkin:
EARLY every Friday morning, at the time of the Penitential
Prayers, the Rabbi of Nemirov would vanish.
He was nowhere
to be seen—neither in the synagogue nor in the two Houses of Study nor at
a minyan. And he was certainly not at
home. His door stood open; whoever wished could go in and out; no
one would steal from the rabbi. But not a living creature was
within.
Where
could the rabbi be? Where should he be? In heaven, no
doubt. A rabbi has plenty of business to take care of just before
the Days of Awe. Jews, God bless them, need livelihood, peace,
health, and good matches. They want to be pious and good, but our
sins are so great, and Satan of the thousand eyes watches the whole earth from
one end to the other. What he sees he reports; he denounces,
informs. Who can help us if not the rabbi!
That is what
the people thought.
But once a
Litvak came, and he laughed. You know
the Litvaks. They think little of the Holy Books but stuff
themselves with Talmud and law. So this Litvak points to a
passage in the Gemarah—it sticks in your eyes—where it is
written that even Moses, our Teacher, did not ascend to heaven during his
lifetime but remained suspended two and a half feet below. Go argue
with a Litvak!
So where can
the rabbi be?
“That’s not
my business,” said the Litvak, shrugging. Yet all the
while—what a Litvak can do!—he is scheming to find out.
That same
night, right after the evening prayers, the Litvak steals into the
rabbi’s room, slides under the rabbi’s bed, and waits. He’ll watch
all night and discover where the rabbi vanishes and what he does during the
Penitential Prayers.
Someone else
might have got drowsy and fallen asleep, but a Litvak is never at a
loss; he recites a whole tractate of the Talmud by heart.
At dawn he
hears the call to prayers.
The rabbi
has already been awake for a long time. The Litvak has
heard him groaning for a whole hour.
Whoever has
heard the Rabbi of Nemirov groan knows how much sorrow for all
Israel, how much suffering, lies in each groan. A man’s heart
might break, hearing it. But a Litvak is made of iron; he
listens and remains where he is. The rabbi, long life to him, lies
on the bed, and the Litvak under the bed.
Then
the Litvak hears the beds in the house begin to creak; he hears
people jumping out of their beds, mumbling a few Jewish words, pouring water on
their fingernails, banging doors. Everyone has left. It
is again quiet and dark; a bit of light from the moon shines through the
shutters.
(Afterward
the Litvak admitted that when he found himself alone with the rabbi a
great fear took hold of him. Goose pimples spread across his skin,
and the roots of his earlocks pricked him like needles. A
trifle: to be alone with the rabbi at the time of the Penitential
Prayers! But a Litvak is stubborn. So he
quivered like a fish in water and remained where he was.)
Finally the
rabbi, long life to him, arises. First he does what befits a
Jew. Then he goes to the clothes closet and takes out a bundle of
peasant clothes: linen trousers, high boots, a coat, a big felt hat,
and a long wide leather belt studded with brass nails. The rabbi
gets dressed. From his coat pocket dangles the end of a heavy
peasant rope.
The rabbi
goes out, and the Litvak follows him.
On
the way the rabbi stops in the kitchen, bends down, takes an ax from
under the bed, puts it in his belt, and leaves the
house. The Litvak trembles but continues to follow.
The hushed
dread of the Days of Awe hangs over the dark streets. Every once in
a while a cry rises from some minyan reciting the Penitential
Prayers, or from a sickbed. The rabbi hugs the sides of the streets,
keeping to the shade of the houses. He glides from house
to house, and the Litvak after him. The Litvak hears
the sound of his heartbeats mingling with the sound of the rabbi’s heavy
steps. But he keeps on going and follows the rabbi to the outskirts
of the town.
A small wood
stands behind the town.
The rabbi,
long life to him, enters the wood. He takes thirty or forty steps
stops by a small tree. The Litvak, overcome with amazement,
watches the rabbi take the ax out of his belt and strike the
tree. He hears the tree creak and fall. The rabbi chops
the tree into logs and the logs into sticks. Then he makes a bundle
of the wood and ties it with the rope in his pocket. He puts the
bundle of wood on his back, shoves the ax back into his belt, and returns to
the town.
He stops at
a back street beside a small broken-down shack and knocks at the window.
“Who is
there?” asks a frightened voice. The Litvak recognizes it
as the voice of a sick Jewish woman.
“I,” answers
the rabbi in the accent of a peasant.
“Who is I?”
Again the
rabbi answers in Russian. “Vassil.”
“Who
is Vassil, and what do you want?”
“I have wood
to sell, very cheap.” And, not waiting for the woman’s reply, he goes into
the house.
The Litvak steals
in after him. In the gray light of the early morning he
sees a poor room with broken, miserable furnishings. A sick woman,
wrapped in rags, lies on the bed. She complains bitterly,
“Buy? How can I buy? Where will a poor widow get money?”
“I’ll lend
it to you,” answers the supposed Vassil. “It’s only six cents.”
“And how
will I ever pay you back?” said the poor woman, groaning.
“Foolish
one,” says the rabbi reproachfully. “See, you are a poor sick Jew,
and I am ready to trust you with a little wood. And I am sure you’ll
pay. While you, you have such a great and mighty God and
you don’t trust him for six cents.”
“And who
will kindle the fire?” said the widow. “Have I the strength to get
up? My son is at work.”
“I’ll kindle
the fire,” answers the rabbi.
As the rabbi
put the wood into the oven he recited, in a groan, the first portion
of the Penitential Prayers.
As he
kindled the fire and the wood burned brightly, he recited, a bit more joyously,
the second portion of the Penitential Prayers. When the fire was set
he recited the third portion, and then he shut the stove.
The Litvak who
saw all this became a disciple of the rabbi.
And
ever after, when another disciple tells how the Rabbi
of Nemirov ascends to heaven at the time of the Penitential Prayers,
the Litvak does not laugh. He only adds quietly, “If not
higher.”!
.
*******
What message does the Rabbi
of Nemirov have for us today?.
Actions are more than words. To sit in the house of worship
alone does not lead to heaven.
Our
Rabbi is showing the true Jewish path- Maasim Tovim, the doing of
good deeds, and Gmilut Chasadim, acts of lovingkindness, of which one
can never do enough.
In
the course of the good deed there must menschlichkeit, a sense of basic
decency, to it. It cannot be done automatically, impersonally. The Rabbi uses
the occasion to teach that sick woman a vital lesson-not to give up, not to
lose hope, even though she lies alone, weak, helpless. She must remember to
have faith—that is the lesson he gives her.
We
must set aside our cynicism, our disparagement of those things we can not
measure, count, or quantify. The Talmid Chacham needs the Chasid, the
mind needs the heart.
He
reminds us that the good deed does not replace the religious deed, rather it
goes hand in hand. Therefore, as he lights the fire, he recites the prayer!
Finally,
we realize that we are great when we lower ourselves. By lowering himself to
the service of a power woman, in the guise of a simple wood cutter, the Rabbi
elevated himself to the highest levels of heaven, if not higher.
I
pray that all of you will, in the course of the following days, take the tale
to heart. Go out of your way to give someone who needs it a helping hand; at
the same time, give someone who needs it the courage, the faith to keep on
going. Do so as Jews of faith. Then perhaps , we 'll meet at some point, Oyb
Nisht Nokh Hekher, If not higher than heaven!
