Making the New Year New
Rosh HaShannah morning: October 5, 2005/5766
Rabbi Jeffrey Summit

I want to start with a story, a true story that only happened a few weeks ago. Out of the blue, I got a call from a Tufts alum, a doctor in Connecticut and he said, "Rabbi, twenty-seven years ago, on the library roof, I proposed to the woman who has now been my wife for twenty-five years. We're going to be on campus later this week. Could you meet us on the library roof at 8:00 on Friday evening? I was hoping you could do a re-commitment ceremony for us? I want it to be a surprise for my wife. Would that be possible? It would mean a lot to us."

Over the years, I've learned that there are some questions that you need to think about before you answer. There's other questions where you don't need to think at all: So I said, "I'm there. 8:00 on the library roof. Bring some rings."

So there it was, Friday night and I had explained to them that while people can't get married on Shabbat, they already seemed to be quite successfully married, so we were good to go. So at 7:55, there's about 160 people at Shabbat dinner at Hillel and I eat some hallah and then walk over to the library roof. It's misty with a light rain falling. The lights of Boston are twinkling in the distance. It feels like a movie set and Meg Ryan and Hugh Grant are supposed to walk on at any moment. But instead, this nice looking couple, with their two best friends from college walk up to the railing overlooking the Boston skyline where I'm standing.

Now you need to understand, at that moment, I have no idea of exactly what I'm going to do with them. You see, some Jewish rituals, weddings, brises are pretty set but there's no specific order to a recommitment ceremony and while I've been thinking about what I could do, I haven't met the couple yet so I don't have a sense of what will be right for them . So they walk up and the husband turns to his wife and says, "twenty seven years ago, I proposed to you right here and after all that time, if I could chose to marry anyone again, it would only be you and oh, look, there's a rabbi here and I want to recommit to the vows and promises we made to one another twenty five years ago." At this point, the wife is laughing and crying and saying "is this a movie, is this my life?" and she's looking around for Meg Ryan and Hugh Grant too. And I tell them that the umbrella, (remember, it's raining), is going to be the huppah and now I know what I'm going to do. I tell them about a tradition that some couples have at the Shabbat table when they take off their wedding rings before washing their hands before making motze over the hallah. Rather than putting their own rings back on, each couple pauses and thinks back over the week past and asks in their heart, would I marry this person again? You know, some weeks are great, but some weeks are hard and am I still in on this roller coaster adventure we call marriage? And if the answer is yes, then they pick up their partner's ring and place it back on their partner's finger, affirming that it's always within us to renew and recommit to what is truly important in our lives. So I ask the couple to take off their wedding rings and when they replace them on each other's finger, they reaffirm the love that brought them back to the library roof after twenty-five years together.

And then (there's more), out of nowhere, come the Jills, because the wife sang with the Jills when she was at Tufts, and the Jills all start singing and the wife sings with the Jills and I think, I have got to tell people this story on Rosh Hashana because this doesn't happen every week. But it should.

This isn't a sermon about love : this is a sermon about renewal . At this beginning of a new year, I tell this story because I want to ask, how do we make the old new? How do we approach parts of our lives that are important to us, that are meaningful for us but perhaps have become routine and lost some of their meaning? How do we make them meaningful once more? This issue arises in many areas of our lives: in our friendships, in our studies, in our work, in our connection with our Judaism. During Rosh Hashana, we pray hadesh yamenu k'kedem . Renew our days, make our lives real and engaging and meaningful. How do we do that as we enter a new year?

The Jewish tradition has important lessons to teach about renewal and one place to look for them is in the way the rabbis struggle to make the routine act of prayer meaningful. This morning, I want to apply some of those teachings to other areas in our lives.

So, in prayer, the rabbis spoke about two categories: kevah and kavanah. Kevah means the set text of a prayer, the words as they are written in the prayer book. But in prayer, it's not enough to simply say the words of a prayer. We are obligated to actively engage with the words, in our mind and in our heart. The rabbis call this involvement kavanah , from the verb l'kaven: to direct, to focus, to mean to do something. Now, you might think that saying the words of a prayer was the most important thing about the prayer: you sing the Kol Nidre on Yom Kippur and you've done what you're supposed to do. But as far back as the second century, the rabbis taught that if you simply say the words without thinking about what they mean, if you go through the motions without involving your heart and your mind, then you haven't fulfilled your obligation to pray. Interesting enough, some rabbis even say that you don't even have to accept or believe the words of a prayer. As long as you actively struggle with what it means, even if you get angry with what it means, the prayer still counts. The point is to be engaged . From this, we learn that the way to renew rote ritual act is by consciously, pouring our hearts and minds into the action. In a broader sense, the rabbis are teaching us to live life like we really mean it.

What is true for prayer is true in our relationships as well. You might have a friendship where you once felt really close to the person and now, it just feels like you are going through the motions. You still hang out, tell the same stories, make the same jokes, talk about this or that but you don't really talk about what's on your mind. You don't really share what's in your heart. It's easy to become excited about a new friendship but making a friendship last over time means investing your mind and your heart in the relationship. Making a friendship last over time means accepting the fact that sometimes you will have misunderstandings and disagree. It's trusting that you can talk through problems and make yourself vulnerable enough to open to the other. A major challenge to both friendship and love is our tendency to withdraw and simply go through motions of friendship or love. Approaching our relationships with kavanah means that we commit to bringing energy, direction and honestly into the relationship just when it feels easier to pretend things are fine and fake our true feelings.

Living with kavanah takes courage. Every time that we share what we really care about, we take a risk. What if the other person thinks what we have to say is trivial or silly? What if we muster the courage to talk about something that's difficult or important to us and our friend doesn't listen? Yet, if you don't push to make a friendship real, if you don't reveal some of your true self, you're dooming the relationship to shallowness. Now, I'm not saying that you should pour your heart out to every casual friend you make. And you shouldn't try to have a serious conversation when your friend is desperately trying to finish a ten-page paper. We need to make careful assessments about the right time and place to speak, but we renew friendships we value by taking the risk to open our hearts, speaking with kavanah, that is, intentionally investing in the relationship.

So too in our work and our studies. If we live our lives like we are just going through the motions, we are bound to be frustrated and dissatisfied. A rabbi in the Middle Ages, Bahya ibn Pakuda wrote a book called Duties of the Heart . He discussed how the words of a prayer are just a husk, a shell; reflecting on what they mean is the kernel, the source that makes the words alive. The set words of a prayer are like a body but thinking about what the prayer means, infusing those words with our longings, our dreams--that is the spirit that animates the words and makes them real. Ibn Pakuda taught that if your heart is absent, then your prayer is like a body without a spirit, a husk without a living kernel. And a secret that I've learned over the years is that you don't have to be fully engaged in every single part of your work or your studies to feel passionate about your life. But you absolutely need something , one area, one project, one activity that excites you and engages your passion. One new thing a year and that energy will spill over into other parts of your work or studies and keep you going, keep you thinking, keep you engaged. Here's a personal example: Some people here know that I'm a musician. I love music but these days I find myself writing and teaching much more than playing music. So last year, I joined a Rock and Roll band (rhythm guitar and vocals) and even though we didn't play that much, the energy, the pure fun of being a part of that band rippled through the rest of my life.

And if you don't have that passion in your life, in your work or study now, a goal for the new year could be to set yourself on the road to find something that feels important, that makes you excited, that engages you fully, "bekol levavcha, bekolnafshecha u'v'chol m'odecha," "with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might." As Ibn Pakuda teaches, life without passion is an empty shell. But it's possible to take parts of our life that feel routine and animate them with energy. Redirection, change, teshuvah is always possible. If I can do it in one part of my life, I can do it in other areas as well. The rabbis say, "Hashevenu v'nashuvah. Help us to remember that our lives are supposed to be fun and real and full of passion and then we'll make sure not to miss the life we are meant to live, the things we are meant to learn, the work we are meant to do.

Renewing our Jewish lives is often a struggle. We are comforted by ritual and if things in our family traditions or Jewish practice have been good, or good enough, often we like them to stay the same. But if everything in our Jewish lives stays the same, we don't grow intellectually, emotionally, spiritually as Jews. And of course, as we progress through our lives, we don't stay the same. We change as people and the Jewish practice, and Jewish answers that worked when you were a child, or in high school, won't answer the new questions and issues that arise as you mature and get older.

Some people decide they want to renew their Jewish connection and say, I really have to go to some more Hillel programs (now that's great, and people are totally encouraged and welcome) but if you go as a removed, detached observer, that approach limits the impact the program, or lecture or class. When he writes about kavanah, Ibn Pekuda teaches that the process of finding meaning, of making something real (in his case, prayer), is an active process. The people who really get engaged are the people who walk into Hillel and say: I have this idea about Jewish social justice and children's literacy, or I've been thinking about a way that the Jewish community might respond to Darfur . Or I wonder if it would be possible to add this melody on a Friday night. When it comes to renewing ourselves, actively contributing, giving , seems to be more rewarding and renewing than receiving. The doctor who planned the recommitment ceremony decided he wanted to give something new to his marriage and while his wife was clearly touched as she responded to him and received his gift, my sense is that that husband was deeply affected by the active process of thinking and planning how he wished to renew their marriage.

I want to close by returning to the issue of our spiritual lives. Where is God in this process of renewal? I might say that God, and how we experience God in the natural world, provides the backdrop for understanding how intrinsic renewal is to our lives. In the morning prayers, we say these words: Blessed are you God, m'chdesh be kol yom tamid maaseh bereshit, who is constantly in the process of creating and recreating the world. In our tradition, creation isn't something that happened long ago and is now over. If we only open our eyes and look around, we understand that creation is happening at every moment. We see a world that is constantly evolving, constantly changing and renewing. At home, outside of my study, there is a huge beautiful oak tree. In the fall, I can hardly write for the noise of its acorns crashing down on the skylight in my room. Every year, a bunch of those acorns take root all over my yard. The fact is, that tree is constantly planting new seeds, continually in the process of renewing itself. I want to be like that tree, an etz haim, a tree of life, sending out life and renewing myself.

The psalmist says, "Hashevenu Adonai elecha, v'nashuvah," "Bring us back to that time, to that place where we were fully engaged. Like that couple on the library roof, help us re-commit to the people who we love. Help us find our passion for our work and studies, reconnect us to our friends and family, to the traditions that give our lives structure, to the communities that nurture and support us. Renew our days. Hadesh yamenu kekedem. It's in our power to make this happen. This will be the year, even better and sweeter than the good years before. Shanah tovah.