Mina's Musings: Rosh Hashanah First Day 2015

Heroes Real and Make Believe

Shanah Tovah.  It’s so good to see you all.  I hope your summer was both restful and reinvigorating.  Over the summer, my family and I kept busy watching a television series called Heroes which ended five years ago.  As we watched episode after episode, I kept finding philosophical and moral links between the series and Rosh Hashanah.  In case you have never seen or heard of the series, it is about people who have superhero like abilities which include mind reading, super-speed, super-strength, super-healing, telekinesis, the ability to walk through walls, make electricity, see the future, stop time, time travelling, etc.   

The last power I listed was the ability time travel - traveling back into past and forward into the future.  A great deal of the series centers on three characters who constantly go backward and forward in time to “fix” the timeline, hoping to avoid tragedies.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  However, they never give up, in the belief that if they fix the past or the future, the present will be healed as well. 

It may sound strange to say, but on Rosh Hashanah and throughout the ten days of repentance, we are all a little bit like time travelers.  We go back over the past year, examining the mistakes that we have made.  If we have hurt anyone at all we make emends and seek out their forgiveness. By doing so, we accomplish what the characters in the story rarely do.  We repair the past and thereby ensure the present is all it can be.  In the same way, fixing today helps ensure a better future.  That, dear congregants, is the Jewish version not only of time travel but of super spiritual healing and strength as well.

The second lesson from the series is that heroes – those with powers – come from all around the world.  Skin color, gender, age, education, class, nationality, none of that is what defines them.  It is what they do and how they behave that defines them.  Each has a talent uniquely their own.  Even those with the same power experience it differently.  That too is a perfect message for Rosh Hashanah.  How?  In the mahzor we say ha-yom harat olam – today the world was created.  While many rabbis believe the world itself began on Rosh Hashanah, others think it was humanity itself that was created on Rosh Hashanah.  And God in turn creates us each with our own special talents to share with the world.  In addition, we each have a unique relationship with God, different from every other being, including other believers.  For while God is the father of all humanity and cares for humanity as a whole, each of us as individuals is a precious part of it, special to God precisely because of the fact that we are His.  So while you and I may not have an actual super-power, each of us does have access to The Power – God.

God is not just The Power, but the ultimate in goodness.  And everyone knows that superheroes are constantly doing good and battling evil.  In the series we watched though, characters often alternated between being a force for good in the world and acting with evil or malicious intent. This too is a very Jewish belief, as Maimonides said over 900 years ago:  “One should see the world, and see himself as a scale with an equal balance of good and evil. When he does one good deed the scale is tipped to the good - he and the world is saved. When he does one evil deed the scale is tipped to the bad - he and the world is destroyed.”  That is another message we are reminded of on Rosh Hashanah – we have the power, each and every day, of not only saving ourselves through our actions, but dramatically impacting the world for better or worse through a single action.

That leads to another moral I got from the series, perhaps the most important.  What is it?  It is that what makes you a hero isn’t the power you were born with or the power you magically developed, but what you do with the power you have.  Indeed, throughout the show a number of the greatest heroes possess no powers other than their will to do the right, good, and brave thing.

Perhaps Tim Kring, the show’s creator, used a little Hebrew when he was developing the concept.  After all, he is a member of the tribe.  You see the Hebrew word we use for hero is גיבור, which refers to “one [a person] of great strength, or courage, or prowess on the field of battle.” In much of classical Jewish literature there are only a few human heroes.  Rather there is one primary גיבור, whom we have spent this morning describing, praising, and pleading with in our prayers.  That gibor is God, and we actually refer to God as ha-gibor –THE gibor - every time we recite the Amidah. In the very first paragraph of the Amidah we describe God, saying:   הָאֵל הַגָּדוֹל הַגִּבּוֹר וְהַנּוֹרָא, אֵל עֶלְיוֹן- The great, mighty, awe-inspiring, transcendent God. God is the ultimate גיבור—representing strength, power and might.  The idea of God as gibor is reiterated in the second blessing of the Amidah as we say:  אַתָּה גִּבּוֹר לְעוֹלָם אֲדֹנָי, מְחַיֵּה מֵתִים אַֽתָּה, רַב לְהוֹשִֽׁיעַ.- You are mighty forever, Adonai, You give life to the dead; great is Your saving power.

While God is Ha-Gibor, THE hero, the Hebrew Bible – Tanakh – does give us a few human heroes such as Samson, King David, and Elisha.  Samson had superhuman strength, David was a nearly undefeatable soldier and prolific writer, and Elisha was a prophet & miracle worker.  What each of these Biblical heroes shared was their human fallibility.  The fact that they were heroes didn’t mean they didn’t sometimes make mistakes – even big ones.  It just meant that when they did the right thing – often at the risk of their own life – they were even more heroic for it.

With this as a backdrop, Rabbinic Judaism, while continuing to describe God as a gibor – began to move away from the Bible’s descriptions of human heroes as those with supernatural strength or ability.  Rather, the rabbis describe a form of heroism defined by inner strength, determination, and fortitude. The Mishnah in Avot teaches us, Ben Zoma omer, eizehu gibor?- Ben Zoma says:  Who is strong? He who subdues his personal inclination, as it is written, “He who is slow to anger is better than the strong man, and a master of his passions is better than the conqueror of a city.” (Proverbs 16:32)

The tension between the two meanings of gibor – physical versus spiritual strength - is evident in the name of one of our modern Jewish observances.  You might think that the Hebrew name for Holocaust Memorial Day is Yom Hashoah. However, that is only part of its full name.  Its full name is Yom Ha’Shoah v’Ha’gevurah - “The Day Commemorating the Holocaust and the Heroism.” In fact, the day in which it is observed, right after Pesach, was chosen to coordinate with the bravery and heroism of those who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Israel’s modern founders refused to designate a day only to the death and destruction of the Shoah. They needed heroism and strength, as well. Over time, we have again come to realize that gevurah – as Ben Zoma taught so long ago - comes in all forms. Today, when we teach about the Holocaust, we not only teach about the resistance of the partisans; we also teach our children about the gevurah—the strength, the heroism of those Jews who could not free their bodies, but refused to submit their souls to the Nazis and resisted in spirit, each and every day.

Right now, today, every day we have the chance to exhibit gevurah – in the choices we make – for ourselves, our children, the Jewish people, Israel, and for the whole world.  This kind of gevurah was on display in late August by the Jewish reggae singer Matisyahu.  In case you missed the story, Matisyahu was invited to perform at a Spanish reggae festival.  It turns out that he was the only Jewish performer that was invited.  After intense pressure from members of the BDS movement, Matisyahu was told he would not be welcome to sing if he did not make a statement in support of Palestinians and in condemnation of Israel.  He refused to make such a statement.  In turn his invitation was rescinded.  Unwilling to take such mistreatment lying down, he posted about it on social media. He pointed out that no other singer was asked to make a statement about Israel or Palestine – only him, because he was Jewish.  Social media erupted, as the BDS movement was put on display for what it is – a movement that is often less about Palestinians and Israelis than good old fashioned anti-Semitism.  The Spanish government condemned what had taken place.  Eventually the festival apologized to Matisyahu and re-invited him to perform.  The story doesn’t end there.  The night of the festival came, and the members of the BDS movement made sure there were tons of supporters flying Palestinian flags, hoping to intimidate Matisyahu.  Instead of buckling under the pressure, he got up and sang a song of his entitled “Jerusalem,” with lyrics that include:  “Jerusalem, if I forget you, fire not gonna come from me tongue. Jerusalem, if I forget you, let my right hand forget what it's supposed to do….We've been traveling from state to state and them don't understand what they say 3, 000 years with no place to be and they want me to give up my milk and honey….Years gone by, about sixty, burn in the oven in this century, and the gas tried to choke, but it couldn't choke me I will not lie down, I will not fall asleep”

That is gevurah in the modern world.  Matisyahu acted as a true gibor.  We can too.  In this country super heroes are big business.  Many of the highest grossing films of all time are about superheroes.  The slate of upcoming movies and television shows this fall is rife with superhero themed productions.  But while we dream of superheroes saving the day, we must recognize that true heroes are the people who do the hard work, day in and day out, to protect and defend us, our freedoms, our way of life – here in America, Israel, and the entire free world.  We too can be heroes this Rosh Hashanah.  We can be Jewish time travelers who atone for the past, fix the present, and build for the future.  We can use our own unique skills to help better our community and the world.  We can recognize the divine spark in every single human being and help THEIR spark to glow along with ours in a dark world.  We can keep the balance of the world leaning to goodness by serving God, our fellow man, and the Jewish people.  We can have the courage to speak up against injustice whenever and wherever we see it. We can stand strong and fight in the face of anti-Semitism, homophobia, classism, and many of the other ills of our world.  We can teach our children the skills and strength to withstand and combat the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic atmosphere on college campuses across the country.  We CAN be the heroes God needs us to be – we can, we must, and we will – after all, as the mahzor tells us – the fate of the world lies on our shoulders today.  Let us take up the challenge.  Shanah Tovah.