Who by Fire? A Yom Kippur sermon

Who by Fire?

One of our most beautiful, important – and troubling – prayers comes during Musaf: Unataneh Tokef.

Why do I say it’s troubling?

In this prayer, we admit to the Holy One that TODAY WE STAND BEFORE HIM FOR JUDGMENT.

I ask you, is ANYONE comfortable being judged … ever? Let alone when it’s by the One who
• sees our hearts,
• hears our every word
• sees our every deed?

Unatanah Tokef declares that on THIS DAY … on Yom Kippur … God seals our fate for the year … When God decides, who shall live … and who shall die.

How can we read this and NOT tremble?

The singer Leonard Cohen has a modern midrash on Unatanah Tokef in his haunting song, “Who by Fire”:
“And who by fire, who by water,
who in the sunshine, who in the night time,
who by high ordeal, who by common trial,
who in your merry merry month of may,
who by very slow decay,
and who shall I say is calling?
And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate,
who in these realms of love, who by something blunt,
and who by avalanche, who by powder,
who for his greed, who for his hunger,
and who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent, who by accident,
who in solitude, who in this mirror,
who by his lady's command, who by his own hand,
who in mortal chains, who in power,
and who shall I say is calling?”

Let’s examine some of the questions Cohen raises:

• “Who by very slow decay” … who of us sat by as our own lives gradually lost meaning … Last night, I talked about Peretz’s dead town … Have we been slipping into such a numbing world because we stopped paying attention to our lives?

• “Who by greed” … when simple desires and needs pass into the realm of greed and avarice, we set in motion a chain that cannot lead to real happiness or inner peace. If we don’t see that we’re operating from greed, we just want more and more … we’re never satisfied. Where does that bring us? Probably not to death. But it will numb our souls.

• “Who by accident” – despite God’s omnipotence, there are random forces at work in the universe. Sometimes it’s nature – germs, virus, disease in general. Sometimes it’s because God gave humanity free choice, and some people chose evil. And sometimes, accidents happen because for just one split second … someone stopped paying attention.

Leonard Cohen’s song is an insightful midrash on one of our most solemn prayers.

Cohen ends his song with the question: “Who shall I say is calling?”

In Unatanah Tokef, we must ask ourselves the same question!

Who IS calling?

What is Hashem really telling us? If He finds too much fault with us today, DOES HE decree that will die in an earthquake on such and such a day?
Of course not.

IF that’s how the Almighty operates, Yom Kippur would be totally pointless. The Kadosh Baruch Hu would not steal our hope like that … nor would he take away our motives for teshuvah … for turning to Him…
Rather, Hashem in His infinite mercy gives us a way to find deeper meaning in our lives, to transcend our misfortunes, and to fully appreciate the blessings around us.

The Master of the World wants us to understand how much of our future we hold in our own hands.

On one hand, I firmly believe that the mysterious realms of life and death and birth are in God’s hands. Yes, there are mysteries we cannot penetrate, let alone control.

And yes, there are certainly forces … and people … in the world itself that we cannot control.

What we can control … is our attitude.

That’s why our own prayer ends by saying that repentance, prayer, tzedakah can alter the severity of the decree.

Surely these things – done with a full heart – will help the Almighty understand that WE want to do the right thing.

However, IF we see how much is in our hands, IF we don’t accept the theology of Divine reward and Punishment, this would SEEM to make God as Judge an unnecessary part of the process.

The exact opposite is true.

The Kadosh Baruch Hu does watch us. And He can see our lives … our hearts … our thoughts … more clearly than we can see them ourselves.

Hashem sees us directly.

We see ourselves through cloudy mirrors.

Our brains are wonderful; we can rationalize almost any behavior we want! We can even convince ourselves that we don’t … really … have to face … Him.

What DO we think of ourselves?

Looking at the extreme, do evil people think of themselves as evil?

Why would they? Even the most vile among us find ways to justify their actions. Timothy McVeigh, Osama Bin Laden, Adolf Hitler? They convinced themselves that they were doing the right thing! These are extreme examples, but they show that we cannot rely on ourselves to determine our merits.

Rather, we turn to God.

How do we know what He thinks of us?

We can’t … not for sure. All we can know is that He loves us and reaches to us with His infinite mercy.

OUR JOB is to do our best to follow His teachings. At the same time, we have to periodically ask ourselves hard questions about our own motives and behaviors.
WILL we always succeed?

Of course not. We’re human. Rabbi Abraham Twerski, in his book Happiness and the Human Condition, used the game of baseball to illustrate this aspect of the human condition by saying: “errors are part of the game!”

He quoted a former baseball commissioner, Francis Vincent, Jr., to make his point. Vincent said: “Baseball teaches us, or has taught most of us, to deal with failure…. We learn at a very early age that failure is the norm in baseball, and precisely because we have failed, we hold in high regard those who fail less often – those who hit safely in only one out of three chances and become star players. I also find it fascinating that baseball, alone in sport, considers errors to be part of the game, part of its rigorous growth.”

Think about this – a great baseball slugger hits the ball only a third of the time he’s at bat.

A pitcher might throw the ball a hundred or more times in a game. Do you think ever pitch is a strike?

Baseball players certainly try very hard not to make mistakes. They spend countless hours training to get it right.
But no one – not even the greatest baseball stars … gets it right all the time.

We WILL make mistakes.

We cannot let fear of mistakes prevent us from making decisions and living fully.
Therefore, we must cultivate humility … and understand that we’re not better than other people …

Once we acknowledge that yes … we do make mistakes … we can better empathize and reach out to others.

However, we’re now liable to fall into another trap. We can’t get so comfortable with error that we don’t try hard to improve!

That’s what today is about.

We know that we can’t help but make mistakes. But we also know that we must acknowledge them to ourselves and to our Creator.

We want so badly for Him to approve of us … to love us … to help us learn to love Him …

He is our Creator and is so awesome; as we recognize our human-ness – we realize that today … WE HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO DRAW CLOSER TO HIM THAN EVER.

Therefore, in great humility, we ask God: Who by fire? Who by water?
And we ask ourselves: who shall I say is calling?

Hashem is calling … He wants us to be close to Him … yes, He does judge us … as He should … because He wants us to grow in love toward Him.

How can we not tremble before Him … how can we pass up this opportunity … this day … to not partake of the mundane world but rather to proclaim, as did the ancient Psalmist (96):
“Declare his glory among the nations, his wonders among all the peoples... Honor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary… Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the people, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength…. O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth... Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and all that is in it… Let the field be joyful, and everything in it; then shall all the trees of the wood sing for joy… Before the Lord; for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth; he shall judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with his faithfulness.”

Yes, He does come to judge … and not even with just equity but with righteousness, love, and compassion.

How can we not tremble before a Creator that treats us with love and compassion – One who guides us.

As the psalmist said: “O give thanks to the Lord; for he is good; for his loving kindness endures forever.”

May we take these words into our hearts and souls as we ask the Holy One to seal us for blessing in the Book of Life.