Judging Ourselves

Rabbi Melanie Aron

August 31, 2002

Selichot is the climax of the period of reflection and repentance that leads up to the high holidays.

Earlier this evening at our program, we talked about using a very familiar part of our tradition, the Ten Commandments, to spur us to look at our lives in new ways. By reinterpreting the Ten Commandments into spiritual challenges, the writings of psychologist Leonard Felder helped us in the work of reviewing our lives as they are, and considering changes we would like to make in the year to come. Hopefully when the letters the participants in this evening programs wrote to themselves arrive in half a year, they will be read by individuals who have been able to sustain the changes they committed themselves to this high holiday period.

The Ten Commandments are one source of criteria by which to review our lives. Recently a bit of unsolicited junk mail made me think of another way we might review our actions. It actually inspired me to prepare a story for our children for Rosh Hashanah. The story involves a brother and sister having some normal children's problems, when a strange dream helps them see ways to overcome their challenges. They dream of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah , Rebekah, Rachel and Leah, sitting around and talking about some of the most difficult challenges they faced in their lives.

What inspired all this? The National Pen company was trying to encourage me to buy special inspirational pens for all our members- Congregation Shir Hadash, What would Jesus Do? Thinking about the Jewish equivalent, what would Abraham and Sarah do made me think of some of the stories of Genesis as sources for reflection and cheshbon nefesh, accounting of our souls, at this time of year.

Imagine, the matriarchs and patriarchs getting together in gan eden, chatting around the table, after a holiday meal. The conversation turns to remembering difficult times and one by one our ancestors speak about what was most challenging in their lives.

Isaac, uncharacteristically speaks first. "I know what was hardest for me, and it won't be what you think. What was really hardest for me was to admit that my wife Rebekah was right. "The arms are the arms of Esau and the voice is the voice of Jacob" I knew who was before me, and I had to admit to myself that Rebekah was right to place him there."

Rachel speaks next: "What was hardest for me is well known. What was hardest was not saying anything when I discovered that my sister Leah was to stand under the chuppah with Jacob. If I intervened, her whole life would be in limbo, as a married but not married woman, erusin and no nisuim. Not to cause her that great harm, I went along. I am glad that my descendents have reaped a reward for it, as the rabbis explain the Jeremiah text, but I am not really sure the deception didn't just cause a lot of other problems in our family."

Abraham sighed. "I remember a lot of difficult moments, problems with Lot and the shepherds, problems with Sarah and Hagar. It all started with leaving home and everything familiar, but the hardest moment.... that was challenging God. Shall not the Judge of all the Earth deal Justly? I must have been young to have had such chutzpah."

"The hardest thing for me," Jacob says, "was to see Esau again. I wanted to, but I also wished I could avoid it. I didn't want to remember the person I used to be. Sometimes I would believe the stories I told Laban about our family, rather than remembering how it really was."

Leah spoke last. "The hardest thing for me was raising Joseph and Benjamin. They were my sister's children and Jacob's favorites, but they were also lost souls, motherless and friendless in the world. I had to do it even though I suspected my sons would be better off if they hadn't thrived."

What is hard in our lives? Where are our challenges? Do they come from our pasts or are they about facing our futures? Must we stand up to power, or allow our compassion to overcome our self interest? Tonight, in the dark, at the time for bedtime stories, we open our hearts to the stories of our tradition as we prepare an accounting of our souls.