Message From The Rabbi

Rabbi Spike Anderson

Dear Temple Emanu-El,

This Wednesday night, we begin Yom Kippur with Kol Nidre, and then for the next 24 hours, we engage in the traditional practices of prayer, fasting, and intense reflection.

There is a tension in our Yom Kippur worship.  On one hand, we have the strength of our combined voices, the merit of our past generations, and our adjusted noble intentions of changing the world for the better as part of our sacred duty. 

On the other hand, we acknowledge that we are mortal.  Our time is limited.  Much of the Yom Kippur liturgy reflects this vulnerability, and the sense of urgency colored by our Jewish orientation.

Last week, responding to nostalgia, I reread Chaim Potek’s “The Chosen.”  I had read it once before, over 30 years ago, and I’m pleased to report that this book has withstood the test of time.  It is still excellent.

There is one passage from it that has stuck with me throughout the decades.  I think of it every year on Yom Kippur, for it seems to encompass the ‘point’ of our collective spiritual exercise.

The context of the passage revolves around Reuven, who is the main character of the book.  He is a teenager who is grappling with the existential quandaries of his life at that time, including a world war, antisemitism, family tension, the loss of his mother, and his ailing father.

The scene is a late-night conversation with his father, a man who continues to sacrifice his own health to tirelessly help bring about a Jewish state despite the incredible obstacles. 

Reuven is wrestling with his own (newly recognized) mortality.  He essentially says to his father: people live only a span of years, and life is really hard, and the world is not fair… so what is the point of it all?

It is here that Reuven’s father agrees with his son that yes, compared to eternity, the span of our lives is but a blink of an eye. 

“The blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant.”

The father finishes this profound statement with a question for his son.  He says to him, “Do you know what I mean, Rueven?”

In my opinion, this passage sums up all of the symbolism, prayer, fasting, and Yom Kippur orientation that we do each year as a sacred community.  Yes, we are mortal, our time is but a blink of an eye.  But the eye that blinks…

May your Yom Kippur lead you to living a life infused with more meaning of immeasurable quality, love, and connection.

G’mar tov,

Rabbi Spike