I am always waiting for a renaissance of wonder
Kol Nidre 2005
Rabbi Mark Dov Shapiro
Sinai Temple, Springfield, MA
Last Friday, it turns out, was the 50th anniversary of the first public reading of Ginsberg’s poem, Howl. Ginsberg presented this classic poem of protest in a bookstore owned by another poet of the time, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and it was the FCR story that got me thinking about a poem by Ferlinghetti. The poem also dates from the mid-50’s. I’d like to share a poem, by the beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, with you now because this poem still speaks to me as I hope it will to you.
[[…/…/img/judaica 1/Cracking of the vessels]]
The poem is called:
I Am Waiting
I am waiting for my case to come up
And I am waiting
For a rebirth of wonder
And I am waiting for someone
To really discover America
I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
I am perpetually awaiting
A rebirth of wonder.
And I am waiting
For the storms of life
To be over
And I am waiting
To set sail for happiness.
I am waiting
For Ole Man River
To just stop rolling along
Past the country club
I am waiting
For a sweet desegregated chariot
To swing low
And carry me back to Ole Virginie.
I am waiting for Aphrodite
To grow live arms
At a final disarmament conference
In a new rebirth of wonder
And I am perpetually waiting
For the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
To catch each other up at last
And embrace
And I am awaiting
Perpetually and forever
A renaissance of wonder.
And I am awaiting
Perpetually and forever
A renaissance of wonder.
I like the poem too because it also has the feel of a prayer for me. One could use this poem as a lead up to the line Bayom Ha-hu: On that day, God, You shall be one and Your name shall be one.
The poem fit the prayer because Bayom Ha-hu is about a distant hope for a time of peace in the world just as Ferlinghetti’s “wonder” poem is about the hope for a better world where love, faith, and innocence are free to blossom.
And I am awaiting
Perpetually and forever
A renaissance of wonder.
Hold on, we are talking about missing the mark. So let’s look back at vows we made and left unfulfilled. Remembering that we have a cleansing process once a year, so as not to bury ourselves in remorse and regret, or make a cult out of our guilt. We can’t dream of a sweet tomorrow unless we do some of the less pleasant work called for right now right here.
No pretty words about the future until we have engaged in some remorse, regret, and repentance to correct our “sins”. At least once, we need to say, “I’m sorry” for some of what wasn’t done and some of what was done or said by each of us.
This means confronting our sins.
But as soon as I say that word, sin, I feel strange. I think I feel what many of those present may feel when you hear me say - sin. “Sin isn’t my word. Sin sounds Christian.”
And I have to admit it does. When I hear the word, sin, I think of the preachers I have heard on the radio and TV, especially on Sundays. They talk about repenting, they talk about damnation, and they drive home the message that “sin” is lurking in everyone’s soul. “Sin” is ever present and seductive.
Like many of you, I have a gut reaction which tells me “sin” is a church word. It’s not the way we Jews understand ourselves.
So does that mean “sin” really isn’t a Jewish category? I don’t think so. After all, what do the first human beings do in our Torah? Eve hands Adam a fruit; both of them eat; and shortly thereafter they are ushered out of the Garden of Eden. I think they must have sinned.
Not long after that, Cain loses his temper and kills Abel. The patriarch, Jacob, steals the blessing of the firstborn from his brother, Esau. Joseph’s brothers detest him, kidnap him, and then sell him away as a slave.
Flash forward a few centuries and you find our ancestors at Mount Sinai. They despair about Moses; they imagine how much better life was in Egypt. Next thing you know, they have built a Golden Calf.
There are a lot of sins in the Torah, and if you push ahead another few centuries, you come to King David. Here’s a great leader, politician, and poet who also happens to have a wandering eye that leads him to have Bathsheba’s husband killed so that he can have her for himself.
Our ancient text doesn’t pull punches. In fact, what makes the Bible so important is that the Bible isn’t afraid to present our ancestors honestly. Some of them teach great lessons while many of them are flawed, selfish human beings. I might not like some of these people, but I can love the text that doesn’t hesitate to present them in all their humanity with their sins.
Let me tell you a midrash. It comes from the Talmud where the rabbis try to figure out how human sin fits into God’s world. Here’s the setting. We are at Mount Sinai where God is about to give our ancestors the Ten Commandments. The rabbis of the Talmud now imagine that a conversation went on between God and the heavenly angels moments before the commandments were given.
First the angels spoke. “God,” they said. “You must not give the commandments which are so honoured here in heaven to flesh and blood human beings on earth.”
“Why is that?” asked the Holy One.
“Because human beings will break the commandments. They will sin. They are not worthy of your precious ideals.”
“And you are?” asked God.
“Yes, we are,” said the angels. “We are not made of flesh and blood. We are not jealous. We’re not given over to anger or spite. We follow Your commandments perfectly here in heaven. Therefore, the commandments ought to stay with us here in heaven.”
“On the contrary,” God replied. “You are right that human beings sin. They are finite and limited. But that is why they need the commandments and angels do not. I am going to give them My commandments precisely because flesh and blood creatures on earth will always be tempted to sin. But these commandments will help them. These commandments will teach that there is another way. The commandments will become their way of growing toward goodness and growing toward Me.”
And with that, says the midrash, God gave the commandments and the Torah to the Jewish people. Not because we were perfect and not because we were sinners, but because we were caught in the middle. Through our choices we could go either way: towards decency or towards decay.
And that’s the key for Judaism. Where Christianity talks about original sin and imagines a kind of stain or blot on the human soul, you could say Judaism describes people with an “original virtue.” Every day, every hour, we stand at a crossroads. We can opt for good or bad. We can live at our best or we can make an inappropriate choice and, let me use the word, we can sin.
A teacher once captured the Jewish approach in this phrase. He said Christians understand that they sin because Adam and Eve sinned. It’s a condition of being human. Jews believe that we sin like Adam and Eve. Like them (not because of them), we make bad choices.
Or to use an image that draws on Hebrew, we Jews do believe in chet and averah. Chet (al chet she-chatanu) is a Jewish word for sin, but it comes from a verb used in archery. A sin in this regard is what happens when the archer shoots his arrow and misses the target. Chet means missing the mark.
Averah (another word for sin) comes from the root o-vair, meaning to cross the line. Averah means going astray or getting off track.
Judaism faults us, then, not for being human, but for temporarily missing the mark or slipping along the path of life.
Mordecai Kaplan, a great 20th century Jewish philosopher, talks about sin in these words: “The best we can do is generally much better than we actually do. To be troubled by that fact is to have a Jewish sense of sin.”
And that’s where we need to be right now: not feeling like evil sinners, but troubled nonetheless by the failures of this last year.
Only one problem remains. Being troubled does not accomplish the work of repentance. A few words of remorse don’t mean we have confronted how much better we could have been. It’s almost too easy to feel good about feeling bad, pat ourselves on the back for a moment’s honesty, and then speed out the door.
So here’s my proposal for tonight.
We will soon get to a formal viddui/confession in our Machzor/prayer book. We will read together a well-worded litany of sins, but, because I know we will tend to read it too quickly and too mechanically, I want to introduce a listing of sins. Like the Ashamnu we sing on Yom Kippur, my list of sins will be alphabetical. It’s going to run from A to Z in order to say that our human failures do run the full gamut of human activity. 26 will be the symbolic number for a hundred ways in which we do less than we should.
What I hope happens now, however, is that because my listing of sins will not be familiar, it may catch you short. You may own one of the failures I mention. If so, let it be yours. If it’s not yours but belongs to someone else you know, don’t ignore it. Consider how you might forgive the person who owns it.
And, most importantly, give me time to read the list. Let me pause between each sin. Let it hang in the air; let it soak in.
I am waiting.
I am always waiting for a renaissance of wonder.
But before that happens, it demands action. This action comes in the form of regret followed by repentance, a real determination to make amends and to get back on track. The truth is as Mordecai Kaplan told us, “The best we can do is generally much better than we actually do. To be troubled by that fact is to have a Jewish sense of sin.”
Here is my confession:
Ashamnu - We have sinned - from A to Z:
We have…
A - Assumed the worst in others and the best of ourselves.
B - Betrayed the trust others have placed in us.
C - Confused what we want with what we need.
D - Destroyed ourselves with needless abuses.
E - Enjoyed the downfall of our adversaries with glee.
F - Felt superior to others because of our wealth or power
G - Given less than our full selves to the community and the world
H - Hurried to deny responsibility for our own actions.
I - Instigated animosity among others.
J - Junked our world with trash, showing no regard for those living around us.
K - Knifed others (sometimes friends or coworkers; sometimes family) in he back.
L - Lied to cover up our mistakes.
M - Manipulated others
N - Negated the dignity of others in order to aggrandise ourselves
O - Observed people in need and ignored what we saw
P - been Petty, refusing to give others the benefit of the doubt.
Q - Quietly gone along with wrongdoing.
R - Refused to back down from positions when we knew we were wrong
S - Seduced ourselves with the notion that “no one will get hurt.”
T - Trivialized the power we represent in God’s universe
U - Unleashed hurtful words
V - Violated the sanctity of our homes with violence against our partners that has been physical, emotional, or sexual
W - Wished ill upon others
X - committed X number of sins of which we have not been aware
Y - Yielded to temptation
Z - Zealously pursued happiness to the exclusion of goodness.
(Adapted from Rabbi David Greenspoon and Steve Kerbel)
Honestly speaking, that is us, and we have been delivered the promise that we need not stay as we are. We can do better. From A to Z, we can turn our lives around.
B can become blessing.
I can become integrity.
K can become kindness.
R can be renewal.
I am waiting, always waiting for renewal and rebirth.
It is not easy, but sometimes it can happen. Serious repentance, slow repentance can work. Not for everyone every time, but for some of us some of the time.
Confusion can be replaced by commitment.
Destruction by devotion.
Pettiness by peace.
Not easy, but possible if we slow down tonight, if we work together tonight and tomorrow.
May it be so for us tonight and tomorrow.
May we repent and may we find new direction because of what we start to do right now right here.