Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5784

Today begins a period of confronting death, which can be uncomfortable. We are famously avoidant when it comes to death. The white clothing the scrolls are now in, and that I will change into by the end of Yom Kippur; it partly points to the Angels, but also to simple white  traditional burial shrouds. Who will live and who will die, we soon ask. Our Torah reading confronted us with death, and then a reprieve. We confess, as, yes, one might just before their end. What are we each to do with today’s strong invitation to confront death and life? 

Reflecting on my year has given me a sense. In February, I had to do the funeral for Benedict Romain, may his memory be a blessing. It was difficult. Benedict was six years younger than me. He passed away, drowning in a rip tide on his honeymoon. He left a devastated just-married wife, three adoring brothers, his mum and dad, both Rabbis, Jonathan Romain and Sybil Sheridan, and more friends, who each felt deeply connected to him, than anyone I know. I had taken Ben along with 40 other 16-year-olds on a tour of the holy land for a month when I was 22. I had seen how special he was. He was especially naughty and joyful. When I got him to lead something, even a prayer like Benching after meals, the whole group joined in. He had the power to bring people to the good! I was surprised when Rabbis Sybil and Jonathon asked me to lead, but I liked Ben, and they said he respected me. After the funeral, I looked at one supportive email from a congregant. She mentioned that it must be a peculiar time for me, supporting those who have lost a child, while Leah and I were so soon anticipating one. At the time, I didn’t  want to make any connections between death and the life- of Jules- to come. Yet, this time of confronting death and life forces me to see them together- it forces us all to pay attention to this combination.

“I’ve seen this happen in other people’s lives, but now it’s happening in mine,” most applies to the reality of death. We are to see it, to be sensitive to all those who have confronted or are confronting it, and be alive to its spectre in our own lives and those of our loved ones. 

Rosh Hashanah is a ritual enactment of the Torah that we read exactly a week ago and will will return to here on Yom kippur afternoon:

I put before you the life and the good - ha’chayim v’et hatov - and death and bad. 
Love the eternal, walk in the Divine ways and you will live. 
Choose life.
How should we choose life - in the face of life and death? And what is this life that is so associated with Hatov, the good?

Rashi the 11th century French commentator teaches: Choose to do good, hatov, and then life will come in reward. Somehow if you love what is good and do it,  you will be rewarded with an enduring life or legacy. I would like to think that devoting oneself  to greater causes over time - supporting others, or the future and vitality of our Judaism - does make more of a difference. R Sacks, z’l, taught that in all the funerals he did no-one was ever impressively remembered for their wealth but rather for their kindness. We might resolve now our larger good commitments for the year. This possible motivation - in Torah, highlighted by Rashi - of doing good for longer life or legacy might, though, not compel all of us. Also, while it is there in the Torah, there also seems to be the inverse invitation too. I put before you life and good, death and bad; love the Eternal, walk in the Divine ways; choose life.

It’s not just that embracing good might lead to more life; rather we are to embrace life, and good will flow from that. What is this life that we are to embrace and how? Life is inseparable from the good, they come together. Choose the good life, but we also have to see that our Torah, our Eternal Judaism, doesn’t distinguish between the moral good and the deeply enjoyable good. Choose life, do good, and enjoy good. 

The Keli Yakar, the early 17th century Rabbi of Prague, teaches that there can be deep good in learning and sacred acts; that we should live to do good, and that good will deepen our lives. He teaches too that the main obstacle, the enemy, to pursuing life and good, is wasting time (batlah) that brings you to boredom (shiamum) and turns your heart from what’s important. We might each reduce our boredom this year! Fancy saying such a thing in shul! But the invitation is for you to find the fierce commitment to do good and to enjoy what is good here.

Choose the life and the good. Ibn Ezra in 12th century Spain gives some punchily terse definitions of these terms. The good he says - not mitvzot and Torah - but plenty, physical health and respect, or a certain weightiness of being. We should embrace and appreciate these too, for us and for everyone: plenty, health and respect. 

In defining life in one of these Torah verses, he says: peyrush ki hachayim hem leahavah, The interpretation of life, this is to love. 

We must choose life and this means loving, in act and feeling; to choose life we throw ourselves into responsibility and relationship with others and with this world.

Death and life is before each of us; choose life. On reflecting on how the life of a child was taken not long before this life of Jules was given to us, I appreciate the brevity and fragility of life more. I treasure this life before me all the more, her smile, her frankly funny face, and inflated cheeks - my vain appreciation of her hair, being with her. I have been terrified by the fragility of that life and our responsibility for it. I have seen a common feature in death and life: it’s the greatest love - people bent out of shape, into new and important ones, by our responsibility and connection to others and our memory of them.

Prioritise love. Prioritise life. Embrace the good and the beautiful, the joyful.  Recognise the reality of death, and the fragility of life, and resolve now to invest more in the joy of life.

Our Torah doesn’t make the distinction between the good and the enjoyable (one we might have been too confused by) - between the ethical and the aesthetic, or the beautiful if you like. We’re invited into acts of moral beauty, and into an enjoyment of life in all its beauty that is in itself moral- because it’s good to be alive to something, to the beauty in this world, and it’s good to have fun, and fun with others. 

Recognise the fragility of life, and invest in its joy. Do more that is good for you- more that you you enjoy! Choose life and this means more time with others, with those you love- that time is precious. Resolve to do more acts of love, more calling and sitting with someone who is lonely, and wise and funny - and you’ll get more from the visit than you’ve given. Do acts of chesed, of loving kindness, here by being part of our chesed team. 

Choose life and good, and that means being more in community, binding yourself into the weave of life, bitsror ha’chayim, writing yourself in the book of life, coming closer to the King that delights in life, by enjoying singing or learning here.

It’s a choice. First of all to confront this world of death and life, and then to choose to live well each day and over the year ahead. This confrontation with death and life today helps us to navigate this challenge of scale in our lives. The sphere of our concern in this media age can become much beyond the sphere of our influence- which is unhealthy. The exhortation to see life and death before us and to choose life, is an invitation to be open eyed to this world, to recognise the import of what’s around us engaging mindfully; then to find in community fellowship for comfort and support in doing something; to find in community the enactment of living beyond yourself; to find in mitzvot, in sacred acts, in commandments, joyful and ethical, the ability to live well everyday in the shadow of death and bad, life and good. 

I encourage whenever possible that baby blessings here should be done in the community, in a service, because I love the joy of this community in its children, in that life, the assertion that humanity is good, and the possibility that you might go up to the parents afterwards, and say: It can be quite hard, anything we can help with?