Rabbi Michelle: Creating our truths
Erev Rosh Hashanah 5783
September 25, 2022
View the video here.
L'shanah Tovah!
I'm Rabbi Michelle and as a point of access I'm a white Ashkenazi femme person with very curly shoulder length brown hair and I'm wearing a black and white patterned dress and a red jacket.
I want to invite you to set aside, for a few minutes, a need to believe stories literally. I invite you into imagination, metaphor, and midrash and encourage you to connect emotionally and spiritually to stories that you might not believe are literally true.
In Vayikra Rabbah, a classical rabbinic midrash, Rabbi Elazar specifices that the Earth was created on the 25th of Elul, five days ago. Which means that today, as the sun goes down, we are at the beginning of day six. So Rosh Hashanah is the day when humans were created. Rabbi Elazar gives an hour-by-hour account of that day. In the first hour, God thought about it. In the second hour, God consulted the angels, the third through seventh hours were spent on acts of physical creation of Adam and, presumably, Eve. In the eighth hour, God brought them into the Garden of Eden. In the ninth hour, God told them not to eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil. In the tenth hour, they violated this command. In the eleventh hour, they were judged. And in the twelfth hour, they were pardoned. With this pardoning, God said: This is a sign for your children--just like you come before me in judgment and I have given you a pardon, so too will your children come before Me in judgment and I will give them a pardon. (Vayikra Rabbah 29:1)
Rosh Hashanah is a day of creation, a day of judgement, and a day of forgiveness. Perhaps you have been building up to this moment, learning about teshuvah, reflecting on the change that is needed. For all of us this is an opportunity to re-start, to have a first chance, even though we know that by the tenth hour of the first day we will have made mistakes.
There is another midrash about what happened right before the creation of humans, hinted to in Rabbi Elazar's hourly recounting of the day. When, in the first hour, God had the idea to create humans, the angels became divided, some arguing for the creation of humans, and some arguing against. Chesed, lovingkindness, said, "Create them! They will care for each other!" Emet, truth, spoke up and said, "Don’t bother. People are just liars." Tzedek, justice, said, "Create them! Imagine the justice they'll bring!" Shalom, peace, said, "All they'll do is fight!" God threw Emet, the angel of peace, to the Earth, and assured the other angels that truth would rise up from the Earth. And then God went ahead and created humans. (Genesis Rabbah 8:5)
Messy humans.
Humans who messed up only an hour after being told what to do.
Humans who were judged and were given a second (and third and fourth and fifth...) chance.
But it's not just about today's creation. Not just about the first day or just about the first chance.
Because creation didn't just happen once, and it doesn't just happen once a year. It happens every single day.
Today, we celebrate creation and potential. We celebrate that mistakes and pain are inevitable for us humans, just like the angels of truth and peace predicted.
Today, we mark the anniversary of God first creating humans despite knowing that we would mess up.
And, still, today is only one day in the process of ongoing creation and pardon.
In the beginning of Genesis, after the six days of creation, God rests. And the description of Shabbat says that God rested from the work that God did and also that God rested from the word אֲשֶׁר־בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים לַעֲשׂוֹת--the work that God had created to do. This infinitive לעשות, to do, this doing leaves an opening for ongoing creation, for creation that continues after taking a brief Shabbat rest. (Gen 2:3)
There is a shift, though, between the creation of the first six days and the ongoing creation. In the first six days, creation was me-ayin l'yesh, from nothing into something, ex nihilo. Many commentators including the Kli Hayakar, a 16th-century European rabbi, noted this shift. The ongoing creation doesn't start again from nothing. It's a creation that begins with something that is already formed but isn't yet perfect. It's already there but it's not done.
God is not a one-time Creator from nothing, but a constant Creator, a Repairer, and also a Renewer. Our daily liturgy refers to God as המחדש בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית, the Eternal Daily Renewer of the Works of Creation. Each day, the Eternal Daily Renewer re-creates the cycles of night and day, of dark and light. Every day, the Renewer ignores the voices of the angels of Emet and Shalom, of truth and peace, and humans are here. Each day there is creation and each day there is newness and forgiveness.
And so, we are partners in the ongoing creation and in the ongoing forgiveness. We can create a world we want to see, even with the angels arguing in the background. And this means we have to do the work of creating. We have to recognize the potential for change and pardon. Not only for change in the world, in organizing for justice and caring for others. We can also prove the angels of truth and peace wrong when we share our own truths and work to create the internal peace that we need.
If Emet, truth, says, "People will just lie all the time," how can we be truthful about ourselves and others? If Shalom, peace, says, "People will fight constantly," how can we make peace with ourselves, as a start to sharing that peace?
Creation happens every day. Forgiveness happens every day. Just because you weren't kind to yourself yesterday doesn't mean you can't create that kindness today. Just because you weren't able to share your truth today doesn't mean you can't create a vessel for that tomorrow.
I won't pretend that sharing truth and making peace with ourselves is easy. For years I tried to hide the ways my brain worked differently. Before the word neurodiversity was in any of our vocabularies, long before anybody suggested to me that different brains just work differently, I was a kid and then a teenager with undiagnosed ADHD and sensory processing challenges. I was constantly trying to figure out why I couldn't just do the things that everybody else seemed to be able to do so easily. Over the past few years, especially, I've worked hard to unlearn, to stop hiding, and to begin to create a world where I can prove the angel Emet, truth, wrong. This shift, this type of creation, only works alongside gentle judgement and forgiveness. My internalized ableism hurt me, and those around me, for years, even as I worked professionally with Jewish communities on becoming more inclusive of disabled folks.
A few weeks ago, as I was deep in the preparations for the beginning of the Torah School year and the High Holidays, at the end of a long day at the Kol Tzedek office, somebody rang the doorbell, arriving to meet with Rabbi Mó. Hours before, I had set up my workspace--a folding table in the storefront--and now, as I opened the door, I saw my chaotic colorful corner through their eyes. I saw the purple Time Timer (a big visual timer to help me with time management), a blue wobble cushion (this inflated bumpy plastic cushion to engage my body in active sitting), a small fidget toy (just a single silicone button set into a plastic star) to help me focus during a phone call or conversation, and noise-cancelling headphones to help avoid sensory overload as the sounds in the office mixed with noise from next-door construction site.
After a passing moment of shame, left over from years of hiding and pretending I didn't need these tools, I realized that I had managed to create something that worked for me. I had managed to understand and see my truth enough that I was willing to lay it all out on the table and, with a lot of trepidation, to tell you all about it now. And I certainly didn't create something without making many mistakes first. I'm aware of the incredible privilege to have access to the creations and support of others. And I'm grateful to everybody who has made this community one where it is safe to begin to share this truth. I am committed to sharing the truth that it can be hard for me to be fully present for long services, even our beautiful Kol Tzedek services. I will share with all of you that when you approach me during services with a greeting or a question, I might need a second to take out the earplugs that make this space more accessible to me. I know I'm not alone in holding these experiences and, whatever your truths, I hope you will find ways to share them in these moments of potential.
I invite you all to become co-creators with us as we create and re-create sacred space on Zoom and in physical shared spaces. I want to encourage you to remember that every day is a day of creation, and every day is one where we will make mistakes and miss opportunities. We will all need forgiveness and pardon every day for how we treat others and, often, how we treat ourselves. And I specifically want to invite fellow neurodivergent folks to reach out and talk about how we can co-create a space for our truths, and for connections within our community.
Today is the anniversary of the creation of the world, a celebration of the world as it is experienced by humans. It's a moment full of possibility. Will the angels of Emet and Shalom be right? Will we just fight each other and ourselves and tell lies? Or was God right in throwing Emet to the ground, saying that truth will rise up? Each year, after many re-creations, we return to this moment of greatest potential, a moment when anything is possible. We have an opportunity to create what the world can be tomorrow, what it can be 10 days from now on Yom Kippur, 15 days from now on Sukkot, and six months from now on Passover.
This year, this day, and every day, may you experience creation, judgement, and, hopefully, a lot of forgiveness. May you fight for and see your truth and share it, and prove that peace is possible. And, if there’' a day when that doesn't work, remember that tomorrow is also a day of creation and a day to bring more truth.
L'shanah tovah. To a good, sweet, and truthful year.
September 25, 2022
View the video here.
L'shanah Tovah!
I'm Rabbi Michelle and as a point of access I'm a white Ashkenazi femme person with very curly shoulder length brown hair and I'm wearing a black and white patterned dress and a red jacket.
I want to invite you to set aside, for a few minutes, a need to believe stories literally. I invite you into imagination, metaphor, and midrash and encourage you to connect emotionally and spiritually to stories that you might not believe are literally true.
In Vayikra Rabbah, a classical rabbinic midrash, Rabbi Elazar specifices that the Earth was created on the 25th of Elul, five days ago. Which means that today, as the sun goes down, we are at the beginning of day six. So Rosh Hashanah is the day when humans were created. Rabbi Elazar gives an hour-by-hour account of that day. In the first hour, God thought about it. In the second hour, God consulted the angels, the third through seventh hours were spent on acts of physical creation of Adam and, presumably, Eve. In the eighth hour, God brought them into the Garden of Eden. In the ninth hour, God told them not to eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil. In the tenth hour, they violated this command. In the eleventh hour, they were judged. And in the twelfth hour, they were pardoned. With this pardoning, God said: This is a sign for your children--just like you come before me in judgment and I have given you a pardon, so too will your children come before Me in judgment and I will give them a pardon. (Vayikra Rabbah 29:1)
Rosh Hashanah is a day of creation, a day of judgement, and a day of forgiveness. Perhaps you have been building up to this moment, learning about teshuvah, reflecting on the change that is needed. For all of us this is an opportunity to re-start, to have a first chance, even though we know that by the tenth hour of the first day we will have made mistakes.
There is another midrash about what happened right before the creation of humans, hinted to in Rabbi Elazar's hourly recounting of the day. When, in the first hour, God had the idea to create humans, the angels became divided, some arguing for the creation of humans, and some arguing against. Chesed, lovingkindness, said, "Create them! They will care for each other!" Emet, truth, spoke up and said, "Don’t bother. People are just liars." Tzedek, justice, said, "Create them! Imagine the justice they'll bring!" Shalom, peace, said, "All they'll do is fight!" God threw Emet, the angel of peace, to the Earth, and assured the other angels that truth would rise up from the Earth. And then God went ahead and created humans. (Genesis Rabbah 8:5)
Messy humans.
Humans who messed up only an hour after being told what to do.
Humans who were judged and were given a second (and third and fourth and fifth...) chance.
But it's not just about today's creation. Not just about the first day or just about the first chance.
Because creation didn't just happen once, and it doesn't just happen once a year. It happens every single day.
Today, we celebrate creation and potential. We celebrate that mistakes and pain are inevitable for us humans, just like the angels of truth and peace predicted.
Today, we mark the anniversary of God first creating humans despite knowing that we would mess up.
And, still, today is only one day in the process of ongoing creation and pardon.
In the beginning of Genesis, after the six days of creation, God rests. And the description of Shabbat says that God rested from the work that God did and also that God rested from the word אֲשֶׁר־בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים לַעֲשׂוֹת--the work that God had created to do. This infinitive לעשות, to do, this doing leaves an opening for ongoing creation, for creation that continues after taking a brief Shabbat rest. (Gen 2:3)
There is a shift, though, between the creation of the first six days and the ongoing creation. In the first six days, creation was me-ayin l'yesh, from nothing into something, ex nihilo. Many commentators including the Kli Hayakar, a 16th-century European rabbi, noted this shift. The ongoing creation doesn't start again from nothing. It's a creation that begins with something that is already formed but isn't yet perfect. It's already there but it's not done.
God is not a one-time Creator from nothing, but a constant Creator, a Repairer, and also a Renewer. Our daily liturgy refers to God as המחדש בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית, the Eternal Daily Renewer of the Works of Creation. Each day, the Eternal Daily Renewer re-creates the cycles of night and day, of dark and light. Every day, the Renewer ignores the voices of the angels of Emet and Shalom, of truth and peace, and humans are here. Each day there is creation and each day there is newness and forgiveness.
And so, we are partners in the ongoing creation and in the ongoing forgiveness. We can create a world we want to see, even with the angels arguing in the background. And this means we have to do the work of creating. We have to recognize the potential for change and pardon. Not only for change in the world, in organizing for justice and caring for others. We can also prove the angels of truth and peace wrong when we share our own truths and work to create the internal peace that we need.
If Emet, truth, says, "People will just lie all the time," how can we be truthful about ourselves and others? If Shalom, peace, says, "People will fight constantly," how can we make peace with ourselves, as a start to sharing that peace?
Creation happens every day. Forgiveness happens every day. Just because you weren't kind to yourself yesterday doesn't mean you can't create that kindness today. Just because you weren't able to share your truth today doesn't mean you can't create a vessel for that tomorrow.
I won't pretend that sharing truth and making peace with ourselves is easy. For years I tried to hide the ways my brain worked differently. Before the word neurodiversity was in any of our vocabularies, long before anybody suggested to me that different brains just work differently, I was a kid and then a teenager with undiagnosed ADHD and sensory processing challenges. I was constantly trying to figure out why I couldn't just do the things that everybody else seemed to be able to do so easily. Over the past few years, especially, I've worked hard to unlearn, to stop hiding, and to begin to create a world where I can prove the angel Emet, truth, wrong. This shift, this type of creation, only works alongside gentle judgement and forgiveness. My internalized ableism hurt me, and those around me, for years, even as I worked professionally with Jewish communities on becoming more inclusive of disabled folks.
A few weeks ago, as I was deep in the preparations for the beginning of the Torah School year and the High Holidays, at the end of a long day at the Kol Tzedek office, somebody rang the doorbell, arriving to meet with Rabbi Mó. Hours before, I had set up my workspace--a folding table in the storefront--and now, as I opened the door, I saw my chaotic colorful corner through their eyes. I saw the purple Time Timer (a big visual timer to help me with time management), a blue wobble cushion (this inflated bumpy plastic cushion to engage my body in active sitting), a small fidget toy (just a single silicone button set into a plastic star) to help me focus during a phone call or conversation, and noise-cancelling headphones to help avoid sensory overload as the sounds in the office mixed with noise from next-door construction site.
After a passing moment of shame, left over from years of hiding and pretending I didn't need these tools, I realized that I had managed to create something that worked for me. I had managed to understand and see my truth enough that I was willing to lay it all out on the table and, with a lot of trepidation, to tell you all about it now. And I certainly didn't create something without making many mistakes first. I'm aware of the incredible privilege to have access to the creations and support of others. And I'm grateful to everybody who has made this community one where it is safe to begin to share this truth. I am committed to sharing the truth that it can be hard for me to be fully present for long services, even our beautiful Kol Tzedek services. I will share with all of you that when you approach me during services with a greeting or a question, I might need a second to take out the earplugs that make this space more accessible to me. I know I'm not alone in holding these experiences and, whatever your truths, I hope you will find ways to share them in these moments of potential.
I invite you all to become co-creators with us as we create and re-create sacred space on Zoom and in physical shared spaces. I want to encourage you to remember that every day is a day of creation, and every day is one where we will make mistakes and miss opportunities. We will all need forgiveness and pardon every day for how we treat others and, often, how we treat ourselves. And I specifically want to invite fellow neurodivergent folks to reach out and talk about how we can co-create a space for our truths, and for connections within our community.
Today is the anniversary of the creation of the world, a celebration of the world as it is experienced by humans. It's a moment full of possibility. Will the angels of Emet and Shalom be right? Will we just fight each other and ourselves and tell lies? Or was God right in throwing Emet to the ground, saying that truth will rise up? Each year, after many re-creations, we return to this moment of greatest potential, a moment when anything is possible. We have an opportunity to create what the world can be tomorrow, what it can be 10 days from now on Yom Kippur, 15 days from now on Sukkot, and six months from now on Passover.
This year, this day, and every day, may you experience creation, judgement, and, hopefully, a lot of forgiveness. May you fight for and see your truth and share it, and prove that peace is possible. And, if there’' a day when that doesn't work, remember that tomorrow is also a day of creation and a day to bring more truth.
L'shanah tovah. To a good, sweet, and truthful year.