Rabbi MICHELLE: THE DOOR OF THE DREAM HOUSE
Rosh Hashanah 5784
September 15, 2023
View the video here.
Shanah Tovah, I’m Rabbi Michelle and as a point of visual access I am a 40 year-old white woman with long curly brown hair and a dress with a colorful pattern of trees and sloths.
A year ago, as we prepared to welcome 5783, I struggled to reflect on the year that had passed. 5782 was a year of joy and giggles with my niblings, camping trips with friends, and a year when Torah School had returned to in person learning. But it was also a year when I had not felt that I was at my best, when I had not been able to be present in the ways I wanted. It was a year of physical and emotional pain, of learning to deal with chronic illness. It felt like a year when I was never able to be as kind or as patient as I want to be. And it was a year of avoiding the news, turning away from suffering. Approaching Rosh Hashanah, I found I needed to reframe this time of year. Reflection on the past year had become painful, not in a meaningful way that could lead to personal growth, but in a way that was harmful. With guidance from a friend, I had a late-night mikveh dunk in a river, and let go of the year. Last year, on Rosh Hashanah, out of necessity, I focused on looking forward to the new year, to hoping for a different world.
So much of our liturgy at this time of year focuses on personal change through awareness of the ways that we are not our best. Yes, reflection, is a necessary practice for self improvement and change. Listing my wrong-doings is a much more natural mode for me than dreaming about a better future. But I’m learning how to better balance these two traditions.
Hope for a different type of future is so deeply ingrained in our tradition. Our theme this year for the days of awe is Dreams of a World to Come, Olam Haba. Over the next days you will hear the dreams of KT members as they share vorts, and I want to invite you to take time to dream and hope too, especially if there are moments when reflecting on the year is too painful, and especially if dreaming and hoping isn’t as natural for you as listing the things you have done wrong.
Our tradition is one of hopeful expectation, of dreaming of a world that is yet to be. Sometimes our traditions ask us to wait. To look forward to a moment when a messiah will come to usher in a new world. Every Shabbat comes with a hope that it will be the one that doesn’t end but instead blends into an olam haba, an eternal restful feast day.
For the ancient rabbis, Olam Haba was an afterlife. They didn’t agree on how or when or where to find Olam Haba, but they longed to merit a place in this perfect future. Sometimes it was a space filled with righteous souls, unencumbered by bodies and physical needs. Sometimes it was an embodied world with feasts, freedom, and perfect justice. Sometimes it already exited in a different plain, and sometimes it would be brought in by the coming of a Messiah.
As they conceived of it, Olam Haba was a way to explain the injustices of the world. The Torah says, over and over, that if you follow the mitzvot and do what God says, God will reward you and if you don’t, God will punish you. The ancient rabbis believed that the Torah was perfect divine teaching, and this reward and punishment seemed like a good system—do good and you get good, do bad and you get bad. But they weren’t oblivious. They saw good people suffer. They saw evil people rewarded. On the surface, it might have seemed like divine reward and punishment weren’t being handed out fairly.
But the idea of Olam Haba, another world after this one, was a container for this contradiction. If you were suffering despite being a good person here, despite studying Torah and doing the mitzvot, it must mean that you would have a huge reward somewhere, sometime in the world to come. Olam Haba was a symbol for hope, for the belief that even when we can’t see the reasoning, pain and suffering are not senseless. The system isn’t broken, it’s just bigger than what we can see from where we are. Hundreds of years later, Maimonides summarized this idea for the ancient rabbis, saying The good that is hidden for the righteous is the life of the world to come.”
Facing suffering and oppression with a belief that someday, another world will come is beautiful. Hope for redemption is amazing. Hope for a place that is not as unjust or as painful as this world might even be necessary to survive in this worl. But maybe the possibility of redemption doesn’t need to be left for the afterlife. Maybe it’s not a messiah sent by God that will bring redemption.
In 18th Century Europe, the time of enlightenment and emancipation felt redemptive, liberatory, and very human. Rational humanist thinkers didn’t believe in a separate future world of divine reward. And redemption wasn’t something that would be brought on by a messenger from God. Redemption was already happening. We were bringing about our own salvation. The intellectualism of early Reform Judaism didn't leave space for Messianic redemption, but, very importantly, it didn’t let go of the hope that comes with it.
In the 1850s, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise published a prayer book for his and other American Reform communities. Minhag America, as he called the book, had a very full Hebrew liturgy with English translation and some philosophical changes. Among these was changing one word in the first blessing of the amidah. Instead of ומביא גואל לבני בניהם, God brings a redeemer to future generations, this new siddur read ומביא גאולה לבני בניהם,ֶ God brings redemption to future generations.
We’re not waiting for one person, for one redeemer. We’re asking for redemption even as we are creating redemption together. The hope for a new changed world doesn’t need to be relegated to waiting for an afterlife. We can dream of an olam haba that we are building in this world We don’t need to look forward to a messianic time of resurrection to find the hope. We can look forward to and hope for redemption and change, both personal and systemic.
We translate Olam Haba as a world to come, but perhaps more literally it is the world that is coming. Grammatically, it’s the same Hebrew construction as phrases like next week, next month, or the perhaps familiar phrase l’shanah haba’ah, next year. The pharse “Next year” changes meaning, with an assumption that, whatever year we are in, there will always be another year coming. Maybe there’s not just one Olam Haba, one perfect world for everyone. Maybe there is a world that is coming now. And then when we get to that world, there will be another world that is coming, And the next one. And the next one. Instead of hoping for one perfect world, limiting ourselves to this flawed world and a future perfect world, maybe the next world is one of small changes. A world of less suffering, an easier year, some small progress towards justice. Maybe the next world isn’t the perfect one yet, but is recognizably different from than this one in some way.
Recently, I was taking care of two young friends. We were talking about the need for diversity in commercially available dolls after the sighted 7 year old introduced me to one of her dolls who is blind. She’s making a service dog harness and a cane because she thinks dolls should have those things. i told them about the fist doll in the barbie universe with a wheelchair. People in 1997 were excited to buy Becky, but it turned out that she didn’t fit through the door of the Barbie dream house and her feet stuck out of the elevator. I asked these children what they would do. The four year old looked at me like I had asked the most obvious question and said, “Make the door bigger.” And in that moment, like so many others when I talk to kids, I thought about the world that is coming, when someday these children will be leaders who “Make the door bigger” without questioning.
I spent a week at Camp Havaya, the Reconstructionist camp in the Poconos this Summer. I loved learning with the kids, including some of our KT kids who were there, and I was blown away by the culture of the camp. At the end of Shabbat, at the all-camp talent show, I watched as some of the youngest kids performed dance routines to pop songs. Their routines were sweet and imperfect. But what was more beautiful was watching the older teens cheer the kids on and sing along. It felt like another world, where mistakes were not laughed at and kids were supported and cared for in community, not just because of a special talent they had.
As we journey through the days of awe together, I invite you to think of moments when you have noticed a new world, moments of hope, over the past year. Along with the reflection and planning that come with a new year, I invite you to make space for hope. If you need to take a break from reflecting on a painful year, if it doesn’t feel helpful for you to focus on ways you have missed the mark, know that our tradition also offers space to set that aside for a moment to dream of a perfect future. If you are an expert at listing and thinking about all of the mistakes you have made, I invite you to find space to balance that out with dreaming and imagining what could be.
Olam Haba is coming. Maybe there are even many next worlds to dream of. The door on this dream house is big enough for all of us, and you are welcome to come in.
L’shanah tovah.
September 15, 2023
View the video here.
Shanah Tovah, I’m Rabbi Michelle and as a point of visual access I am a 40 year-old white woman with long curly brown hair and a dress with a colorful pattern of trees and sloths.
A year ago, as we prepared to welcome 5783, I struggled to reflect on the year that had passed. 5782 was a year of joy and giggles with my niblings, camping trips with friends, and a year when Torah School had returned to in person learning. But it was also a year when I had not felt that I was at my best, when I had not been able to be present in the ways I wanted. It was a year of physical and emotional pain, of learning to deal with chronic illness. It felt like a year when I was never able to be as kind or as patient as I want to be. And it was a year of avoiding the news, turning away from suffering. Approaching Rosh Hashanah, I found I needed to reframe this time of year. Reflection on the past year had become painful, not in a meaningful way that could lead to personal growth, but in a way that was harmful. With guidance from a friend, I had a late-night mikveh dunk in a river, and let go of the year. Last year, on Rosh Hashanah, out of necessity, I focused on looking forward to the new year, to hoping for a different world.
So much of our liturgy at this time of year focuses on personal change through awareness of the ways that we are not our best. Yes, reflection, is a necessary practice for self improvement and change. Listing my wrong-doings is a much more natural mode for me than dreaming about a better future. But I’m learning how to better balance these two traditions.
Hope for a different type of future is so deeply ingrained in our tradition. Our theme this year for the days of awe is Dreams of a World to Come, Olam Haba. Over the next days you will hear the dreams of KT members as they share vorts, and I want to invite you to take time to dream and hope too, especially if there are moments when reflecting on the year is too painful, and especially if dreaming and hoping isn’t as natural for you as listing the things you have done wrong.
Our tradition is one of hopeful expectation, of dreaming of a world that is yet to be. Sometimes our traditions ask us to wait. To look forward to a moment when a messiah will come to usher in a new world. Every Shabbat comes with a hope that it will be the one that doesn’t end but instead blends into an olam haba, an eternal restful feast day.
For the ancient rabbis, Olam Haba was an afterlife. They didn’t agree on how or when or where to find Olam Haba, but they longed to merit a place in this perfect future. Sometimes it was a space filled with righteous souls, unencumbered by bodies and physical needs. Sometimes it was an embodied world with feasts, freedom, and perfect justice. Sometimes it already exited in a different plain, and sometimes it would be brought in by the coming of a Messiah.
As they conceived of it, Olam Haba was a way to explain the injustices of the world. The Torah says, over and over, that if you follow the mitzvot and do what God says, God will reward you and if you don’t, God will punish you. The ancient rabbis believed that the Torah was perfect divine teaching, and this reward and punishment seemed like a good system—do good and you get good, do bad and you get bad. But they weren’t oblivious. They saw good people suffer. They saw evil people rewarded. On the surface, it might have seemed like divine reward and punishment weren’t being handed out fairly.
But the idea of Olam Haba, another world after this one, was a container for this contradiction. If you were suffering despite being a good person here, despite studying Torah and doing the mitzvot, it must mean that you would have a huge reward somewhere, sometime in the world to come. Olam Haba was a symbol for hope, for the belief that even when we can’t see the reasoning, pain and suffering are not senseless. The system isn’t broken, it’s just bigger than what we can see from where we are. Hundreds of years later, Maimonides summarized this idea for the ancient rabbis, saying The good that is hidden for the righteous is the life of the world to come.”
Facing suffering and oppression with a belief that someday, another world will come is beautiful. Hope for redemption is amazing. Hope for a place that is not as unjust or as painful as this world might even be necessary to survive in this worl. But maybe the possibility of redemption doesn’t need to be left for the afterlife. Maybe it’s not a messiah sent by God that will bring redemption.
In 18th Century Europe, the time of enlightenment and emancipation felt redemptive, liberatory, and very human. Rational humanist thinkers didn’t believe in a separate future world of divine reward. And redemption wasn’t something that would be brought on by a messenger from God. Redemption was already happening. We were bringing about our own salvation. The intellectualism of early Reform Judaism didn't leave space for Messianic redemption, but, very importantly, it didn’t let go of the hope that comes with it.
In the 1850s, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise published a prayer book for his and other American Reform communities. Minhag America, as he called the book, had a very full Hebrew liturgy with English translation and some philosophical changes. Among these was changing one word in the first blessing of the amidah. Instead of ומביא גואל לבני בניהם, God brings a redeemer to future generations, this new siddur read ומביא גאולה לבני בניהם,ֶ God brings redemption to future generations.
We’re not waiting for one person, for one redeemer. We’re asking for redemption even as we are creating redemption together. The hope for a new changed world doesn’t need to be relegated to waiting for an afterlife. We can dream of an olam haba that we are building in this world We don’t need to look forward to a messianic time of resurrection to find the hope. We can look forward to and hope for redemption and change, both personal and systemic.
We translate Olam Haba as a world to come, but perhaps more literally it is the world that is coming. Grammatically, it’s the same Hebrew construction as phrases like next week, next month, or the perhaps familiar phrase l’shanah haba’ah, next year. The pharse “Next year” changes meaning, with an assumption that, whatever year we are in, there will always be another year coming. Maybe there’s not just one Olam Haba, one perfect world for everyone. Maybe there is a world that is coming now. And then when we get to that world, there will be another world that is coming, And the next one. And the next one. Instead of hoping for one perfect world, limiting ourselves to this flawed world and a future perfect world, maybe the next world is one of small changes. A world of less suffering, an easier year, some small progress towards justice. Maybe the next world isn’t the perfect one yet, but is recognizably different from than this one in some way.
Recently, I was taking care of two young friends. We were talking about the need for diversity in commercially available dolls after the sighted 7 year old introduced me to one of her dolls who is blind. She’s making a service dog harness and a cane because she thinks dolls should have those things. i told them about the fist doll in the barbie universe with a wheelchair. People in 1997 were excited to buy Becky, but it turned out that she didn’t fit through the door of the Barbie dream house and her feet stuck out of the elevator. I asked these children what they would do. The four year old looked at me like I had asked the most obvious question and said, “Make the door bigger.” And in that moment, like so many others when I talk to kids, I thought about the world that is coming, when someday these children will be leaders who “Make the door bigger” without questioning.
I spent a week at Camp Havaya, the Reconstructionist camp in the Poconos this Summer. I loved learning with the kids, including some of our KT kids who were there, and I was blown away by the culture of the camp. At the end of Shabbat, at the all-camp talent show, I watched as some of the youngest kids performed dance routines to pop songs. Their routines were sweet and imperfect. But what was more beautiful was watching the older teens cheer the kids on and sing along. It felt like another world, where mistakes were not laughed at and kids were supported and cared for in community, not just because of a special talent they had.
As we journey through the days of awe together, I invite you to think of moments when you have noticed a new world, moments of hope, over the past year. Along with the reflection and planning that come with a new year, I invite you to make space for hope. If you need to take a break from reflecting on a painful year, if it doesn’t feel helpful for you to focus on ways you have missed the mark, know that our tradition also offers space to set that aside for a moment to dream of a perfect future. If you are an expert at listing and thinking about all of the mistakes you have made, I invite you to find space to balance that out with dreaming and imagining what could be.
Olam Haba is coming. Maybe there are even many next worlds to dream of. The door on this dream house is big enough for all of us, and you are welcome to come in.
L’shanah tovah.