Yom Kippur
September 25, 2004
10 Tishri 5765

As the burning bush crackled and popped in the desert night, as God’s presence envelopes Moses, he asks God, “And when the people ask me, ‘Who is it that has sent me to free them?’ What am I to say?” God tells Moses, “You go tell My people, My people enslaved to the past, My people narrowly focused on the task at hand, My people whose numbed minds no longer dream, you tell them, my name is, “Ehyeh,” for I am the One whose name is, “I will be.” God’s calling card that Moses is to present to the enslaved children of Abraham is the essence of God we need today. God, who says to us every day, dream, my child, you have so much more yet to become. Most often however, the High Holy Days conjure up a different notion of God: the God of judgment and punishment, the God of fear and trembling. And as well they should. For one does not have to search these days for a very long time to find words such as these: “In truth, You, God, are Judge and Arbiter, Counsel and Witness. You write and You seal, You record and You recount. You remember deeds long forgotten. You open the book of our days
and what is written there proclaims itself, for it bears the signature of every human being.”

“What is written there proclaims itself for it bears the signature of every human being.” On Yom Kippur, it is our actions and our inactions, our accomplishments and our failures
which create the balance sheet of our life. And God, the great accountant in the sky, by the end of today, will present us with the audit we deserve. What is written there proclaims itself – selflessness and acts of love as well as the will to change listed in a column on one side, selfishness and acts of jealousy, hate and revenge as well as a denial of even the need for change on the other. Which column is longer? God knows. But the question is, “Do we?”

And yet, even when we can answer that question, let us not presume that Yom Kippur only devolves upon an audit of our books. It cannot simply be driven by a hoped for conclusion that the gains outweigh the losses. If Yom Kippur is to mean anything at all, not just today, but next week and the week after and the week after that, if our promises to do better, be better, live better, treat better, act better are to have any bearing on the year ahead, then we must set forth a different kind of budget, a challenging budget that consists of new projections. The new growth that we wish to attain in the new spiritual fiscal year of our souls. It may be God, the ultimate auditor, who is staring at us from behind these budget lines. But it is also God, whose name is “Ehyeh, I will be,” who, like a cutting edge consultant, is what we need as well. A top notch, well-appointed spiritual coach, who calls us into the New Year with plans to create real change that put our higher aspirations of ourselves in reach.

This kind of real, long-lasting, life-altering change, the kind whose effect could be felt and perceived next High Holy Days is what this holiday is all about and - - - it often feels like a pipe dream. All of us have laughed about our own New Years resolutions, resolutions that are so often and so quickly eclipsed by those proverbial first servings of chips, guacamole and beer as we sit down to watch the game on New Years day.
All of us come here today with changes we had imagined we could make as of last Yom Kippur and to our dismay, we have not. And its so ironic because even in the face of how difficult we know it is to change, we experience no shortages of goads to do so:
TV, radio, magazines, governmental reports, preventable tragedies reported in the Newspaper, our own most cherished loved ones remind us daily of the changes we need to make. We should seek not to count calories, but make our calories count. We should spend quality time with our children. We should listen to our spouse or significant other with patience and love. We should visit a shrink. We should protect our assets. We should keep the magic alive. We should work out. We should take up a hobby. We should finally read those books. We should give Torah Study a shot. We should come to shul. And, let us never forget - we should get into Yoga --- as it will surely enhance our intimacy. Why aren’t the “shoulds” enough to get us to change? Despite how they surround us, we just don’t often heed their prophecies.

Now one might think that at least a prophet would hear these prophecies. But there may not be anyone who experiences more imposing “shoulds” than Moses does. And change was anything but easy for him. When we think of Moses, we most often think of him either in Egypt challenging the Pharaoh or in the wilderness of Sinai leading the Israelites. But we often forget that Moses spent a significant part of his life in Midian,
living as a shepherd, apart and away from slavery in Egypt and the journey towards the Promised Land. It’s not like Moses was unaware of what his people were enduring while he lived comfortably in Midian. After all, it was his killing of the Egyptian taskmaster that was the catalyst for his leaving in the first place. And yet, it would seem that not until that moment as he stood before the burning bush, did he become aware of it, aware of the change he needed to make. As if to say, the burning bush was revealed to him for the very first time on that day when he hears God’s voice. Our Rabbis taught, however,
that the burning bush didn’t just become aflame on that day when Moses experienced his revelation. Rather, they argue that the bush had been burning all along from the very moment Moses arrived in Midian and made his home there. (The bush had been burning all along from the very moment Moses arrived in Midian.) They argue that he walked by this very burning bush many times, never stopping long enough to notice the miracle that it was and listen to its message – Moses, you need to leave Midian. You need to leave Midian, Moses. In Midian, you will always be running away from yourself. In Midian, your life is easy but not holy. In Midian, you can’t change. You need to leave Midian because you’ll never find yourself there.

Midian is a place that we all inhabit. It’s a place that’s filled with bushes aflame that never cease to burn out, because they are fueled by a never ending source - God, who calls us to finally make the changes our souls are so desperately in need of us to make.
But in Midian, unfocused and uninspired to engage in this most holy of “soul searching,” we keep ourselves far away from the possibility of change. Instead, unaware of or ignoring the raging, burning bushes that surround us, we partake of the delicacies of the land: constancy, continuity, and comfort. These are the dishes we consume in Midian.
Now, occasionally, we do get a taste of a new dish, a dish drastically different than what we’re used to: that infomercial promising tight abs and a tight tummy, that self-help book promising a growth in sales by 300% in one year a seminar entitled, “10 Easy Steps to a Successful Marriage,” that sermon that suggests that change is really possible. And in pursuit of that new dish, that new delicacy so different than those served in Midian,
we may actually pack a tote bag for a day trip out of Midian – we might join a gym,
assign a research project on growth potential to a jr. executive, curb our criticisms of our spouse for a night. But lo and behold, the gym can’t demand our commitment, the jr. executive’s research is easily shluffed off in the face of a personnel crisis, and our tongues don’t stay tied forever. These aren’t changes, they’re temporary alterations, the mirage of change. We say we want to change!? Do we really want to change? Then we have to start listening much more intently to our burning bushes! What crucial changes are they calling us to enact? If it is crucial, it is because making this change will help us discover ourselves. Otherwise, the bushes just keep burning. And we head back to Midian, because at least there, a quick, ready made, microwavable meal will always, but only temporarily, fill us up.

Now all this talk about food is probably not making me the most popular Rabbi I could be on Yom Kippur day. But, it is truly amazing how difficult it is to live for just one day without food. Because our lives, and certainly our thoughts at this moment, are consumed by food. Think about it. After working for money to buy it, shopping for it,
planning to make it, cooking it, serving it, eating it, and then talking about how good it was, how much left of the day is there anyway? We are rightfully consumed by the idea of food – but often these days, we are overwhelmed by it. We move less and we eat more than at any other time in human history. None of us needs a refresher course on all the latest diet gimmicks. But what research bears out, time and again, is that no matter the latest fad, without a focus on long term changes in how we eat and how much we exercise, despite the pounds lost, we have not changed. When Dr. Atkins presented his revolutionary model of a protein-oriented diet, allowing one to “diet” at the same time as enjoying a nice t-bone or vegetables smothered in cheese, many people were shocked.
But it makes perfect sense. In the short run, cutting our portions works, no matter what we are eating.

The question we have to ask in order to truly hearken to a burning bush like this one, is
“what is the impetus for this change? What is driving our perception that we do need to lost weight?” If the impetus for losing weight is driven by a hoped for smile from the Weight Watchers lady upon weighing in, forget about it. If it is driven by how our friends, or loved ones, or neighbors, or the classmates we’re going to see at our 20 Year High School reunion will respond to us if we lose weight, it may work, but only for the short run. If the impetus for losing weight, for making any kind of change, is part of a plan to make our bodies healthier by making better choices for what we consume
and how we spend our free time, get dressed and packed and put on your shoes, because these boots were meant for walkin, right out of Midian. Eating less and exercising more will work – but without coming to terms with why we need to make these changes, in the long run we succumb to our habits and run back to Midian.

A friend of mine who is an alcoholic stumbled in on an Alanon meeting one night. Al-anon is a support program for the relatives and friends of Alcoholics. He was astounded by what he heard. A brand new visitor talked with the group about the troubled and pained soul from which her drunk of a husband suffered. She was quite proud of the nightly routine she had developed. Awoken by the car’s screeching brakes in the wee hours of the morning, she greets her husband nightly at the doorstep to clean him up and get him to bed so he can get up the next morning, drive carpool and go to work. My friend left that meeting and said to himself, “Man, they’re crazier than us.” He continued, “Being a drunk is one thing, at least we’re blitzed out of our minds when we act like fools. But these folks, what’s their excuse? I’d a left a loser like me long ago.”

If the impetus for making a severely unhealthy marriage work is driven by maintaining the status quo so as not to hurt the kids, forget about it. The kids are hurting already.
If the impetus for making a severely unhealthy marriage work is driven by the potential growth drawn from the sanctity and trust and commitment that each had promised the other, now we’re onto something. Leaving Midian happens only when we’re searching for ourselves – searching to live according to our most cherished values. Searching to uncover and put in reach these higher aspirations of ourselves.

So, ladies and gentlemen, its time to strip down. Its time to get naked. Its time to pull out the mirrors and look at ourselves with EYES WIDE OPEN. Its time to leave Midian if we are ever to find ourselves next High Holy Days having become ourselves. For the best part of becoming ourselves isn’t about “becoming” at all. It’s just about revealing.
revealing the divine image that lies beneath our spiritual clothing, our protection, our half-truths and the lies we tell ourselves in order to get by in Midian. But standing naked in the mirror with eyes wide open in search of our souls, we discover that we don’t ever stand there alone. That standing there next to us is God who empowers us to be able to say, “I am Ehyeh, I am what I will become.” This new projected spiritual budget for the fiscal year means giving up what we know to be able to expect. It means giving up unhealthy coping mechanisms that feed our bodies, but not our souls. It means giving up the damaging relationships with people and things that impoverish our hope, our vision and our imagination. This kind of change means leaving Midian and pursuing what our kishkes are calling us to become a person who strives and makes possible drawing nearer to our higher aspirations of ourselves.

God’s promise to us today, is “We can change.” We can leave Midian. We can leave Egypt. We can embark upon a journey toward the Promised Land, the Promised Land off in the distance to which we are heading. And with Midian and Egypt behind us, with an openness and willingness to wander in the wilderness of our souls, we stay in search of our tzelem Elohim, the divine image in which God creates us each and every day.
The search for our true selves is how we find ourselves. As we reveal to ourselves who we really are, we will discover that Midian ain’t all its cracked up to be. And once again, we will dream. Because to dream is to imagine and to imagine is to envision and to envision is to see ourselves in a mirror standing with God, whose name, whose very nature, is “I will be.”
MAY WE ALL REVEAL GOD’S IMAGE FROM WITHIN. SEE YOU IN THE WILDERNESS. AMEN.

Rabbi Scott Hausman-Weiss