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Rosh HaShanah Opening 5767 But I Meant Well Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Temple Emanu-El of Tucson, AZ One night recently, when I returned home at 11 at night after a long day of teaching classes and students, doing counseling, attending meetings, I had a message on my phone. It was from the son-in-law of an elderly congregant, asking me to go to a local hospice to visit his mother-in-law, who was in pretty bad shape. I was tired, but duty called, and so did I, phoning her son-in-law who told me, “Please come, rabbi. It might be your last chance to see her alive.” And so I drove over to the hospice. It was really late by the time I got there, well after 1 in the morning, and I found my congregant in her bed. Her family had gone home to sleep for a few hours. She was alone, and looked thin and weak. I sat down next to her, took her hand, greeted her gently, and said some prayers and psalms. She didn’t respond at first, so I read the final confessional, chanted a Mi Shebeirach asking for peace for her soul and body, and then conversationally chatted with her, unsure if she could even hear what I was saying. After I had been talking for some time, her eyes flickered open as she struggled to find the strength to speak. Finally, she managed to formulate the words she wanted to use. I leaned over, ears poised to hear what might be her final words on this earth. “Why did you wake me up?” she said. “Please go!” And so I did. And she lived another week or so… Never let it be said that rabbis don’t have a big impact on people’s lives. Here I was attempting to do my duty and what I really did was bring aggravation to a dying woman. For this, I went to rabbinical school… It reminds me of the story of the rabbi who goes to see a man, Abe, in the hospital who is gravely ill and on a ventilator. The room is full of his family members, and suddenly Abe motions frantically to the rabbi for something to write on. The rabbi hands him a pen and a piece of notepaper, and the man uses his last bit of energy to scribble a note—and then dies. In the hectic moments after his death the rabbi puts the paper in his jacket pocket. Two days later he is conducting Abe’s funeral, and puts his hand in his pocket—and finds the note. What better time could there be than to share Abe’s last words with his loving family? And so the rabbi intones, “Abe handed me a note just before he died. I haven’t looked at it, but knowing Abe as I did, I’m sure it will be a word of profound inspiration and comfort for us all.” And the rabbi opens the note with a flourish reads aloud, “Rabbi, you’re standing on my oxygen hose!” At least that I didn’t do—yet. You know, so often in life we think we are doing the right thing, only to discover that the road to hell really is paved with good intentions. Surely, we meant well; we just had a rather different impact that we expected. That can be true in congregational life in a synagogue, of course, but it is also startlingly true in our own daily lives. We intend one thing, and another occurs. We seek to improve matters and end up with a much bigger mess than when we started. We say one thing and our spouse or friend or child or parents or co-workers hear something else. In the Al Cheit prayer on Yom Kippur, the central confessional text that lists our many sins of commission and omission, the long litany of things we need to ask be forgiven, there is one simple, central statement: for the sins we have committed intentionally and inadvertently. Perhaps we should add, “For the sins we have committed by actually trying to do the right thing, as we saw it.” The interesting thing about making inadvertent errors is, well, we aren’t always, or even usually, aware of them. After all, we were trying to do the right thing, more or less, weren’t we? So how can someone possibly think we offended them, or be hurt by our actions? In a way, it’s harder to atone for sins, errors, and mistakes we made that we didn’t really intend than for lousy things we did that we really meant. It’s sort of easier to apologize for real rottenness than for not quite thinking things through… My friends, most of us don’t truly believe that the things we do, the petty and the more serious errors, are intentional. We think we always mean well, and we rationalize our inappropriate conduct and our errors and wrongdoing as inadvertent and unavoidable consequences of perfectly good and reasonable actions. But, of course, virtually any act, no matter how dishonest, manipulative, and destructive, can be viewed that way. Sometimes, it’s the inadvertent mistakes that cause the most trouble of all… Tonight, we begin a new year. But before we can start afresh, before we can truly embrace the potential for holiness and peace and goodness that every new year promises, we must first accept the failures of the year we have just completed. And we must be honest: some of those inadvertent errors could truly have been avoided if we had only thought a little more, cared a little more, tried a little harder. On this eve of Rosh HaShanah, the start of 5767, may we each begin the holy process of Teshuvah by looking even at our accidental errors, and seeing how can move from sin—inadvertent or otherwise—towards true holiness. L’shanah Tovah. |
