| Rabbi's Weekly Teaching Parashat Vayera November 11th, 2011 At a well-known conservatory of music, there was a music teacher who was simply and affectionately known as "Herman."
One night at a concert, a distinguished piano player suddenly became ill while performing an extremely difficult piece. As the sick artist left the stage, Herman surprised everyone by rising from his seat in the audience, walking on stage, and sitting down at the piano. With great mastery, he completed the performance.
Later that evening at a party, one of the students asked Herman how he was able to perform such a demanding piece so beautifully, with no notice and no rehearsal. Herman replied: "In 1939, when I was a budding young concert pianist, I was arrested and placed in a Nazi concentration camp. The future was bleak, but I needed to keep the flicker of hope alive that I might someday play again. I decided to practice every day. Late one night, I began by fingering a piece from my repertoire on the wooden plank that was my bed. The next night I added a second piece and soon I was running through my entire repertoire. I did this every night for five years. It just so happens that the piece I played tonight at the concert hall was part of that repertoire. That constant practice is what kept my hope alive. Practicing on that wooden plank renewed my hope that one day I would play my music again on a real piano, in freedom."
Hope is one of the essential qualities of Judaism and the Jewish people. No people, no nation, and no family can survive without it. Certainly, the Jews could not have been sustained, and could not have thrived in spite of all of their travails, without a core faith in themselves and a sincere hope that God's sacred promise to our ancestor Abraham - that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky - would be eternally real and true.
In this week's Torah portion, Vayera, we are taught that hope is one of the key elements of Abraham's relationship with God, and that the Divine presence made real in the world is manifested in a message of hope given directly to Abraham and Sarah.
The sages teach that the three travelers whom Abraham encountered at the entrance to his tent were Divine beings who arrived in the guise of traveling strangers. Abraham and Sarah, as was their custom (and as is the custom of Jews to this very day) took it upon themselves to warmly greet these strangers/angels, preparing a delicious meal for them, and ensuring their comfort. As they depart, these Divine beings inform Abraham that Sarah, who has been barren for three generations, will soon give birth to a child; and that Sarah's hope for motherhood, long ago abandoned, has finally been realized.
When Sarah laughs in response to the news that she will be a mother at the age of 90, God replies to Abraham with what is surely one of the most poignant and moving moments in the Torah: "Why did Sarah laugh?" God responds, and then asks "Is anything too difficult for God?" (Genesis 18:14) Through this story, we learn that even when hope is a challenge to us; it is still one of God's most transcendent qualities. Even when we lose hope in ourselves, God does not lose faith in us.
The story of Herman the music teacher, and Sarah, our ancestress, both demonstrate that one of God's most precious gifts to us is the ability to choose hope, and in doing so, choose life. To wait more than five years for freedom while struggling to survive under the most inhumane circumstances, or to wait for ninety years for a child who would live to continue the chain of the Jewish generations, may seem like an impossible task to those of us who live in comfort and safety. But for those who have endured impossible life circumstances; for those who have witnessed the diminishing of their own hopes; for those, like us, who live in doubtful times where hope is in short supply - we must always remember the sacred question that resonates even to this moment: "Is anything too difficult for God?"
In my Yom Kippur sermon this year, I spoke about hope as a sustaining force and sacred motivator for the Jewish people, and that in these times - particularly for our young people - how important it is to live with the knowledge that we are sustained by hope even in the darkest of times, and even when doubt is the easier default position. As I said on our most sacred day on the Jewish calendar, we all know that because of the difficulty of life's daily troubles, it is hard to hope. And it is a sacred challenge to reach out to a God of whom we are unsure. But we must also know that in reaching out to God, and to hope and to faith, we are also reaching in to find what is most Divine, sacred, and faithful in ourselves.
You can read the full text of my sermon here. This Shabbat, as we take time to meditate on our own faith, and as we, like Sarah, hope for answered prayers and the realization of long-cherished dreams, may we, in this doubtful and difficult time, find the courage to embrace hope, and to know that God's faith in us, and in the Divine spark in every element of His creation, can truly make miracles real.
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Mitch |
5 years ago
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