The Blessing of This Day

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you for joining me. I'm Rabbi David Lyon from
Congregation Beth Israel in Houston. As many of you know,
it is the time of year when the Jewish community
comes together to begin the Jewish New Year, beginning with
Russia Shana, the head of the new year, followed ten
days later by Yom Kipur, the day of Atonement. These

(00:20):
ten days of repentance help us to take a close
look at who we've been and what we've done. And
while our prayer books are filled with many prayers that
we have to recite to fulfill the obligation of communal
worship and personal reflection, there's also time built in for
private prayer. Actually, our rabbis taught that prayers of the heart, spontaneous, personal,

(00:45):
extemporaneous prayers are sometimes more important than the ones that
are written for us. The ones written for us can
be formulaic, though they are filled with extraordinary meaning. But
our personal prayers really speak to the moment, the time,
the joys and the sorrows that we're feeling, and also

(01:06):
the hope that the new year ahead of us will
be good year, sweet, calm, or peaceful for our family,
for our community, our nation and the world in all places.
There's a poem that starts us along the way. It's
written by John o'donahue, and I found it in his
collection of poems called to bless the Space between Us,

(01:30):
a Book of Blessings. The poem is called at the
End of the Day, A Mirror of Questions. The poem
speaks to me at this time of year, and I
hope to you too, because it is a time of reflection,
and it is the end of the Jewish new year,
in the beginning of a new one, and so we
come before the mirror to look at ourselves, to ask

(01:54):
important questions and reflect. The poem goes like this, What
dreams did I create last night? Where did my eyes
linger to day? Where was I blind? Where was I
hurt without anyone noticing? What did I learn to day?
What did I read? What new thoughts visited me? What

(02:16):
differences did I notice in those closest to me? Whom
did I neglect? Where did I neglect myself? What did
I begin to day that might endure? How are my conversations?
What did I do to day for the poor and
the excluded? Did I remember the dead to day? Where
could I have exposed myself to the risk of something different.

(02:40):
Where did I allow myself to receive love with whom
to day did I feel most myself? What reached me
to day? How deep did it imprint? Who saw me
to day? What visitations had I from the past and
from the future? What did I avoid to day from

(03:00):
the evidence? Why was I given this day? It's a
poem that sometimes leaves me with a need to sit
quietly for a moment, But since I'm speaking to you,
I don't want to leave a moment between us except
to say that there are so many questions in this poem,

(03:21):
one of which or a few of which may speak
to you just as they speak to me, because they
are raising questions about all the ways that a day
can be filled with meaningful work, meaningful deeds, and meaningful time.
None of it says how much did I earn or
how much did I make, But rather it speaks so

(03:45):
meaningfully and deeply about the person that we aim to be,
and it isn't only about ourselves, but about others too.
It reminds me of Rabbi Hillel, who in the second
century helped us us understand very simply by means of
three questions, how to conduct ourselves. Rabbi Hillel taught, if

(04:08):
I am not for myself, who will be for me?
That is, we really do have a personal obligation to
take care of ourselves and not lay all of our
needs and wants on other people. We have a responsibility
to come at least halfway, if not more, to accomplish
what we need and it become self actualized. If not forever,

(04:32):
then perhaps for a day or for a little while.
The second question asked by Rabbi Hillel is if I
am only for myself, what am I? You see, the
question balances taking care of ourself and being in company
with others. It could be a companion or partner. It
could be a family, but it can also be extended

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family in a neighborhood, perhaps even a workplace, family of friends,
and beyond. If I am only for myself, Rabbi Hill
asks what am I literally ma ani in Hebrew? Not
who am I? But what have I become? If I'm
only about myself, selfish, self centered, and non providing room

(05:21):
or space for other people's needs or wants too, or
even the opportunity to listen and empathize with their pain,
their sorrow, or to appreciate their joy. And finally, Rabbi
Hilll asks simply, if not now, when, and as Rabbi
Hillel knows, everything is immediate, we never know how long

(05:45):
we might live. Though people born today have an expectation
to live in good health, God willing, perhaps even to
the age of one hundred without much trouble, even as
many people are living to be much older than that
used to be years ago. But still each day is
precious and nobody can take for granted that tomorrow will

(06:08):
be here. And so our rabbis also taught live each
day as if it were your last. It doesn't mean
to party hearty, it doesn't mean to live it up.
It means to do a mitzvah each day. It means
to observe a command and to fulfill a human obligation
that devolves upon us. Because God made it clear to

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us what is a ritual deed, what is an ethical deed,
and how to be the moral person that we need
to be, especially when other people around us are not
acting so morally. It just so happens we open an
art exhibit in our congregation this past we called Noah
a story of Hope, and it's there in the story

(06:50):
of Noah where God sets a rainbow in the sky
as a promise to make a peaceful covenant with the
people that never again with the earth be destroyed by flood.
But as rabbinic commentators wisely said, it doesn't leave out
the possibility that human beings themselves could destroy the world
by some other means. And where there is war and tragedy,

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and hunger and injustice, we see examples of ways and
times when people are not keeping up there under the
bargain their side of the covenant with God. And so
to live each day as if it were our last
means that we have an obligation when we wake up
in the morning, first to take care of ourselves, to
extend that care to others, and not to waste time

(07:36):
about it, because each day is a privilege, a gift
to make something of it. It brings us back to
the poem because all of the questions help us to
evaluate and measure whether that day and our place in
it made any difference at all. Now we don't have
to stand on a stage in opine. We don't have

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to do something grand and solve all of the world's problems,
but we do have an individual role to make a
productive and positive difference in the world around us, and
so a simple question like what did I read? Is
a question that asks did we consider other thoughts, even

(08:18):
a poem, another essay, an insight from someone else? Where?
Was I blind? The question asked what did I fail
to see? What did I fail to ask about to
understand it better? Did I remember the dead? Today? Even
helps us to be thoughtful about those who are gone

(08:38):
from life, but who had an impact on us. And
even if we didn't know them, they were indelible personalities
and characters whose impact on the world made a difference
on our own. Where did I allow myself to receive love?
It's an important question. There isn't anybody who doesn't deserve love,

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and if we fail to receive it, we need to
aim for it, to expose ourselves properly, to receive it
from a family member, a friend, even a kind gesture.
These are the questions that begin to help us evaluate
whether our day has been spent well. And one of
my favorites is what did I learn today? I can't

(09:23):
imagine not growing and becoming more as I continue to
age and as the Jewish New Year begins and unfolds,
it's my deepest hope that I continue to understand more
about the world around me, and as it changes, to
appropriately accommodate those changes inasmuch as I can. And though

(09:44):
sometimes the past was easier and history is more understandable,
the way of the future is something we can't stop.
What did I learn today helps me become a part
of the future where I can enter into it too.
I often say I don't have to be on the
cutting edge, but I need to understand the leading edge
so that I'm not left behind, and neither should you

(10:07):
be either. But ultimately, one of the other questions that
we have to ask is what did I avoid today?
So that we understand that not everything out there is
something that we have to consume or understand, digest or criticize.
Some things we should just stay away from. Perhaps it's danger,

(10:29):
perhaps it's hearsay and gossip. Perhaps it's something evil or immoral,
and we know the difference between them. So what did
I avoid today is as important as how did I
engage today? Finding our place means that we've been discerning,
we've been honest, and we've been moral. It goes to
the covenant that God makes with us in order to

(10:51):
create a world in the future that is filled with
everything that we desire and we know that humanity needs.
Sometimes it's a matter of what we called seemed sum
in Hebrew. It's a mystical idea that we have to
contract the ego. We have to contract ourselves to make
room for others, even as God, according to mystical teachings,

(11:11):
practices seem soom to contract God's self to leave room
for human beings to exercise free will. We understand what
needs to be done, but we'll do it our way
and hopefully be judged either in a Jewish New Year
on Yom Kipur or any day of the week when
others judge us, and ultimately at the end of our days,

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God may judge us too. And so we come to
the last question in the poem, which asks from the evidence,
why was I given this day? And that's a question
we have to sit with and contemplate. Why was I
given this day? What matter did it make? What difference
did I contribute to it? Because if the day was

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for naught, then perhaps we miss the point, We missed
the mark. If we didn't do anything at all, then
perhaps we wasted our time, because every day is precious.
Our Judaism teaches us that when we wake up in
the morning, we give thanks to God for creating a
new soul within us, fresh breathing oxygen and life into

(12:19):
us each day because at night, according to the ancients,
it was a dangerous time and sleep was misunderstood. Waking
up in the morning was new life. What a gift? Now,
what are we going to do with it? And what
is the evidence that we made a difference in the
day that we were gifted and given. I'm Rabbi David

(12:42):
Lyon from Congregation Beth Israel in Houston. To listen again
or to share this message, please do. You'll find it
in my podcast called Heart to Heart with Rabbi David
Lyon at Sunny ninety nine dot com and the iHeartRadio app.
In my congregation, we'll get as many will in their
respective synagogues, and some will live stream because they can't

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get out any longer or simply prefer to be at
home surrounded by family. Live Stream has enabled us to
remain a community without feeling separate or apart. So we
aim to the camera and to those who are sitting
in front of us, sharing the beautiful melodies and songs
of the high Holy Days as we call them, and

(13:26):
the prayers that are written for us and have become
familiar over the ages. But as I said, the personal
prayers too, the personal feelings of those who are gone
from life but whose memory accompanies us to worship services
is meaningful to us. And when we hear the sound
of the show far, the blasts of the show, far
the Ram's horn, we know that the new year has

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come filled with expectations and obligations for us to use
our days for good. Jewish or not, we all have faith, tradition,
or the opportunity to seek faith to understand what is
the purpose of my life? It begins with asking the
profound question, what evidence is there that I was given

(14:13):
this day? And what have I made of it? I
hope that for you and for those who follow your example,
that there's a lot of evidence that this day was
given to us for good, and that we contributed to
it for the well being of ourselves and for others
who are touched by our life. And we didn't waste
time at all. We got on with it, and lo

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and behold one day after another, something is produced. We've
created something, whether it's meaning or happiness or something physical.
There's evidence that our place here was for blessing and
for good. Thank you for joining me, and I look
forward to being with you next time. I wish you
all a happy, healthy New Year and a good week