Rosh Hashanah, 5775

What keeps you up at night?

What thoughts plague you when all the day’s distractions are done? Where does your mind go when the past is too full of regrets and the future provides only insecurities?

These aren’t easy questions.  Some of you might have just had your anxiety ratchet up a few levels. That’s fine, take a few deep breaths and we’ll press on. Some of you may not even be listening now, because your attention has shifted onto other things. That’s ok too, I know you’ll come back when you’re ready. Some of you might have even become extra attentive, needing a distraction from your current agitating thoughts.

But hopefully, for each of you, my questions inspired a story. Stories of times that you weren’t your best self. Stories of possible futures. Stories of relationships, behaviors or harsh realities. Maybe they were stories of pain or confusion. Maybe they were stories of angst or fear. But they were stories nonetheless. Incredibly personal stories. Stories never said aloud, not even to yourself.

What is the cost of these tales? What is the value of asking questions that only inspire anxiety?

In his book “Relational Judaism,” Rabbi Ron Wolfson describes Judaism, our millennia old tradition, as a fusion of two things, and two things only: questions and stories. Everything we do, everything we learn, everything we stand for is rooted in our questions and our stories. Our communal origin is laid out in the most epic of stories, the Torah. We question torah and using the answers we find in the text to continue writing the details of our personal and national stories. We take our biblical anecdotes of doubt, sin, jealousy and violence and see in them the definition of what it means for each of us, for all of us, to become a protagonist in the Jewish narrative.

We find ourselves in the stories of our ancestors.

Like Abraham, there are times when the world doesn’t understand our faith. Like Sarah, we occasionally doubt the possibility for a happy ending. Like Isaac, we feel tricked and cheated by the circumstances of life. Like Rebecca, we know that some blessings cannot be shared. Like Jacob, our desires can blind us to the truth that is right in front of us. Like Leah and Rachel, we experience too many moments in which competition pulls us apart, rather than brings us together.

But there is a third component of our tradition, one which Rabbi Wolfson doesn’t mention. Just as Judaism provides us with our foundational stories and questions, we are also provided with our most needed answers.

At the time of year when we are kept awake at night by memories of our past mistakes and regrets, Abraham provides us with an answer: hineni.

Tomorrow, when we read the story of the akedah, the binding of Isaac, we will hear Abraham answer God’s call with  “hineni.” Between  two of the hardest moments of Abraham’s fatherhood, the exile of his elder son, Ishmael, and the near-sacrifice his younger son, Isaac, Abraham looks past his doubts, past his grief, past his pain, and answers hineni. In the middle of his darkest night, Abraham answers God’s call with “Here I Am.”

I imagine, in that moment, Abraham felt anything but faithful. And yet, somehow he managed to summon the strength and courage to face the next challenge.

How did he do this?

It seems to me, that Abraham knew that even though many of our stories begin with “What keeps you up at night,” the next question has to be, “What gets you up in the morning?”

When the long dark night seemed unending, Abraham needed a reminder of the things that brought light into his life. At exactly the right moment, God’s call forces Abraham to remember his faith and devotion.

In other words?

God reminds Abraham of his passion.

And just as we identify with the stories of Abraham’s struggles, Abraham’s found passion reminds us to search for our own.

What are you passionate about? What gives you purpose and drive and meaning? What gets you up in the morning?

Rabbi Wolfson and Jewish community organizers across the country are using these questions to help individuals and communities discover their passions, and find new ways to express those passions. They  hold dozens of one-on-one conversations for the express purpose of finding a common mission that empowers and unites congregations.

By asking individuals two questions – “What keeps you up at night” and “What gets you up in the morning” – communities are able to find the passion, power and connection they need to take action and discover who they really are. This doesn’t mean finding more things to do. A community that defines itself only by how full their calendar is and the number of people who come to an event is looking in all the wrong places. The communities that define themselves by their shared values, by the interactions with themselves and the world around them, by the passions that provide an unshakable foundation…these are the outstanding communities…these are the communities that endure for 50…100…150 years.

This is not easy work. Even Abraham had to risk everything – his legacy, his future, the life of his son – to find his passion. Any person who tries to answer these questions—“What keeps you up at night” … “What gets you up in the morning” -  needs incredible courage to be as honest as possible. When we ask ourselves these questions, we inevitably find ourselves returning to the stories that keep us up at night. But instead of causing anxiety these stories become the tools that help us realize our passions.

They become epic stories of great loss and deep love, stories filled with life’s uncertainties and successes, stories about the sorrows and joys of the human condition, stories that are so personal that no one else could ever retell them. And yet, they’re stories that have the ability to bind together communities, big and small. Just like we are able to see ourselves in the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel, we are also able to see ourselves in each other’s stories.

And when we are able to do that… when we are able to do that…that is when we can say hineni.

Here I am. Here we are.

Here we are, a passionate and driven community. We know who we are. We know our place in the world. We will meet any challenge and we will succeed.

Like Abraham, there are times when we find ourselves awake at night, unable to sleep, unable to find a few hours’ worth of calm and comfort.

Like Abraham, despite overwhelming darkness we are able to summon every ounce of passion by drawing on the strength of our shared stories and answer hineni.