Rosh HaShanah 5774: Sefer Zichronot

I delivered this sermon at University of Rochester Hillel:

I don’t know about all of you, but in the last few weeks, I have acquired a lot of books. Books for classes, reference books, library books, notebooks, planners. It is a miracle that there is a square inch of space to move in my room. But, this is how we start things. We collect and we open books. New classes? Textbooks. Bar Mitzvah? Prayer books, books of Jewish Wisdom, a stack of Torahs. Starting a new job? Workplace handbooks and instruction manuals from past employees. Time for the New Year? Rosh Hashanah is a holiday with plenty of books to dive into. 

Tradition teaches that on Rosh HaShanah God has a pile of books ready to be opened, read from, written into, and, eventually, sealed. Rosh HaShanah kicks of the Days of Awe a time of judgment with a trial where God sits as Witness, Prosecutor, Judge, and Jury. And, at what must be a very, very large table, three books lay open: One of the completely wicked, one of the completely righteous, and one of the in-between. The righteous are immediately written and sealed for life and that the wicked are immediately written and sealed for death. The rest of us, neither perfectly evil nor perfectly good, we lie in between. Our judgment is weighed during these days between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur as God considers our deeds and, should we be found worthy, writes us into the Book of Life.[1]

But, if I am to be judged…I need a rubric. How can I pass the class if I don’t know what is going to be on the test? The test will come on Yom Kippur, just 10 days away. But today, we start to look back on our notes from the year. But Rosh HaShanah has another name. It is also known as יום הזכרון, the Day of Remembrance. Great, so, who is doing the remembering and what are the topics being remembered. We get our first clue from the liturgy. Tomorrow, we will read the U’ntaneh Tokef prayer, a harrowing reminder of the fragility of life buttressed by a measure of hope for our own chance to “temper the severe decree.” Within it, we find this phrase:

ותפתח את ספר הזכרונות ומאליו יקרא

“And You will open the Book of Remembrances, ספר זכרונות, and what is written there will proclaim itself.”

Of course! We have one last book. We have already opened the books of the righteous, the wicked, and the in between, and now, God’s research materials: ספר זכרונות, the Book of Remembrances. So…what is written there?! What gets put into God’s book of remembrances? In this book, God’s primary research for determining who has merited blessing and who has not, we find more than a list of names; the rabbis teach that when two sit together and study their words are written in the Book of Remembrances. When one studies alone, his words are not put into the book.[2] A crucial distinction, and, within it, it seems we have our answer.

In a season when we spend hours on self-reflection, considering our personal failings, our hopes and goals to be better next year, we are given a subtle, yet ever-important reminder that it is when we engage with other people that we are remembered by God.

We need only look to the process of teshuva, repentance, to see this in action. We can sit at home, or even sit in the pews during Kol Nidre, and feel sorry for an unkind word to a relative, letting down a friend, or gossip spread about a classmate [coworker], but full teshuva, full repentance is not achieved until we have made peace directly with the person we have wronged. To sit as one and share words with myself is insufficient. I must meet my fellow face to face (פנים אל פנים) in order for my words to be recorded in ספר זכרונות, God’s Book of Remembrances, God’s record of my deeds.

But I think it’s more than that. The Judaism I have always practiced, the Judaism I have been taught [the Judaism that I was taught by this community] is a Judaism that is relational. Our greatest teachers tell us that the essential idea of the Torah is that we should treat the other with love and respect. Our laws dictate to us how to engage righteously with our neighbors and with the world around us. Surely on this day, that notion should be front and center.

But, this isn’t news. We know that we ought to be kind, decent people. Rosh Hashanah might give us a little kick in the tush to get back on track, but, hopefully, that is not a novel idea that we only encounter this day. Rather, I see the importance of ספר זכרונות as a call for something different. We are asked to sit with another person and talk. To tell our stories and to listen to theirs. If something that simple is worthy of being recorded in God’s Book of Remembrances, surely, there is holiness to be found there.

This summer, I had the chance to do just that. Through a fellowship with T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, I spent three days a week with an organization called “Make the Road NY” or, as it was more commonly referred to in the office: Se Hace el Camino-Nueva York. It is a 13,000 member organization in the outer boroughs of New York City that “builds the power of Latino and working class communities to achieve dignity and justice through organizing, policy innovation, transformative education, and survival services.”[3]

My job was to talk to people. That was it. My “territory” was churches and small businesses, so I sat across the table from clergy and store owners. And we talked. There wasn’t an expectation of gaining or acquiring something from the interaction, just a chance to begin to build a relationship and to tell stories.

One day, while canvassing 13th Avenue in Bay Ridge in Brooklyn, I walked into a barbershop and met Antonio. Our conversation started simply, we talked about his day, we talked about business, and I asked him a little bit about himself. I learned that Antonio’s mother was from Guatemala, that he has owned his store for 3 years, and that he is a big Knicks fan. When I asked him if there was anything that had been bothering him lately, he talked about immigration reform. He talked about how the laws had affected his family and friends and about how he, as a business owner, now had a new stake in the debate. I was able to connect him to our team working on the issue and now he is being trained as a leader to build relationships with other business owners, build community power, and eventually to speak out and influence the congressman representing his district to support a fair and just immigration system that strengthens families and communities.

And that is how Make the Road New York was built. By using an intentional strategy of creating relationships based on real, honest, one-to-one conversations they have created stronger communities and increased the influence they have to affect change in their neighborhoods. It has become an organization that was crucial to winning victories in Local and State government on workplace justice, housing rights, policing issues, and the rights of immigrants. It has become a place that creates supportive space for immigrants, youth, workers, and LGBT members of the Latino community. Surely, their work is recorded in ספר זכרונות.

What if we were to follow this model if intentional relationship building in our daily interactions? If we are sealed for blessing and life based on the conversations we have, how would it change the way we act? How would it change how we do teshuva?

Recognizing the potential for holiness in something as simple as a conversation, we need to make intentional time to just talk. To ask earnest questions, give honest answers, and create communities strengthened by the connections we share. This is the way we can have our words written in God’s Book of Remembrances and be credited with merit on the Day of Judgment.

This is not to say that we should not spend time alone. There is great value in the time we spend individually on self-improvement, reflection, and relaxation. But know that it is the way we interact with others, the time we spend engaging and simply talking to our neighbors that will be recorded and remembered and ultimately define the outcome of God’s judgment.

This balance is the subject of heated debate between two great Jewish scholars. The first, contends that: “Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.” Clearly, Groucho Marx falls on the time spent individually end of the spectrum.

The German-Jewish philosopher Martin Buber takes a slightly more nuanced approach. He wrote:

“Imagine yourself in a situation where you are alone, wholly alone on earth, and you are offered one of the two, books or men. I often hear men prizing their solitude but that is only because there are still men somewhere on earth even though in the far distance…I do, indeed, close my door at times and surrender myself to a book, but only because I can open the door again and see a human being looking at me.”[4]

“All real living,” he said, “is meeting.”

Our books give us a vital record of the past and help us frame our plans for the future. But the time we spend telling each other stories over a coffee, the opportunities we take to try to know a friend, classmate [colleague], or relative on a deeper level, and the way we carry ourselves in the little conversations we have every day, that is our key to achieving merit in the eyes of God.

It is my hope and my challenge to you that in the coming year, we take that time. That we set down our books, shut off our various iDevices and close our computers and find someone to talk to. I hope that we make it a priority to have conversations worthy of being recorded in ספר זכרונות and that, together, we can merit blessing and goodness in the year to come.

[1] Talmud Bavli, Rosh HaShanah 16b
[2] Talmud Bavli, Brachot 6a
[3] Mission Statement, Make the Road New York, http://www.maketheroad.org/whoweare.php
[4] Martin Buber, Meetings, page 61, from Jewish Wisdom, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin