Caring Together and Creating Heaven: Rosh Hashanah Day 1 5785

According to Jewish legend, when the time comes for a person to die, the soul leaves the body and ascends to Heaven. There, the person's life is reviewed. If the life included more good deeds than sins, the soul is welcomed to Heaven. But if the life included more sins than good deeds, the soul is sent to Hell for some time.

Once there arrived before the Throne of Judgment a soul whose goodness and sins were exactly balanced. No one could figure out what to do.

After much deliberation it was decided that this soul would be given the opportunity to visit both Heaven and Hell and choose its own destiny. And so an angel took the soul on a tour of the two realms.

They journeyed first to Hell. Hell wasn't anything like what the soul had imagined. It was beautiful, a magnificent mansion, centered around a banquet hall. In the middle of the room was a huge table laden with what was, without doubt, the world's greatest feast.

A waiter entered and rang a small bell. Into the room came the inhabitants of Hell. To the surprise of the soul, they were emaciated and crying out in pain. How could this be, given such a feast? 

Soon enough, the soul saw how. The inhabitants of Hell could not bend their elbows. They could grasp at the fabulous food, but they could not put it in their mouths. And so they groaned and moaned in hunger and bitter frustration as the magnificent feast lay untouched before them.

The soul felt their anguish and begged to be taken away.

A moment later the soul entered Heaven. To his astonishment, it was exactly the same as Hell: the same magnificent mansion; even the same grand banquet room with the world’s greatest feast. When a waiter entered and rang the same small bell, the soul braced itself. But when the inhabitants of heaven entered, they were different: They were healthy and joyful. Even more astonishing, the people of heaven suffered the same malady as their counterparts in Hell: They, too, were stiff armed, unable to bend their elbows. How, then, wondered the soul, were they so well fed, and why were they so happy?

As he watched, he beheld the one and only difference between Heaven and Hell: As the people of Heaven approached the table, instead of grasping the food for themselves, they turned and fed their neighbors. And in that way they enjoyed all the delicacies and all the delights of God's world.

This story is not intended to be so much an assertion about what happens to us after we die as it is an invitation toward what we might be able to attain while we are alive – that, to rephrase Shakespeare’s famous line from Hamlet, there is no Heaven or Hell, but our actions make it so; that our ability to make Heaven on Earth depends entirely on our orientation toward – and our relationships with – one another.

Our tradition has long insisted, and the best of contemporary science confirms, that we are inherently and inescapably interdependent. We need one another – not only to survive, but to thrive. Our culture may idealize the rugged individualist, but we cannot escape the fact that we humans are a social species, built for community. True, some of us enjoy crowds more than others, and most of us appreciate solitude at least once in a while. But these personal preferences ought not obscure the basic fact that we thrive when we connect with others, and we wither when we are too long removed from interpersonal interaction. 

And loneliness hurts us not only as individuals. It actually imperils our whole society. When we are disconnected from others, it becomes harder to see past our own needs. We end up thinking more about taking care of ourselves, and less about how our actions impact others. 

So when we commit to caring for one another, we can create a heaven of personal fulfillment and universal redemption. And, unfortunately, the converse is also true – when we are disconnected from one another, we are diminished as individuals and are compelled to endure a hell of our own making. 

My friends, it may be somewhat hyperbolic to claim that the current state of our world as we stand at the cusp of the year 5785 is Hell on Earth. But I think we could all agree that it does not yet come close to resembling Heaven. Everywhere we look, we can see the consequences of people focusing primarily on serving themselves: The effects of man-made climate change; threats to democracy in the U.S. and around the world; devastating war in Israel, Gaza, and beyond. It seems we have never been more lost and lonely, isolated and insular – hurt people who – intentionally and unintentionally, actively and passively – hurt other people. 

As a rabbi who has observed these trends intensify during the two decades I have served in congregational settings, it has often struck me how community, and particularly communities of faith like synagogues, could and should play a role in turning the tide of the loneliness epidemic that is breaking our bodies, spirits, and societies. It seems obvious. Any reorientation of our broken society has to start in here [point to heart] – in our hearts – and in here [gesture out to the sanctuary] – in rooms like this. The work of building a world of love and justice, must of necessity begin with cultivating compassionate and caring communities. We can’t transform our world into heaven unless we first turn to feed our neighbors. 

Yet despite this, it is by now abundantly clear that even as we have become more disconnected and alienated from one another, synagogues and other faith communities across the country have experienced precipitous declines.

Of course, it may be true that people are getting lonelier because they’re abandoning faith communities. Yet there is also good reason to believe that, perhaps counterintuitively, loneliness is also a cause, rather than solely an effect, of people abandoning faith communities. As my teacher, Rabbi Sharon Brous, points out in her beautiful new book, The Amen Effect, loneliness is less about being alone than it is about feeling alone. I know I have had experiences when I was physically alone and yet didn’t feel lonely at all; and conversely, I have had many experiences in which I was someplace, even in synagogue sanctuaries, that were crowded with people, and nevertheless still felt fundamentally disconnected from the others who were sharing the same space – socially close, but spiritually distant.

My Jewish journey is deeply rooted in experiences like these. Growing up, I attended a modern Orthodox Jewish Day school, but as I became more aware of the world beyond, I felt increasingly constrained. After 8th grade, I begged my parents to send me to a high school with a more diverse student body. They agreed, but in that new environment, I felt lost — surrounded by more people than ever, yet never so alone.

In my search for belonging, I fell in with a small group of punks and goths. For a short time, I was even the lead singer of a (terrible yet epically named) punk band called Slam Chowder. But fitting in with this crew meant compromising my character, engaging in behaviors that hurt both myself and others. Ironically, the rebellion I thought would ease my isolation only deepened it.

Everything changed when my older sister invited me to check out our synagogue’s youth group, USY. There, I found a community of peers and mentors who genuinely cared for one another. In addition to the requisite lock-ins, dance parties, and overnight excursions to exotic locales like Charlotte and Daytona Beach that are the stock and trade of youth groups everywhere, my USY chapter also spent weekends visiting the elderly and holding tzedakah bake sales. They prayed, studied together, and had meaningful conversations about God, Judaism, and our obligation to repair the world. They celebrated each other's accomplishments, valued my presence and input, encouraged me to grow spiritually and morally, and empowered me to take on roles of responsibility. For the first time, I felt truly accepted — not because I had to be like them, but because they welcomed and embraced me for who I was.

I wonder: when the average person walks into the average synagogue for a religious service or a cultural, social, or educational program, do they experience such meaningful connections with the others who are there? When they show up, do they feel truly seen? And what about us? When we show up, does anyone make an effort to truly see us?

I know that many of us feel that our synagogue community is an extension of our family. But I also know that this feeling is far from universal. Too many show up alone to synagogues and leave just as lonely. 

But our tradition insists that it doesn’t have to be this way. 

Toward the very end of today’s service, we will recite a powerful passage from the book of Isaiah: “וַהֲבִיאוֹתִים אֶל הַר קָדְשִׁי וְשִׂמַחְתִּים בְּבֵית תְּפִלָּתִי / I will bring [the peoples of all nations] to My holy mountain, and enable them to rejoice in My house of prayer.” 

Here, the prophet invites us into his dream of a world redeemed – heaven on earth. In this vision, a diverse and disconnected array of pilgrims journey from the four corners of the earth toward a rebuilt Temple in a restored Jerusalem. 

Once there, the mixed multitude of worshippers experience true and total joy – the kind of happiness that we know from science and experience that can only come through meaningful connection with others, through being seen and feeling supported, through striving to truly see and provide support to others. And the fact that our tradition has us conclude our worship with this passage suggests that the entire trajectory of this day is driving us toward this vision.

Isaiah’s vision of a Temple as the foundation for a radically inclusive, mutually supportive, and deeply intertwined community wasn’t just prophetic imagination. Rather, it actually hearkens back to what our ancestors sought to practice in the ancient Temple, in Jerusalem. 

According to a third-century rabbinic text, which I first learned from Rabbi Brous, at each pilgrimage festival, hundreds of thousands of worshippers would ascend the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Once there, they would enter the Temple courtyard. Most would turn to the right and circle counterclockwise around the enormous complex before exiting and descending. 

But, our rabbis teach, someone in pain, someone who had recently experienced some tragedy, someone to whom something awful had happened – the grieving, the lonely, the sick – that person would circle the courtyard in the opposite direction from everyone else. And every person who passed the brokenhearted would stop and ask, “Mah lakh m’kifa s’mol / What troubles you, that you circle to the left?” 

If that question, “Mah lakh / What troubles you?”, sounds familiar, it’s because we actually encountered it earlier, in today’s Torah reading. To refresh our memories, the story we read finds Abraham and Sarah unable to have children. They decide to use Sarah's Egyptian slave, Hagar, as a surrogate. Hagar conceives and gives birth to a son named Ishmael. Later, Sarah miraculously gives birth to Isaac, and she demands that Abraham expel Hagar and Ishmael. Abraham sends them off into the wilderness with just some bread and water. Hagar and Ishmael wander in the wilderness until they run out of water, and Ishmael begins to die of thirst. As she watches her only son perish, Hagar bursts into tears. Immediately, an angel – a messenger, or some say a manifestation, of the Divine – calls to her, and asks: “Mah lakh, Hagar? – What troubles you, Hagar?” 

The question, mah lakh, what troubles you, is a godly question. It is a question that emerges from truly taking note of another, just as we insist today that God takes note of us; it is a question that stems from seeing another as worthy of care and concern, just as we insist today that God is concerned with and cares about us; it is a question full of compassion, just as we insist today that ours is a God who is compassionate, kind, patient, and gracious. And according to today’s Torah portion, this question alone is sufficient to save Hagar. Knowing that she is not alone – that someone out there sees her, cares about her, is concerned for her – enables her to see a well of water that had evidently actually been right in front of her the whole time.

Similarly, the mishnah reports that when pilgrims asked this question, mah lakh, of those circling against the current, they would respond: “I lost my mother.” “My husband left me.” “I found a lump.” “Our child is sick.” “I just feel so lost.” Or perhaps, simply, “I am broken.” 

According to the mishnah, the question prompted the suffering person to acknowledge their vulnerability, admit that their elbows were locked and that they couldn’t feed themselves, and allow someone to offer their support. 

That’s no small thing. So many of us would rather starve to death than be seen as weak or helpless. The simple fact of being seen and embraced by people who care enough to ask about our pain – who stop what they’re doing, interrupt the process of tending to their own spiritual needs, avoid the natural instinct to avert their eyes upon seeing someone who is suffering, especially when that someone is a stranger, and greet them with a simple, openhearted question, “What's your story? Why does your heart ache? What troubles you?” – can in and of itself be like a bridge over troubled water.

And then, those who walked from right to left would look into the eyes of the ill, the bereft, and the bereaved and say to each and every one of them: “May the One who dwells in this place comfort you.” May you be held here in our boundless love. 

The brokenhearted person re-enters the community and reveals their grief, and the community responds with acceptance and loving presence: “We see you. We care about you. You are not alone. Your grief may be making you feel that you might fall off the edge of the world. Fear not. You can hold on to us for support. We've got you.” The embrace of community won’t take away the pain altogether. But in helping the suffering person feel less alone in their brokenness, the community can help support the individual’s journey toward healing and wholeness. 

Since we no longer make annual pilgrimages to a central shrine, encountering one another as we circle a grand courtyard, what might such a practice look like in our time, in our temples? 

I think it would look like practicing what political scientist Joan Tronto calls an ethic of “caring with.” An ethic of “caring with” means a culture in which all members of a community commit to equitably receiving and providing care for one another, helping one another flourish. “Caring with” looks like that heavenly banquet hall of legend. It means engaging in congregational life not just as recipients or beneficiaries of care, but also as providers, in which we all accompany and support one another throughout our lives because, as Rabbi Brous points out, the truth is that today, I may walk from left to right. But tomorrow, it may be me who circles the crowd in the other direction. So I hold you, “knowing that eventually, you'll hold me. Every gesture of recognition marries love and humility, vulnerability and sacred responsibility.”

An ethic of “caring with” looks like participating in one of our Beth El Cares initiatives, such as Project Ezra, providing meals to the bereaved in the congregation; or our newly revived Reyut committee  – volunteering to help congregants who are sick or struggling or suffering. It looks like showing up to the funeral or the shiva house, even if you didn’t know the deceased or aren’t close with the bereaved. It looks like spotting an unfamiliar face, introducing yourself, and inviting them to share their stories. 

And in the year to come, I want to invite us to strive to become even more of a “caring with” community, infusing this ethic into how we gather, pray, and learn together, particularly on Shabbat, our tradition’s – and perhaps humanity’s – greatest community building tool. 

Because the truth is, such a congregation – one infused with an ethic of “caring with” – isn’t born; it’s made. It calls upon each and every one of us to actively take responsibility for one another. 

On this Holy Day, we are charged with embracing that responsibility in the year to come, helping to create a pocket of heaven on earth. 

Transforming even one small part of our world into a taste of heaven is not easy. It requires vulnerability — the willingness to feed one another, and to allow ourselves to be fed. It requires us to see where the waters of our lives are troubled, not only for ourselves but indeed for everyone in our community, and lay ourselves down over them, becoming a bridge for all who need to cross over in peace.

This is the unique purpose and possibility of synagogue community in our age of loneliness and division, disconnection and discord, what we are called to be and to build at Temple Beth El, in Stamford, CT, in the year 5785.

So as we move into this new year, let us recommit ourselves to striving to be such a community – where everyone is seen and known, where we are truly present for one another. 

Let us strive to be such a community – one that knows the difference between Heaven and Hell is not in the banquet, but in whether we feed each other.

Let us strive for the strength to do this work, to build a “caring with” community, and in the process, bring heaven down to Earth.

So may it be God’s will. Amen.