Editor’s Note: This essay is reprinted from the September 18, 2024 edition of the Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey.
Martin Buber was fond of a story attributed to a Rabbi Hanoch, about a man who had a lot of trouble getting organized in life. So, one evening he decided to write down the articles of clothing he would need when he got up. The next morning, he sees the note for pants, and put them on; shirt and he put that on; cap and put that on, etc. Eventually, fully dressed, he stopped and remarked: “That’s all very well, but now where am I myself? Where in the world am I?”
As Buber wrote in his The Way of Man: “He looked and looked, but it was a vain search; he could not find himself.” As we prepare to greet the new year 5785, this story speaks volumes. Where are we? This question, which we meet in Genesis 3 and the question “ayekah,” really is at the heart of these 10 days of reflection and introspection. It is a question that takes on more meaning, and relevance, as we grow older.
We all are aware that these holidays will greet us filled with anxiety and concern. Between the war in Gaza, the emerging shifts in the American Jewish community and the impact of the election, there will be no shortage of issues that will confront us in prayer, meditation and no doubt, a few sermons. However, I want to use this space this year to try and focus on our growing and now multi-generational cohort of elders. Remember, as of the 2020 Pew study of American Jews, half of our total population is over 50 years of age. This revolution in longevity is helping fuel the changes in our community. We are living longer and, in many cases, better than any previous cohort of elders. We are very concerned about health and wellness and are more active than any previous generation. The challenge may be to look at the difference between “growing” older and “getting” older. Let me suggest that these holidays offer us a sacred invitation to “grow;” to grow in the sense of seeing life as a sacred gift, as every day an opportunity to embrace life and the call of the mitzvah.
One of the tensions we face as we age is that of acceptance and surrender. For many of us, as we grow older, we face the challenge of accepting new realities, changes in our bodies, relationships, work and family. Some of these changes we initiate; others are dealt to us. How we choose to deal with the realities determines who we are and how we grow. Berit Lewis, who writes on aging issues, wrote in a recent article about this tension: “If you can approach your increasing age with awareness, acceptance and affection, you will better be able to adapt and flow with the changes of life. Accepting the things you cannot change is not straightforward, but you can learn to master this acceptance over time–at least to some extent.”
One of the hidden treasures of the holidays is that it is type of cosmic invitation to each of us. We are being invited to sit with our own soul for 10 days, to get off the material merry-go-round and to begin to ask some very basic questions about our life, our hopes and dreams, and how we wish to grow. We will all “get” older, but how many of us will “grow” older? It is a time to look at our soul in a spiritual mirror and ask ourself, given that we cannot know the length of our life, what is it in this coming year that I wish to do? This may require you to take a chance, to risk a change, and that is always a challenge, especially as we grow older. But, we have but one life, and so that Hasidic story really does ring true. Can we use the invitation of these days to find out who we really are?
This shall be a very powerful and challenging year. So, a final blessing for us taken from the new collection of poems and meditations by Alden Solovy called “Enter These Gates.” It is a blessing for all of us at this time of year. It is called “Pervasive Peace.”
“May it be Your will, God of our fathers and mothers, that the year ahead brings a pervasive and complete peace on all the inhabitants of the earth, beyond all the dreams of humanity.”
Shannah Tovah!
Rabbi Richard F. Address, D.Min, is the Founder and Director of www.jewishsacredaging.com. Rabbi Address served for over three decades on staff of the Union for Reform Judaism; first as a Regional Director and then, beginning in 1997, as Founder and Director of the URJ’s Department of Jewish Family Concerns and served as a specialist and consultant for the North American Reform Movement in the areas of family related programming. Rabbi Address was ordained from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1972 and began his rabbinic career in Los Angeles congregations. He also served as a part time rabbi for Beth Hillel in Carmel, NJ while regional director and, after his URJ tenure, served as senior rabbi of Congregation M’kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, NJ from 2011-2014.
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