I stand before you this day with a simple message, one that I hope enriches you and your life, that is profound because it is so simple and so simple because it is so profound. It is just this: do what you love. It sounds a lot easier than it is. To do what you love, you first have to know what you are good at and then you have to love what you are good at and then you have to do what you love that you are also good at.
You know, for civilization, there is only one basic problem: what to do with men between the ages of 17 and 45.
For each of us as individuals, there are really only two basic problems in life. One is figuring out how we are just like every other person on earth, and the other is figuring out how we are each different from every other person on earth. If we don't learn how we are all alike, we cannot feel compassion for others, we cannot gain humility, we cannot work for the betterment of humanity, and we cannot recognize God in the face of the other. On the other hand, if we do not learn how we are different and unique from any other person who has ever been born on planet earth, we will never discover our destiny, never find joy in our work, never successfully fall in love, never successfully marry and never be satisfied with the choices we make in clothing and food, in friends and leaders. Both of these challenges are discovered in the Jewish teaching that we are made in the image of God (the Hebrew is betzelm elohim).
Rabbinic commentators go into some depth commenting on the meaning of this audacious and challenging belief. Obviously being made in the image of God does not mean that we have a big toe because God has a big toe. It does not mean that we are all-powerful or all-knowing or all-good because God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good. So what does it mean? Rashi, (Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzhak, an 11th century French vintner who is our greatest Biblical and Talmudic commentator, and whose 900th yahrzeit was just observed this past August 3) teaches that tzelem comes from the root tzel which means “shadow.”
I love this exegetical possibility because it reconciles the two questions about the self, “How are we the same and how are we different?” If we are God's shadow it means that every person is God's shadow and therefore every person is equally holy, equally deserving of respect and dignity. But if God is so immense and multifaceted, it may also mean that we are each shadows of a different part of God. Some of us may shadow God's mercy and compassion and thus become people who particularly reflect that part of God. Some of us may shadow God's demand for justice in an unjust world, and so we shadow that prophetic anger that is a different part of the same God. Being God's shadows perfectly explains to me how we are different and how we are all the same. We are all shadows of the same God, but we each shadow a different part, and since God is infinitely complex and nuanced, there are an infinity of shadows falling across this wounded world, each shadow bearing the shape of the Creator, but each bearing it in a different and unique way.
When I speak of our sanctity (as I often do), the wonder of the force of life itself, I mean the part of us that is the same in each of us. When I speak of our blessings (as I also often do) I mean the part of us that is different in each of us. Here is my simple message on this Yom Kippur, this Day of Awe and Dread, this Day of Judgment, this Day of Atonement: we must live out our unity and we must live out our uniqueness.
Now seeing God in the other is no small matter. Learning to share is not easy, especially in modern America. This story comes to me from my dear friend and colleague Rabbi Marc Gellman, who heard it from his illustrious predecessor, Rabbi Robert Shankeman, of blessed memory. The seductive materialism and individualism of our world has reduced the percentage of Israelis who live on kibbutz from a high of 8% in the 50s to less than 3% today, but the kibbutz movement still produces most of Israel's pilots and generals. And the reason is that they grow up knowing that they are a part of something much bigger and more important than themselves. This produces an instinctive understanding of how we are all the same.
He told me about a congregational trip to Israel in 1968 which included a visit to a kibbutz. The group bought several boxes of crayons to the children in the gan yeladim, the kindergarten. When each child received his or her own box of crayons, they all immediately and without prompting, spilled all the crayons out on the table for every child to share. I know and you know that for many children here in this country, the first instinctive act would be to put their name on their own private crayon box. Crayon sharers become philanthropists even if they are not wealthy. They understand that we are bound to each other by bonds that religious people call tzelem elohim and others may call humanity. Whatever the name, it is an idea which is imperiled in our crayon hoarding world, our world of radical individualism, and it is the idea that we are a part of something bigger and each of us is an equal and necessary part.
The second part of tzelem elohim which must follow the first, is that in this bond of equal holiness, we each have different parts to play depending on our unique blessings. This part is the search for how we are unique, it is the search for our blessing, the things we are good at.
Some of you were there, I know. Most of you were not. I already gave a sermon on this subject. Right. It was to a congregation filled with your children, and I loved it. We spelled the names of some weird animals - ostrich, gorilla, quail, and cheetah - several others as well. And then I asked the kids - your kids - what was unique about these animals. What special gifts did God give to them and not to other animals? Well, they knew. They knew about the camouflage of the quail and the lungs of the gorilla and the speed of the cheetah, and the great and majestic uniqueness of all the animals in the forest. And then I asked them . . . what special gift did God give to each of you?
Well, let me tell you . . . they knew! They knew that their friends always told them they were great at solving puzzles, or finding things that were lost, or getting people who were fighting to make up with each other. They knew. And it was fantastic. It was beautiful. And it was so inspiring to me, that I decided then and there to ask you the same question on this awesome day. What special gift has God given to you?
This is not about what job we are good at, it is about what we are good at, and if we are both wise and lucky, the jobs we do will utilize, reflect, and develop our blessings.
I asked the kids what do they think God made them good at doing, and I was stunned at how many of them already understood their blessings. One little girl said, “I don't know what God made me good at. How can I find out?”
My advice to her is my advice to you. First ask your family. They know you best, though they are not always honest. Then ask your friends. They don't know you as well as your family, but they are more honest. If family and friends do not clarify your blessings for you, then ask yourself this question, “When am I most happy?” The truth of your blessings is that when you are closest to using your blessings, you are also the happiest.
Once you have identified your blessings, the next step is clear. Find out what you can study and what you can do that uses your blessings and develops your blessings. That is what you should do. You should do your blessings. I would say you should do what you love and that is true but for many of us there is a problem. We have been forced to do what we do not love. This can be a terrible tragedy and it usually produces people who do not do well and who do not do good. How many of us have been told that what we love is fine but, “How can you make a living at that?” Bill Gates dropped out of school to do what he loved and what he loved had not even been invented yet.
Passion for what you love is the key ingredient for success. When I meet a child who loves something, anything, even video games, I know that young man or woman is going to be just fine. I only worry when I discover kids who love nothing. Ask your kids what they love, and help them to do what they love.
So we must first discover what God has made us good at. Then we must develop what God made us good at. Then we must work at some job that utilizes what God made us good at, and then we must raise up children and support grandchildren who will have the wisdom and courage to find out what God made them good at, and to love what God made them good at and to work at what God made them good at. Life is complicated but at its root, things are really simple. It's doing them that is hard.
Judaism teaches this lesson in constant and subtle ways. When God commanded Moses to build the mishkan, the traveling golden ark of the covenant that held the 10 commandments, God commanded Moses to let a man named Bezalel build all the parts of the mishkan. Bezalel was chosen because he was described as a man God had made good at building things of gold and silver and fabric and wood. He was the builder because it was his blessing to be a builder. Then when the materials for the mishkan were to be collected from the people God commanded Moses to secure the needed materials not by taxing the people but by allowing the people to bring free will donations, each according to the dictates of his or her own heart. So the most important structure in the Torah was to be built in the most important way, each person was to bring what he or she wanted to bring to the task.
This is true for us. Each of us must build our lives in this world by offering up to God through our lives the unique fruits of our blessings. We must not only do what God made us good at. We must bring what God made us good at bringing.
Another hint at the need to discover and preserve our unique blessings from God is the command to build the altar of sacrifice with uncut stones. Even though it was surely easier to construct a stone platform for animal sacrifice by cutting the stones to fit the design, the Torah teaches us the transcendental message that we must change the design to fit the stones. Each stone must not be cut to fit. Rather each stone's unique edges must be pared with other stones whose edges fit together.
The lay leadership of the UJC would be much more successful if they began with the proposition that fitting jobs to the skills of people is much more successful than fitting people to jobs. Forcing square pegs into round holes hurts both the holes and the pegs. So discovering your blessings and working at developing them is not just a prescription for personal happiness, it is also a prescription for organizational success.
I also think God judges us not by some grand accounting of doing good in the world, but by how far we have lived into our special unique personal blessings from God. One of the most famous Hasidic anecdotes is about Reb Zusia who was crying at his impending death. His Hasidim gathered around him were surprised at their master's tears. “You were a great rebbe, you are going to the world to come with honor. Why are you crying?” He answered, “Now finally I understand that when I am called before the Ribono shel Olam that he will not ask me 'Why were you not Moses or why were you not Abraham? He will ask me why were you not Zusia, and I will not know what to say.”
My message today is to be yourself; be the best that you and only you can be. Do not fret that you are not someone else. Your talents and your skill, your character and your gifts are unique, they are special, they are you. Do not plead with God that you should have been greater than you can be. Plead with God that you be given the chance to be the best that only you - you and only you - can be! That is what Reb Zusia tried to teach.
So let us all get ready to live into our own shadow, to be comfortable in our own skin, to protect the edges of our own stone, and then we will be ready whenever we are called to see the light that makes every shadow dance. Our shadows are each but a dot of the Great Shadow, by the light of whose mercy we can see and pray and today, seek atonement.
Amen