Sermon for Erev Rosh Hashanah, delivered at Sinai Temple, Champaign, IL on September 18, 2020
What Does A Yellow Light Mean?
There’s a scene from the TV series Taxi that has continually come to my mind in the recent weeks and months. Christopher Lloyd, playing the burned-out hippie “Reverend” Jim Ignatowski tries to get a job driving for the Sunshine Cab Company. The other cabbies befriend him and accompany him to the DMV to help him with the written portion of his licensing test.
Jim looks at the exam and is already befuddled by the first question. He whispers to Bobby Wheeler (portrayed by Jeff Conaway), “What does a yellow light mean?” Bobby replies through gritted teeth, “Slow down.”
But then, Jim, misunderstanding Bobby’s response, just proceeds to ask the question slower: “What…does…a…yellow…light…mean?” Bobby again repeats the answer, “Slow down,” and so the confused Jim shrugs his shoulders and tries again: “Whaaaat….doooes….aaaa….yellllooow….liiiight….meeean?” The scene proceeds in this manner for several minutes before the camera cuts away.[1]
Here’s the thing, though: we all could stand to slow down a bit. We all need some yellow lights in our lives. Before we dismiss Reverend Jim as a kook who was too “burnt out” to understand what Bobby was telling him in the context of the moment, let’s take time to think about how pacing ourselves can be beneficial.
If you drive anything like I do (which I don’t necessarily recommend!), you may view the yellow light not as a warning to slow down, but as a nudge to hurry up so you can make it through the light. But life, along with the Illinois Department of Transportation, encourages us instead to approach these yellow lights with caution, to slow down and take a moment to experience the world around us, to “stop and smell the roses.” The Chassidic sage known as the Ba’al Shem Tov taught, “the world is full of miracles and wonders, but we take our little hands and cover our eyes and see nothing.”[2] Since the Ba’al Shem Tov lived in the 18th century, he of course knew nothing of yellow traffic lights in his lifetime. Yet he understood that if we live our lives at too rapid a pace, we are liable to miss important opportunities to experience beauty and awe.
Certainly, the past several months we spent realigning our behavior in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have caused many of us to modify our usual routines and perhaps to slow down a bit. Having restricted ourselves from interactions with others, our calendars are taking new shape, and many of us have found respite from some of the constant running we used to do. One friend and colleague reported that she had been able to enjoy more than 125 consecutive family dinners together; unheard of—particularly for rabbis—in a pre-COVID-19 schedule. At Sinai, I’ve certainly noted that a number of you have participated more broadly in services and programming being offered online, now that you can just step into your living room (or wherever you keep your computer) and connect with these events instantaneously. I do understand and empathize that for some, your experience has been the exact opposite, and life in the pandemic has not afforded you leisure. If you are experiencing additional stresses or anxieties due to the current situation I do not mean to be dismissive of that reality. I do pray that we can continue to support one another in sacred community, and that—at least during these days in which we carry a heightened sense of holiness—we can each find some degree of respite from the insistent onslaught of pressures and demands on our time. Even if only for a moment, I pray that we can heed the cautionary call of the yellow light.
When we have (and avail ourselves of) the chance to slow down, we may in turn develop a heightened sense of gratitude for the blessings in our lives. During this season in which we have a heightened sense of self—engaging in self-reflection, striving for self-improvement—let us not lose sight of the need to be thankful to others. For even in this age of COVID-19, when we are likely far more isolated than we might ordinarily be, we still acknowledge that there is a wide-reaching network of individuals and objects contributing to our daily existence.
Rosh Hashanah was proclaimed by the rabbis to be “Yom Harat Olam,”[3] colloquially, the day of the birth of the world. From the very first moment of Creation, God understood that as majestic and beautiful and awe-inspiring as the individual elements of the world might be, it would be all too easy for humanity to allow them to blend into the background and be taken for granted. From the outset, therefore, God attempted to mitigate against this, admonishing Adam, “Look at my works! See how beautiful they are — how excellent! For your sake I created them all. See to it that you do not spoil and destroy My world; for if you do, there will be no one else to repair it.”[4] Throughout the Torah, God continues to remind the Israelite community (and us, as their descendants who continue to study Torah and absorb its teachings into our daily lives) to acknowledge and appreciate that many of the gifts of this world are enjoyed not as the result of our own labors, but thanks to the efforts of others, as well. In the 19th century, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch wrote that one of the questions we’ll be asked by God when our time on earth is done and we stand before the Divine throne is, “Have you seen my Alps?”[5] In other words, Hirsch imagined that God wants us to heed the yellow lights in our lives in order that we might maintain an awareness of—and, by extension, a thankfulness for—everything around us.
Author and humorist AJ Jacobs determined that he wanted to be sure to be adequately thankful for the comforts he enjoys in his life. He recognized that when, for instance, he eats a tomato, hundreds of individuals have helped to shepherd it from seed to mature fruit, and to transport it from farm to grocery to his home. He set out to thank as many individuals as he could in the supply chains for the various goods and services he enjoyed during his daily routine. Ultimately, he determined that while he did indeed hope to feel—and express—gratitude for each of those things, he was casting too wide a net for his project to be practical. Instead, he decided to zero in on one item: his morning cup of coffee. He set out to thank the barista, the owner of the company, the coffee farmers, the truck drivers who deliver the beans, and so forth. In the book he wrote about the experience, Thanks a Thousand!, Jacobs chronicles how he spent about a year individually thanking more than one thousand individuals who each had a hand—some perhaps more indirectly than others—in getting his morning cup of joe into his hands. Though Jacobs created his book as a work of humor, there are some very poignant (and very Jewish) moments within his quest. Most of the people to whom he talks are unaccustomed to being thanked for their work; how many Americans are in the habit of directly and earnestly showing gratitude to service personnel such as grocery stock clerks or municipal water safety supervisors?
Jacobs notes that “humans are genetically programmed to pay attention to what goes wrong.”[6] It takes specific effort, therefore, for us to celebrate what is good and right in our lives. But Jacobs further reminds us that for gratitude to be effective, it “should be a two-way street. It should be helpful to both the thanker and the thankee. It’s not just a self-help tool, it should brighten other lives.”[7] It would be wonderful if we all entered this new year with a spirit of thankfulness and kindness toward others. Ideally, however, we would engage in such a practice not only to make ourselves feel good or to earn some “divine brownie points,” but because we truly wish to improve other people’s experiences.
As a side note, Jacobs notes that there is a certain amount of privilege in showing gratitude. Some of the people whom he thanked have very few options about how they make their livelihood, due to socioeconomic or geographic circumstances. Jacobs acknowledges that it is purely luck that positioned him as a consumer of coffee able to offer thanks to others, rather than a player at some other point on the supply chain.[8] It is good and important to offer thanks to those who do things for us; it is equally significant to recognize the bigger picture, and work for just wages and breadth of opportunity for all.
As much as this season is one of introspection, the shofar’s call stirs us to action and cautions us against turning fully inward. It reminds us that if we truly wish to engage in self-examination and be reflective about our past so that we can build a brighter future, we must open our eyes, minds, hands, and hearts to those who daily impact us—for good and for ill. In the words of the poet Gwendolyn Brooks, we are reminded that “we are each other’s harvest / we are each other’s business / we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”[9] Or, as the rabbis put it, “Kol Yisrael arevin zeh ba-zeh.—the lives of each member of the Jewish community are intertwined with one another.”[10] We are called to recognize the myriad ways that others touch and bless our lives, to appreciate that each individual whom we encounter is a significant strand in the tapestry of our society.
Judaism is a faith that emphasizes blessings; tradition holds that one should strive to say one hundred blessings every day. So it should come as no surprise that there is a wonderful blessing for when we see or experience something extraordinary, something that changes our mood and outlook for the better: Baruch Ata Adonai, Elohein Melech HaOlam, She-Kacha Lo B’olamo—Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe, Who has given us such things in this world.[11] Perhaps if we adopt a habit of trying to recite this blessing on a daily basis, our eyes will be more attuned to seeking out the unusual, beautiful, miraculous, or helpful things we regularly encounter. Perhaps it will heighten our sense of gratitude.
Yom Harat Olam, that nickname for Rosh Hashanah that I mentioned earlier, literally means, “The Day on Which the World is Pregnant.” This New Year 5781 that we now begin is indeed pregnant with a multitude of opportunities. How will we rise to the occasion? What story will we write for ourselves on this blank slate of a year that now lies before us?
May we each seek ways to embrace the many possibilities that present themselves to us. May we each experience and embody gratitude for all the beauty and goodness in our lives. May we each acknowledge that the yellow lights we encounter are there for a purpose, and may we learn to slow down for them, so we may better appreciate the world in which we live.
[1] “Reverend Jim, A Space Odyssey,” season 2, episode 3. Written by Glen Charles and Les Charles, originally aired September 25, 1979.
[2] Oft cited, but original source unknown
[3] In a liturgical poem for Rosh Hashanah that appears in the Machzor
[4] Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:13
[5] Another oft-retold tale whose origin is unclear.
[6] Jacobs, A.J. Thanks a Thousand: A Gratitude Journey (New York: TED Books, 2018), p. 5.
[7] Ibid, p. 33
[8] Ibid, p. 103
[9] Brooks, Gwendolyn. “Paul Robeson,” from Blacks (Third World Press, 1984)
[10] Babylonian Talmud, Shevuot 39a
[11] This blessing is attested to in the Babylonian Talmud, Berachot 58b
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