Alignment and Eclipse: Seven Lunar Lessons Rosh Hashanah Morning 5777
Rabbi Jamie Arnold Congregation Beth Evergreen
“Alignment and Eclipse:
Seven Lunar Lessons for Life in 5777”
It looks difficult to blow the shofar, to give it sound. I assure you, hearing it is harder. And that’s the mitzvah, Lishmo’ahkol shofar, to hear the shofar’s voice. It’s harder to let it in, than to push it out.
Why is giving easier than receiving?
Make a meal for a mourner: “No problem. I’d love to.”
Accept the gift as a mourner? “No thanks, we’re fine.”
Offer a compliment to a loved one? Gladly.
Receive a compliment? Or brush it off? “Oh, it’s no big deal.”
Why in the economy of giving and receiving, is there a trade deficit, an imbalance of power? Why are the givers, like the quarterbacks in football,more protected and glorified, while the receiversare constantly subjected to interference and punishing hits? “Wide receiver.” “Tight end.” Even the names sound like insults (synonyms for ‘promiscuous’ and ‘uptight’). Meanwhile, the “Quarterback,” trained to give the ball away, puts his quarter in the machine and gets back a prize. And the guy that gives him the ball, is the “center.” And the one who gives him the ball, the one with the whistle, he’s the “official.”Center, or wide receiver? Quarterback, or tight end? Bonafide official or a mere player? Our football lingo clearly has a cultural bias for the giver. Though one cannot exist without the other, we prefer giving to receiving. And this is not new.
The Torah readings selected for today and tomorrow highlight this bias and its potentially tragic consequences. Hagar receives a huge promotion, and then nearly loses everything. Sarah receives an heir, then demands that Hagar and Ishmael be banished. God fulfills the promise of a child born to an aging couple, but after the laughter comes bewilderment and tears when the father is called to sacrifice (to give away and take away) that very life. WTF. What’s The Fun …in that!
Let’s review the back story. Maybe that will help.
Sarah asks Hagar for a favor, to bear a child in her name. Asking someone to be a surrogate mother is no small request. So, in exchange, Hagar’s status will change from slave to concubine, or even wife. Sarah and Abrahamget a child. Hagar gets her freedom. Seems like a win-win. But something goes horribly wrong. Animosity sets in. Why?
Many attribute it to jealousy. Sarah, childless for decades, is jealous that Hagar isable to provide what she could not. But this explanation belies what we know of Sarah’s character so far. And remember, the arrangement is her idea. It also overlooks the text itself. Once Hagar gives birth to Ishmael, it is written that Sarah, her mistress “became despised in her eyes–Va’teiqalg’virtahb’eineh’ha” (Gen 16:4). Her strength, her status, the respect she commanded was diminished. Va’teiqal,Qal means light, belittled, the opposite of cavod, substantial, honored. Hagar, recipient of honor, status, and seed, took these gifts and threw them back in her mistress’ face.
Why? Hadn’t Sarah been the one who granted her the privileges of motherhood, security, even a place in Sarah’s husband’s bed! The sages suggest that the best way to earn honor, cavod is to extend it to others (PirkeiAvot). Isn’t that exactly what Sarah did!? So why did it backfire!?
My teacher and friend, Rabbi VivieMayer has a theory: We humans are wired to associate receiving as disempowerment, a threat to our sense of independence and security. In this example, the irony is particularly tragic given that the gift being offered is exactly that, the independence and security that comes with her change of status – fromservant to mother of the patriarch’s only son.
Now, lest we (and Torah) be accused of gross bias against people of color, refuges, or immigrants, (Hagar was all three), Sarah seems to be wired the same way. She too feels diminished as a recipient of a gift. Hagar gave Sarah an heir, the son God had promised but hadn’t yet delivered. Sarah received exactly what she requested,and she is anything but grateful and gracious!
The exchange, the surrogacy, changes the power dynamic and neither adjusts well to the shift. Rather than celebrating their mutual gains, each one goes out of her way to put the other in her place. Viviesuggests that it has do to with the politics of giving and receiving. When we give, we internalize a sense of power and entitlement, cavod. When we receive, we feel disempowered, less than, qal. I think she’s right. There’s evidence all around. In family life, we experience it and witness it as partners, and parents. It effects our politics too. But, does it have to be so? Is there another way?
Let’s look to the heavens for perspective. The characters in this next story are the sun, the moon and the earth. The sun is the giver, providing the conditions and ingredients for new life. Earth is the womb, and garden in which that life can rise and thrive while orbit the sun. And moon, she dispelsnighttime fears as a kind of surrogate, reflecting the light of the sun at night. This solar, planetary, lunar system, it seems to be working out.
In the Sarah, Hagar and Abraham triad, though,just when it seems that their interests align, someone feels eclipsed and acts out. Why? Here’s why: Because no one is willing tobe the moon, to simply receive and share the light(or seed) offered by another. No one’s willing to just be the surrogate.
Let’s take a closer look at this moon, whose renewed cycle the shofar was designed to announce. What’s her story? In Genesis, after days one, two and three, the elements for new life are all in place: light/energy, an atmosphere or firmament in the skies to keep the vast seas of space at bay, …and there’s a bay, waters gathered together to make space for dry land and juicy fruits. As I read to you the description of day four, listen for the hiccup.
“And God says, ‘let there be lights in the heavenly firmament…
to serve as signs [otot] for special occasions, for days and years…and to enlighten the earth. And God made two great lights– onegreat light to be a mashal[a ruler, or an example] for the daytime, and thelesser one to be a mashal for the night, with the stars. …And God saw that it was good.” (Gen. 1:14-19)
Did you catch the hiccup, or did it pass you by? That’s right! How did“two great lights” become “one great” and “lesser?” As the sages wonder: Why did the moon get demoted? According to midrash, when told of God’s plan to have two great, ruling lights in the heavens, the moon, unwilling to share the status asked rhetorically, “Can a kingdom be ruled by two kings!” God responded to that by demoting the moon to be ‘a lesser light to rule the night.’ Apparently it’s not just humans like Sarah and Hagar that fear eclipse. Even the celestial lights struggled at first with sharing the spotlight.[1]
In a close reading of day four, our sages invite us to imagine that this inequity, the diminishment of the receiver, is NOT how it was meant to be? Only in our insecure imagination does alignment imply eclipse. Tradition asserts, that in the time to come, the moon’s rightful place in the heavens as a ‘great light’ will be restored, and the great shofar will sound. And until then, as a reminder for us all, she can be seen in the skies day and night.
The moon, its fall from greatness(and promise of return), reflects human experience,mirroring our sense of exileand alienation and the waning and waxing hopes of being great again.[2] She mirrors the journey ofthe people of Israel in exile, subjected to the rule of other nations, longing for homecoming. The moon is a symbol of the unconscious glimpsed in dreams (and the heat of contentious elections); she’s a symbol of women, and the feminineside of all of us that Western civilization placed in a subservient role. The moon reflects the experience of the second-class citizen –immigrant, refugee, Jew, dreamer, woman, …and God, Shechinah, the feminine receptive side of divinity that went into exile with Israel since the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.
So, assuming that the moon has learned her lesson, the lesson of millennia of exile, what can we learn from her? How can she help us restore the balance in the equation, so that both Hagar and Sarah, Gentile and Jew, siblings, sons and daughters, can enjoy the honor they deserve as two great lights?
What follows is a meditation of sorts, seeking seven lunar lessons for 5777. I’ve organized them to align with my message last year, about tapping and fine tuning each of our senses. What can we learn though them from the moon?
1)SENSE OF HEARING: Sound requires something quite rare in space, an atmosphere. On the surface of the moon there is no audible sound because it has none. Our relationship with the moon is wordless, and wondrous. Let us invite more silence into our lives. It can be likened to a ‘firmament in the heavens’ that allows the waters below to reflect the waters above and for life (and love) to thrive in between. “When the great shofar is sounded, the subtle sound of silence is heard.”
2)SENSE OF SMELL: There may be no sound on the surface of the moon, but there is a smell, like spent gunpowder,described by astronauts. Why? For millennia, asteroids have hammered the surface of the moon, smashing rocks and molecules, leaving them with “dangling bonds.” These well-preserved particles combine with the water molecules and follicles in the human nose to create the smell of recent fusion, or a smoking gun. The consequences of violent clashes are long lasting. The ‘dangling bonds’ left in their wake, real and metaphoric, can be healed, made whole with a breath in through the nostrils. First, just breathe. Inhale, receive, and heal. Then, get nosey, sniff the broken bits of ages past. Are we learning from our mistakes or leaving a stink for others to clean up?
3)SENSE OF SIGHT: Since the moon’s axel rotation is synched exactly with its orbital pace around the earth (mahnorah! How amazing is that!?), from here we can only ever see one side of it. Even when the moon is “full,” at least half of it is hidden from our point of view. Let’s remember that no matter the situation, we can only ever see (at most!) half the story. This awareness should make us curious about what we do not know, the “other side of the story.” We ‘walk humbly’ when we infuse our vision with curiosity.
4)SENSE OF TOUCH: With no atmosphere, the temperature on the moon’s surface varies drastically, from -250°to over 200°F. The nearly 500° swing between extreme hot and cold happens in mere moments. It puts even the most erratic human temperament in perspective. Consider how the slightest variations in temperature impact our ability to function. Reconsider the culturalbias that hot is attractive and cold is distant. We skiers and boarders of Colorado know better. It’s the ability to close the gap between those mercurial extremes that sustains life,honoring the heat of passion and the cool clarity of reason. With the seasonal temperature dropping outside, let’s remember to add layers ofconnection as we add layers of clothing.
5)SENSE OF TASTE AND APPETITE: Sometimes that which we strive for is just a reflection of what we truly desire. And sometimes, it’s merely a reflection of a reflection. In folktales from around the world we can find stories of simpletons mistaking the reflection of the moon in water for the moon itself, or even for a wheel of cheese. The “wise” men of Chelmtried to capture the moon in a barrel of water. And in a fable related by Rashi, Fox convincesWolf to climb down into a well to fetch the wheel of cheese at the bottom. How often are we, like the wolf, lured into a near empty wells by an appetite seduced bythe reflection of a reflection? May the cycles of the moon remind us to stop chasing mirage-like reflections of what we truly need.
Two more senses.
6)SENSE OF SELF, ECLIPSED: We exert more influence upon our surroundings than we can see or know, even at great distances. Day or night, the moon’s gravitational impact on the ocean watersis measurable. Furthermore, though it’s unseen and even harder to measure, the pull of the moon is even greater on land, and its inhabitants. Like the moon, each of us is a gravitational force, constantly exerting its influence on the world around us, near and far. As we honor the moon, and the gravitas of others in our orbit, let us likewise honor our inherent power and the unique and indispensable ways that we each reflect a great light.
7)SENSE OF SELF,EXAGERATED: The light of the moon can be brilliant and beautiful, and literally make all the difference in the world. And, the light it has to offer is borrowed. The moon is not the source of the light it shares. Is this not true of us as well? As we shine our light, individually and collectively, let us acknowledge that it’s all reflected light. And sometimes, when skies are dark, when we want to have an impact, all we have to do (and perhaps all we can do) is to reflect the light of another.
I’m not sure why it’s so hard to receive. Why we find it so challenging – to simply receive rather than take; to receive without feeling diminished; to receive with grace and gratitude; to receiveandretain our sense of self-worth, power and honor. But it is hard. Just as it’s hard for so many of us to appreciate the support of our government, or accept the support of this congregation’s mitzvah committee. And perhaps it contributes to our resistance to fully embracing a God that gives, and forgives, everything. Something in us is uncomfortable with a reminder that all we have, all we are, is on loan. If we have what to give, it’s because we have received. Whether wide or tight ended, we are all receivers.
Perhaps, if we can engage one another, this community, this world, this election,this year, tuning-in with all our God-given senses, we can be receptive to these truthsand live these moon-inspired lessons into the new year:
1)Listen. Receive the power ofsilence.
2)Inhale and receive lessons from ancient aromas.
3)Accept the limits of our vision, and respond with curiosity.
4)Create an atmosphere that allows extremes to touch.
5)Guide our appetite for connection from mere reflection to their true source.
6&7) Hold both truths as self-evident: that each of us is indispensable andinfluential beyond measure, AND thatwhat we can offer is borrowed.
Alignment doesn’t have to mean eclipse. The more graciously we can receive the warmlight gifted to us, the brighter we will shine. We can do with light what the shofar does with the breath blown into it, amplifying its impact, broadening its spectrum, making prayerful music out of thin air. This year I invite you to join me in practicing the art (and the harnessing the power)of receiving. Ask any quarterback. Ask Sarah and Hagar. Just ask the moon. It’ll be worth the effort.
L’shanahTovah.
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[1] There are consequences for this as well. The fourth day, though declared “good,” becomes the only one of the remaining days of the first week in which the creations are not blessed with an encouragement to “be fruitful and multiply.”
[2] An intentional allusion to the current campaign slogan, “Make American great again.”