Rosh Hashanah 5765 (2004):

When Life Tests You      

The Torah portions for today and tomorrow are filled with trouble and tension. After years of bareness, Sarah gives birth to a son in her old age. It is a happy time and she names him Yitzhak, laughter. But Isaac is mistreated by his older half brother Ishmael. Sarah demands that Abraham toss Hagar and Ishmael out of the camp for the sake of the family. With great distress he sends them away into the desert.  Abraham is then told he must pass a loyalty test by sacrificing the one son in whom all his hopes reside. He passes the test and God gives him an A, sending a ram at the last minute in Isaac's place. But the question lingers. Why was it necessary to subject Isaac to such a trauma?

What lessons reside in these troubling stories? The rabbis pay special attention to the verse,  "and after all these things God tested Abraham."  They say it's not surprising that these two stories are disquieting. They are the last in a total of ten trials faced by Abraham during his lifetime.   After he encounters God, he has to meet a higher standard of character than those around him. He has to move for his job as a new prophet to the land of Cannan.  He has to face painful adult circumcision. With Sarah he has to cope with distressing infertility problems.  He has to settle disputes with his neighbors about land and water rights. He has to stand up to social injustice in Sodom and Gemorrah. When he is captured by the regional Pharaoh he has to decide whether or not to lie, saying that Sarah is his sister in order to save his life. He has to practice Judaism as a very small minority religion with all the pressures to assimilate into the Cannanite culture. Finally, in today and tomorrow's portion he has to face severe family conflict and figure out what it means to be a loyal Jew.

Looking at this list, the rabbis began to think of their own trials and tribulations. They concluded, "There is no one whom the Holy One, Blessed be he does not test." Similarly, everyone sitting here knows what it is like to be tested in life. Throughout our lives, every day at every stage of life, we are tested. "Life's most important tests are not about what we know, but about who we are as human beings." wrote Rabbi Sidney Greenberg (Every Day Is Examination Day, Say Yes to Life, Crown Publications, 1982).

As husbands or wives or committed partners, we are tested.  In these relationships we share life daily in an intimate way. In them our sense of fairness is continuously tested. We are tested as parents and as children. When our children are young, our strength, our patience, our imagination are tested. When they are older, our ability to respect and let them go is tested.  When our parents are old, our love and loyalty are tested. When we grow older our courage and spiritual strength, are tested. "The lawyer consulting with his client is having his integrity tested. The teacher in the classroom all day is having her devotion tested.  The rabbi writing his sermon is having his honesty tested. When our neighbor is ill our kindness is tested. When we have been blessed our generosity is tested.  When we have been hurt our forgiveness is tested. When we have hurt others our humility is tested. Trouble tests our courage. Temptation tests our strength. Friendship tests our loyalty. Failure tests our perseverance. Success tests our gratitude."(Rabbi Sidney Greenberg).  The stories we read at this New Year are intended to reminds us, "Everyday is examination day."

One underlying test we face on a daily basis is the test of character. This test, the midrash teaches, came to Abraham as a young boy. One day Abraham smashed almost all of the idols in his father's idol shop. He put the club in the hand of the remaining big idol. When his father came home and asked him what happened he said, "the big idol got jealous and decided to smash all the smaller idols." His father said that was ridiculous. "The idols were just clay creations." Abraham asked his father why he made and sold them if they were false gods and could actually do nothing? Here was Abraham's first test and first spiritual teaching. According to Judaism, religion has at its core, living by good character and integrity. To follow in the faith of Abraham is to say that character counts. It's to say that it matters how we respond to life's daily challenges to our goodness, our kindness, our righteousness, our honesty, our fairness, our generosity, our loyalty and our compassion, our humility. It matters to God. The holiday prayer book says that we open during the Ten Days of  Repentance, the Book of Life ; which we ourselves have been writing with our own hand. How we respond to daily tests of character in a sense is what we mean when we poetically speak of this Book of Life. It is what constitutes our permanent record. Our permanent record is not about whether or not we get into a future heaven after death. It is a record of how we have done in this life with what really matters, life's daily character tests. Have we led a life that is worthy of God's eternal blessing?

"To look upon life as a continuous character test means to bring to it at every time the finest of which we are capable. It means, to always keep ourselves in top moral condition. It means to realize the enormous possibilities for good or for ill inherent in each situation regardless of how unspectacular it may appear." (Rabbi Sidney Greenberg). How do we keep ourselves in top moral condition each day? It is by remembering that each of us has a spark of God in us at the center of our being. We are made in the Divine Image.  It is our destiny to be concerned with a life of good character. As the Bible says, we are unique in creation in that we can know good from evil.  One of the most beautiful passages in the story of Abraham's life describes this dawning consciousness.

As a young man he is known as Av Ram. This means, "I am an important patriarch." When he accepts the path of including God in everything he does, his name is changed from Avram to Avraham. The letter hey is an abbreviation for God's name. It is added in the middle of his name, so Av ram became Avraham. He is no longer just an important patriarch.  His name now means he is a patriarch who is important because God is in the middle of his life.   God is in the middle, at the core, in the center of his name, of his life as a human being.

We read these sections of the Torah at the New Year, to remind ourselves in this season that we are the Children of Abraham. Everyday we choose our higher or lower character. We use our words to hurt or heal. We treat others with compassion or contempt. We are straightforward or we deceive. The midrash tells us that each time Abraham faced one of his ten tests, he began by answer God, Hineni-I am aware. One of the best things we can do is just become aware as Abraham was: aware what part of our character is being put to the test. Aware that made in the image of God we have a higher as well as a lower choice. Aware that our choice is daily making a permanent record as to the worthiness of our life.  With this awareness we will pass those character tests and be true Children of Abraham. 

One of Abraham's ten trials had to do with the tribulations of family. In today's story we see a very ugly situation. Abraham is in kind of a blended family. He is being pulled in several directions. He has the love of his first son Ishmael and his concubine Hagar. He has the love of his wife Rebecca and his favorite child Isaac. There is intense conflict between these two branches of his family. Like most of us in family conflict situations, he was deeply pained. He has a vision of what the relations should be but it's hard to make it come out with his actual family members. Something has to give. He feels guilty no matter which way he goes. He prays to God for advice. He ends up sending Hagar and Ishmael away but with a blessing and protection by God.

What does it mean that he prayed to God? I think when we sincerely pray to God we try to see things through God's eyes. It means, we would like God listen to each person's needs and story. It means like God we would weigh both justice and mercy, fairness and compassion, keeping them in balance. We would, seeing through God's eyes, try to see what values we would want to act on, not from guilt or remorse but from respect and caring both for ourselves and for others. 

All of us face not only tests of the character but also tests of the heart. I know as your rabbi that there is hardly a family here that does not have some kind of family trials in one way or another,   including my own. Recently a member of the Temple had a very difficult problem. She was invited, by her niece to her wedding. However, her brother, the father of the bride, was not going to be invited. It turns out that the father had after a divorce not been too good to his daughter and she didn't want to invite him. In the meantime the grandparents of the bride were enraged that their son, the bride's father was not invited to his own daughter's wedding. They contacted our member, their daughter. They said she and no one else from the family should go, if the bride's father was not invited. Yes it was quite a mess and probably you can give your own family's story with similar tension and complexity.     

What did our Temple member do? She called her parents and said she would go to the wedding based upon her relationship with the bride. She then called the bride. Without pressure or guilt, she explored with her niece if this was the best course of action. Her niece decided she did want her father at her wedding. Life is long. It would be taking the high road and a step in working on her relationship with him over time.  In family tests and trials there are no certain answers. Our member said that if her niece didn't want to invite her dad because she wasn't ready for that step, she would have gone to her nieces wedding anyway, to her parents dismay. What Abraham's trials and this story teach us is that we all face tests of the heart in one way or another. Sometimes it is with family and other times with friends. Often times we cannot resolve all of a conflict. What we can do as Abraham did is to pray on it, to rise to our higher selves and come up with the bests solution possible from that place of spiritual and emotional integrity.  We can try to see through God's eyes. We can write in our permanent record that we were fair, that we balanced justice and mercy; that we strove in to act in a manner worthy of God's blessing.

We have looked at trials of character and trials of the heart. Among Abraham's ten trials were also those of the spirit. Nothing tests our spirit like pain and suffering, physically and emotionally. There is physical illness. There is loss of a loved one. There is the sorrow of loosing a friend. There is set back or loss in our jobs. But Abraham is told to lead a life of blessing. I think this means seeing the blessings in all of life and trying to be a blessing in whatever life brings us.

Recently I read a story a man who visited his mother in Florida. He went out one night with her and her friends for dinner. They started talking and one said she could hardly see because of her cataracts. Another said she could hardly turn her head because of her arthritis. A third said her arms were so weak she could hardly lift them. At which point his mothers added, "At least girls we can all still drive."

Looking for blessings in our loss or illness is the way to face our trials as the Children of Abraham. One strain of rabbinic thought says that God tested Abraham to further his character and spiritual development. Every trial was given by God to help bring about Abraham's potential. Thus, all of life's challenges are character building exercises. I don't really believe God sends us our trials  to help us build our character. But I do believe it is one way we can help surmount them. In his own way, my Dad subscribed to this philosophy. For instance there was the time I lost the student council election. I can remember my Dad saying, "Rick experience is a good teacher if it doesn't kill you." I don't think my Dad meant that God specifically arranged for me to lose that race. He was a lawyer who knew that someone most of the time would win and someone else lose. I believe he thought that the loss could teach me about taking my turn at losing. He felt that learning to loose with grace was an important part of living through life's tests of the spirit.

Last year at this time, I was in quite a bit of physical pain. Actually I was in excruciating pain. It was so great that much to my sadness, I had to miss leading the High Holiday services. One thing that I learned during my ordeal was how to receive. I am by nature a giver. As you know I really love being a rabbi and I find great satisfaction in giving to you my congregation. At first I was quite withdrawn. But one of my close friends who is a member of the congregation, said, "let us do something for you, you always say it's good to give people the opportunity to perform a mitzvah." So I started to let people keep me company, read books to me, go for as much of a walk as I could take.  While I would not have asked for my infirmity and it's pain, I did find a blessing in the expansion of my character, in learning how to receive and appreciate the care of others.  Divorce, illness, death of a loved one, loss of a job, the moving away of a friend these are some of the central trials of the spirit. Being aware of the blessings of growth that hardship and suffering can bring is an important way to surmount the tests that suffering brings.

Many of you know that my wife Nancy is now undergoing chemotherapy for colon cancer. Between both of our illnesses this year, you can see why the theme of Abraham's Ten Tests would be on my mind. But Nancy also has had a spiritual perspective of finding life's blessings in the midst of life's difficulties. She has been enveloped with love by the Temple community as well as her friends and colleagues at Harbor High School, and in the wider community.  She has also experienced the blessings of those who would not have come so much into her life if she did not have this illness. One example is the nurse in our neighborhood whom we would say hello to when we passed each other on the street. This neighbor now helps Nancy with her immune system boosting shots. Nancy has enjoyed the blessings of the growing friendship that has developed after all these years of being neighbors due to these circumstances.    

Many of you saw the movie or read the book Sea biscuit. It tells the tale of an unlikely union of a horse owner, jockey, trainer and horse---all of whom are plagued with problems.  The owner has lost a son in an accident. The trainer is over the hill. The jockey has been abandoned by his family and has been a failure as a jockey up to this point in his life. The horse has poor confirmation to be a racing horse and a difficult temperament. The book describes how each was healed by his trying to help the other.  What is especially moving is the story of the author of the book, Barbara Hildebrand. A fine athlete and accomplished rider, she suffered in college the onset of chronic fatigue syndrome. She started researching the story from the confinement of her bed. Most of her research was done on the telephone. At times, she was so weak that her friend had to rig a writing table above her bed. She could only reach up and write for brief amounts of time. She found meaning in going beyond her illness to tell this uplifting tale. To me the story of Sea biscuit, both of its main story, and of the life of it's author shows another aspect of facing the tests of the spirit that come from illness or loss of a loved one. Abraham is told to be a blessing. Being a blessing to others, in whatever way we can helps us surmount life's trials of the spirit that come from pain and loss.

Sometimes life can nearly crush us."In James Agee's powerful novel, A Death In The Family, a father tries to comfort his daughter whose husband was killed in an auto accident. Her father says, 'It's a kind of test, Mary, and its the only kind that amounts to anything. When something rotten like this happens, then you have your choice. You start to really be alive or you start to die.'"(Rabbi Sidney Greenberg).  Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav said there are three ways to surmount adversity. You can reach in, reach out, or reach up. You can change you inward view and try to see the blessings in the situation. You can reach outward and try to be blessing to others. Sometimes you have to reach upward for strength and courage to hold on, when life seems to have lost all blessings.

The Ten Tests of Abraham remind us we are all tested, every day. There are the tests of character, the tests of the heart, and the tests of the spirit. When facing the tests of character let us remember that we are made in the Divine Image, capable of living by good character. We are often ruled by our lower impulses towards vanity and selfishness. Let us remember that we are writing ourselves in the book of life. Today let us remember as the children of Abraham, that acts of good character create a life that matters and a permanent record that will have God's eternal blessing.

Like Abraham we face tests of the heart. We pass those tests when we pray to God for help and insight, when we open ourselves to seeing through the eyes of God. When we face a conflict or matter of the heart in the coming year, let us bring God's eyes to it. Let us bring both justice and mercy. Without controlling others, let us try to act on the best of values. Like Abraham, seeing through God's eyes let us not strive for perfection but to bring holiness to a test of the heart. 

Finally we will face in the coming year tests of the spirit.  Illness and loss, physical and psychological pain, test us sorely. Like Abraham, let us bring God's blessings to pass the test of suffering. Let us see the hidden blessings in our distress. Let us  become a blessing in our distress. When all else seems lost let us  turn to the source of blessing for strength and comfort in our distress. May the wisdom of our tradition help you in your tests of character, heart and spirit.  May following Abraham's example help you bring you holiness, healing and hope to all of life's trials.

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