The anthem for this sermon was Mary Chapin Carpenter's Here I Am.
This is it. This is the big day, the last opportunity for atonement during this year’s Days of Awe. We will recite again the prayers we have been reciting through this season, and at the end of the day we will experience the N’ielah service—our last, desperate attempt to have our say, to plead for redemption and forgiveness, when we are weakened by hunger and thirst, and thereby opened up and made more vulnerable, more willing to humble ourselves.
Last night I spoke about how lonely it can be when you don’t feel good about yourself, how easy it can be to feel that you’re the only one with doubts, the only one with fears, the only one who lacks confidence. I also spoke about the fact that none of us is the only one who ever feels that way—most of us have felt inadequate at some times in our lives.
Some of you know that my favorite television show of all time is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is about a young woman in high school, then college, who is the one girl in all the world chosen to battle the forces of darkness—vampires, demons, and other monsters. I’m not going to go at length into the genius of the show, because I’d go on all day and we’d never get to the break-fast. Suffice it to say that it’s available on Netflix and on dvd if you want to check it out. One of the themes of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series is that first of all, the reason Buffy is the best slayer ever, more successful than those who came before her, is that she is not isolated—she has friends, a support system. At the same time, another theme is that ultimately, she is always alone when it comes to the life-or-death moments. In fact, we are all alone at those times.
One of the crucial elements of the Days of Awe is that while we must face our own past alone, and face God alone, right now we are all facing God alone at the same time, which means that we are alone together. Rather like Buffy and her friends, while we are ultimately alone with our past deeds and the decisions we make about how to remedy past wrongs, having friends and loved ones, having a support system, makes a huge difference.
That is one of the reasons to belong to a Jewish community. Not only do we come together on the Days of Awe to share the experience of atonement, but the community members are there for each other throughout the year, in celebration and in grief, as well as in regular, warm fellowship, when there is nothing in particular to celebrate or grieve.
On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, we read the story of the Akeidah, the Binding of Isaac. When God calls to Abraham, to tell him to sacrifice his son Isaac, God calls, “Abraham!” and Abraham answers, “Hineini.” Hineini is usually translated as “Here I am.” Sometimes it is translated as, “I am ready,” because that is its implication.
I remember when I was a child, at dinnertime my father would shout through the house to my siblings and me, “Heidi! Gordon! Brenda!” and I would shout back, “What?!” One time he got really angry and yelled at me, saying, “When I call you, you don’t say, ‘what,’ you say, ‘coming!’” From then on, when he called me, I’d say, “Coming!” and go downstairs. Responding “hineini” when someone calls is kind of like saying “coming” instead of “what?”
Abraham says “Hineini” to God three times in the Torah reading from the first day of Rosh Hashanah: The first I’ve already mentioned, when God first speaks to him to tell him to sacrifice Isaac. The second is when Isaac and Abraham are climbing the mountain, and Isaac speaks to ask about where the lamb is for the sacrifice. Isaac opens the conversation, “Father?” and Abraham answers, “Hineini, b’ni.” “I am here, my son.” The third is when the messenger of God stops Abraham from slaughtering Isaac at the last minute, calling out, “Avraham! Avraham!” and Abraham answers, “Hineini”—here I am. The word hineini also appears in our haftarah portion for this morning, from the book of Isaiah, in the context of God answering “hineini,” “here I am,” when we call out to God.
Each of these instances of “hineini” has different implications, though the meaning of the phrase itself doesn’t change.
In the first, when God addresses Abraham, Abraham’s response of “hineini” is that of a loyal follower, a servant or employee. It is an expression of profound trust. Abraham is saying, “I am here, and prepared to do your will, even though I don’t know what it is yet.” We see here the responsibility that exists on both sides of that trust. The follower or employee has taken on the responsibility of obeying any order that is given, no matter what it is. The one giving the order has the responsibility to give an order that will not harm the one taking the order. This applies in any relationship where there is an imbalance of power. The boss, the master, the leader has the opportunity to abuse their authority—the subordinate will do whatever they are told. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the one with more power not to give an order that will be too hard, or too painful, or just unrealistic. The one with more power in the relationship needs to deserve the trust being placed in him or her with that “Hineini,” that “Here I am, prepared to do anything you ask of me.”
The second “hineini” in the Akeidah, the story of the Binding of Isaac, is from father to son, and it’s very different. Isaac, wondering what exactly is going to be sacrificed (and perhaps having an idea about that), says, “Father?” and Abraham, who knows exactly what the sacrifice is to be, says, “Hineini, b’ni.” “I am here, my son.” This is such a poignant moment. While we say easily, “When God told him to sacrifice his son, he should have said, ‘no way!’” I absolutely believe that to Abraham, there was no choice here. This hineini is reminiscent of parenthood in general. Our children must navigate the minefields of friendship and growing up, their hearts being broken by friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, and all we can do is say, “I am here and I love you. I can’t take away your pain, but I am here.” Beyond parenthood, our friends and other loved ones experience loss, marriage troubles, serious illness, difficulties with their families, and all we can give them is, “I am here and I love you.” And for those in the worst situations, the ones most like Abraham’s, when a friend or loved one is facing a terminal illness, we have nothing to say but, “I am here. I love you, and I will be here with you until the end.”
The third hineini in the Akeidah comes when the messenger of God calls to Abraham at the moment he is about to slaughter his son, “Avraham! Avraham!” and Abraham says, “Hineini.” This hineini is about desperation. “Yes, I am here, I’ll do what you want, but for God’s sake, help me and tell me to do something that will help me and get me out of this situation.” This is the hineini that is a cry for help. It is the “here I am” of someone stuck in a miserable job, in an abusive relationship, in addiction, in poverty. It is the “here I am” of the invisible ones in our society, the ones waiting for someone to notice them, to say their name and hold out a helping hand, the ones who want to get out of where they are but can’t do it alone.
The fourth hineini, the one from our haftarah portion this morning, ties together all three of the instances of hineini in the Akeidah. Our haftarah portion, from the book of Isaiah, addresses the issue of fasting, and the fact that fasting alone—simply depriving our bodies of food and water but otherwise behaving no differently—is not what God wants of us. We read:
“They ask Me for the right way, they are eager for the nearness of God, [they say]: ‘Why, when we fasted, did You not see? When we starved our bodies, did You pay no heed?’ Because on your fast day you see to your business and oppress all your laborers! Because you fast in strife and contention, and you strike with a wicked fist! Your fasting today is not such as to make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast I desire, a day for people to starve their bodies?.... No, this is the fast I desire: to unlock fetters of wickedness, and untie the cords of the yoke to let the oppressed go free; to break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry, and to take the wretched poor into your home; when you see the naked, to clothe them, and do not ignore your own flesh…. Then, when you call, Adonai will answer; when you cry, [God] will say: ‘Hineini—Here I am’” (Isaiah 58:2–7, 9, translation: Machzor Lev Shalem).
Here we see the flip side of the first hineini from Abraham to God, from the submissive one in the relationship to the dominant one. Not only must the powerful one be worthy of the trust of having the other say “here I am, ready to do anything you say,” but the less powerful member of the relationship must also be worthy of the “here I am” of the powerful one. God will not respond to a people who just say the words of the confessions, who fast but do not make any effort to stop sinning, says our haftarah. If we call to God and want God to say, “Here I am, ready to be your support and your help,” we must do our part and recognize our failings and try to address them. This sounds like conditional love, and to an extent, it is. This is more applicable to an employer/employee relationship than to a parent/child relationship.
An employee who doesn’t deliver, or who keeps making the same mistakes over and over, does not earn the trust of the employer. Therefore, when that employee gets into trouble with a client or a colleague, their words or apologies will not earn them the support of their manager. Rather, it is the employee’s actions, changes to behavior and performance, that earn them unquestioning support from a good manager.
The hineini in our haftarah connects to the hineini from Abraham to Isaac on the mountain about the lamb for the sacrifice, and to the hineini from Abraham to the messenger who stops the knife, in what we are expected to do in order to merit a hineini from God. Essentially, God in our haftarah says, “You want me to be there for you? How were you there for other people? It is by your saying, ‘here I am, ready to support you, to help you, to be there for you’ to the people you encounter, that you become worthy of My saying ‘here I am, ready to support you, to help you, to be there for you,’ to you!”
Every time we hold a child or other loved one in their pain, prepared to just be there with them even if we can’t change anything, we become worthy of God’s being there for us. Every time we reach out a hand—through tzedakah, a job offer, mentorship and advice, or whatever we are capable of—to someone who desperately needs support and help to get out of a losing situation, we become worthy of God’s being there for us.
Now, I know that not everyone in this room believes that God is about quid pro quo, you do this and I’ll do that. I don’t even believe that. So what do I mean when I say that God will be there for us if we do these things: make sure we are employers or employees worthy of trust, support those we love whose situations we cannot change, and assist those we can help? What I mean is that when we cultivate these behaviors, and when we recognize that they are what God wants from us (whether God means tradition, some kind of supernatural being, or the ethical ideal we are trying to live up to), we will be more open to feeling God’s support, and recognizing that God’s support is what we are getting when we get a hineini, a “here I am,” from someone in our lives.
Because saying that God wants us to support and help others, and be worthy of their help and support, is just another way of saying that the reason we are here, in this world, is to make it better for our fellow human beings and ourselves, and that there is satisfaction in helping others, and that we each need support and love too.
As we pray today to be sealed for another year of life, to have another year to care for others and be cared for by them, may we recognize with gratitude all of those who have said, “Here I am,” to us in the past year, without placing any conditions on that willingness to help us. May we in the coming year increase our ability to say “Here I am,” to those we love, to our Jewish community, and to those in our society who need someone to notice them and help them. May we both receive and give support, as we are able. Most of all, may we realize that we are not alone, and may we help others realize that they are not alone. Amen and g’mar chatimah tovah—may you be sealed for a good life in the coming year.
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