Which Way Are You Going?
Rabbi Sam Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ
Kol Nidrei Eve Yom Kippur 5784
I have a t-shirt that was given to me by someone with a fine sense of humor, my wife. It reads “You can’t scare me; I have two daughters.”
I like wearing it for the great responses it elicits, the knowing comments from other parents of daughters. And while I can’t be scared—the shirt says so—I can be educated. This year, I have learned two great lessons from my daughters.
The first comes, perhaps improbably, from Ayelet Claire Cohon, the gift Sophie and I received from God in February, now seven and a half months old and the person everyone always wants to talk to right after services every Shabbat, and on festivals, too.
As a new father, doing this again after a little break, this year I’ve had the privilege of watching our daughter begin life and start learning how to do everything. As a Jewish child she is, of course, incredibly brilliant and precocious, naturally, but in one area she is still a little challenged. She is learning to crawl and working extremely hard at it. She tries desperately to reach objects in front of her.
But so far, the only thing that she has managed to do is to crawl backwards. That is, she lifts herself up on her hands, and then onto her knees or feet, rocks vigorously back and forth, but she can’t quite coordinate the effort, and as she struggles mightily she moves steadily backwards. No matter how hard she tries to go forward, she always ends up backing up. And then our little baby gets frustrated as the object or person she is trying to reach moves steadily away from her. Distressed at this turn of events, eventually she flops down and simply cries until we scooch her forward.
That is, she tries extremely hard to go forward but ends up, inevitably, going backwards.
I wonder if we are all just a little bit like Ayelet. We try very hard all year to become better people, to achieve improvement, but usually discover that our goal somehow keeps moving away from us, receding into the distance. And while we may not lie on the bed or floor and cry, we do, on Yom Kippur, come to shul and kvetch. For the sins we have committed by failing yet again to achieve our objectives…
I mean, the whole point of Teshuvah is that we are trying hard to get back to being the best person we can. And we know that we have spent at least some of the last 12 months—perhaps most of them—backsliding, going in reverse. Just when you think you are making progress you realize… not so much. Objects in your rear-view mirror may be closer than they appear… because you are actually backing up.
And that experience leads to the second piece of parentally-learned pedagogy this past period.
The second lesson comes from Ayelet’s older sister, my daughter Cipora, who is in her twenties now. She spent the summer traveling around Europe with a couple of friends, moving between and working on organic farms. The acronym is “WWOOF”ing, that is, “World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms”, or perhaps more simply, working on organic farms. Early in her summer peregrinations she was working on a farm in Norway and had an instructive experience.
As you may know I am a confirmed cycling addict, but much to my embarassment, I never taught Cece how to ride a bike; al cheit shechatati lifanecha shelo limaditi otah lirchov al ofanayim, for the sin I have committed by failing to properly educate my daughter… in bike riding. In any case, while working on this lovely organic farm, Cece became friendly with the farmers’ 8 year old daughter, Vilje, who took it upon herself to finally teach Cece how to ride a bicycle. Vilje was very serious about this instruction, and Cece began to make progress; soon Cipora would get a good start on the bicycle, but… then struggle and fall off. And so the 8 year old looked at her gravely, and gave her this advice: “You just have to act as though you are going to keep moving forward.”
Now that is great advice, not just for riding a bike but for life. “You just have to act as though you are going to keep moving forward.” That is, no matter what bumps there are in the road ahead—and there will be some—you adhere to your original plan, and act as though you are going to keep moving forward. And if you can do that you will keep on keeping on, and stay on the bike and ride!
I’ve thought a lot about those two quite different lessons. Now, these may seem to be diametrically opposed pieces of wisdom. Yet I believe they are actually complimentary. First, it’s simply true that no matter how hard we try in our own lives to go in a set direction we often find ourselves headed away from our objectives. In spite of that, our goals should remain firm, our resolution to continue towards what we know to be the right destination undiminished by challenges. Act as though you are going to keep moving forward, not backwards, and sooner or later you will indeed be able to ride that bike—or crawl forwards, or even walk forwards—and so reach your objective.
This is a lovely metaphor, or double metaphor, for this Day of Atonement. On Yom Kippur we first acknowledge the ways we have gone in reverse, and seek to return to the better course. And we do so knowing that if we simply direct our own hearts and minds towards living a better, more valuable life we will be able to do so. Start by admitting failures, be candid, but don’t give up or give in to distress or frustration; turn towards the right objective again, and go. It’s simple, but true.
Now both of these pieces of daughterly wisdom certainly apply to each of us individually, but they also apply to our remarkable congregation. This past year at Beit Simcha was, um, complicated. Just before the 5783 High Holy Days last year we were told we needed to move from our home of nearly three years on Ina Road, and that we had just thirty days to do it; we requested and received an additional 30 days, but that was it. After an urgent and exhaustive search, we discovered that there weren’t a lot of locations in the Northwest or the Foothills either available or appropriate to relocate a growing synagogue, and we managed to set up classrooms and offices on Oracle Road near River and, through the gracious hospitality of our friends at Church of the Apostles, we began holding services here last November. And of course, we also had to arrange storage in three different locations for our bimah, ark, Torah table, chairs, tables, library, bookcases, appliances, kitchen materials, holiday items, art, and so much more. Only through the extraordinary voluntarism of Beit Simcha’s members and leadership could so much have been accomplished so quickly, under Carol Schiffman-Durham’s organizing expertise and supervision. It was amazing.
We continued to conduct services, classes, and events all while preparing for this challenging move. And when we landed in our various locations, it turned out that we were OK, still upright, as it were. You just have to act as though you are going to keep moving forward, and forward you go.
And of course, we found what we thought was an excellent new home in the perfect location that was put up for sale the same day we received our eviction notice. We began serious negotiations on the property in October of 2023, nearly a year ago, and endured a complex process that appeared to be working its way towards a very positive conclusion. We agreed on a sales price in March and were told the owners wanted to turn over the building and property to us by June 30. At least, that was what they said. We worked hard to secure the material donations that would make it possible for us to have permanent home after four moves in less than five years, and received incredible support from you, our congregation and community. It was truly amazing and incredibly gratifying, and we assembled a significant and impressive building fund that allowed us to fund the remainder of the purchase while we continued to develop our resources.
We were so excited to be able to create the synagogue temple center that the Northwest of Tucson needs, to share the joy of Judaism from our new location. All by July 1st, right?
Unfortunately, after a huge effort by our side to complete the transaction, including agreements and inspections and financial and legal work and real estate efforts, the large out-of-state corporation that owned it simply changed its mind and decided not to sell the property, informing us of that dismal fact at the start of August, nearly a year after they listed it and four months after we had what we believed to be a solid agreement.
Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to reach your objective it seems to be getting farther away from you…
Now we here at Beit Simcha are a resilient congregation. We have been called “scrappy”, as a compliment, by a past landlord, and it applies. We have survived all those multiple moves, the COVID years, controversies over shutdowns and re-openings, conducting virtual services and blended ones, and, like our ancestors, being Wandering Jews in a very real sense. These beautiful services are our fourth High Holy Days together, now in our third location, not counting the Drive-In 2nd Night Rosh HaShanah Celebration we did outdoors on the Gaslight Theater Northwest’s stage a couple of years ago. Somehow, we have grown, both in membership and depth of programming and leadership and caring, through it all. Now that’s resilience.
How have we done that? Perhaps it’s as simple as my older daughter Cipora’s eight-year-old cycling instructor told her, “You just have to act as though you are going to keep moving forward.”
Or it might be that victory lies, for us, in refusing to admit defeat and succeeding in spite of it. Or, better, that we know that we can overcome obstacles so long as we continue to work together, remain focused on our goals, demonstrate the caring, respect and kindness that is essential for any real synagogue community, and dedicate ourselves to creating and participating in beautiful services, real Jewish learning for children and adults, and sharing the true joy and depth of Judaism. Our congregation is a true labor of love, and it must remain so to succeed. I promise that it will.
We are now working on purchasing land to build our own, new building, and have completed a comprehensive survey of what’s available in the Northwest. We expect to have some decisions soon and, as always, we will let you know exactly what we are doing.
On Yom Kippur we think and speak and sing about the Gates of Repentance, the sha’arei teshuvah, being opened for us to return to goodness and to God. In fact, the last Reform Movement Machzor before this prayer book was called Gates of Repentance. It’s true that we say that those gates are locked at the end of Ne’ilah tomorrow night, which literally means the locking of the gates. But the truth is that immediately after that happens, we have a prayer for repentance in all three weekday services. That is, the gates may close on last year—but they are wide open for us again in the new year.
Well, just as those gates of repentance are open now for us individually after the, um, lockdown, so the gates of opportunity are open, again, for Beit Simcha. We will walk through them—or crawl, or bicycle perhaps—this coming year of 5784.
Perhaps the best way of connecting these two disparate lessons is by remembering the middle lesson not incorporated in them. That lesson is described in words sent to me by Lee Kane, our wonderful Beit Simcha congregant from Cape Cod, and an indefatigable member of our fabulous Fundraising Committee. It comes from the greatest sports coach in history, the late UCLA basketball wizard John Wooden. He might have written this with us in mind: “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. I promise that will be true for our congregation. And, more directly, may this prove to be true for each of us personally over this Yom Kippur.
My friends, on this Kol Nidrei Eve, we each can do a great deal to improve our own lives and our relationships with others. We each have the capacity to move forward, and to do so in the spirit of Teshuvah, of return to the best that is within us. May you be blessed on this Day of Atonement with the strength and courage to move truly forward in your teshuvah, and in your life. Gmar Chatimah Tovah.