Rosh Hashanah Morning – 2024

Turn your eyes

From the skies now

Turn around and look at me

There’s a light

In my eyes now

And a word for what you see

I was a boy soprano at 11 years old. For those not familiar, a soprano is the highest voice part in the world of singing.I knew that I loved to sing, and I just happened to be able to sing very high. I was also very into athletics, and these two worlds began to collide in a not-so-pleasant manner during these sensitive and tender years. There was a very nice community theater group up where I am from in the northern part of eastern New York, and they were putting on a production of the musical, “The Secret Garden.” There are not so many roles for 11 year-old boy sopranos in musical productions that I know of, but there was one in this production. I remember getting the music for the audition, buying the CD, and listening to the songs over and over in my little black boom box. The melodies were hauntingly beautiful, with soaring operatic themes, and just the right amount of heart. I listened to “Colin’s” songs. Colin was the name of the boy who I wanted to play. I eventually knew those songs like the back of my hand, I auditioned and… Upon hearing the news, “You got the part”you might as well have told me that Ed McMahon was at the door, and that the whole publisher’s clearinghouse thing was actually happening to me. 

Through all of the jubilation, there was one complication: The rehearsal schedule was fairly intense, and I would be out most school nights. I had to quit the football team. I had to quit the football team to play a boy soprano role in a musical. Let me be clear, there is absolutely NOTHING wrong or strange about that. There is nothing to be ashamed of in any form or fashion. The other boys in the late 1990’s did not agree with this notion. You could say it was a different time. You could also say that I took a lot of flack for this decision. I call it a spiritual decision. We all make them. It could have been worse, but I definitely was on the receiving end of some cutting comments. I just kept going and sang out more. When “The Secret Garden” was over, I quickly jumped into another musical production. I found this magical song that somehow touched me so deeply right before I was to turn 12, right before my voice was to change, and I would lose that boy soprano to time. I stood on a stage and sang a song called “New Words,” a scarcely-sung piece by Broadway actress Liz Callaway. I did this as I held a plastic baby swaddled to perfection in my arms, I took center stage and sang with all of my heart to this baby. I was teaching the baby “new words,” with the most difficult word being, “Love”. Let me continue to sing a bit more of it: 

We call it love, my son

Say “love”

So hard to say, my son

It gets harder

 

New words today

We’ll learn to say

Learn “moon”

Learn “stars”

Learn “love”

Years later, as a father, I returned to this moment on stage when both of my children were infants. I sang this song to them. It would be nice to say that it always comforted and put them to sleep, but I can’t make that claim. I later learned that the character who sings this song is named, “Avi,” Hebrew for “my father.” 

Rosh Hashanah and the High Holy Days reminded me of this song, of the experiences that led me to this song, and the experiences that allowed me to return to this song. The sweaty sports clothes that I temporarily abandoned, the pressing of play, rewind, and replay on an old boom box of songs, the rehearsals, the practice, the missing the mark, the hitting the mark. It was all part of an experience that is similar to our Jewish year, and the sounds of our shofar. We have our ups and our downs, our crescendos, and staccatos, our voices changing and in transition, or, as we discussed last night, those rare terrible moments when the music stops altogether. But again and again we sing “Hashiveinu Adonai Eiliechah v’Nashuvah, Chadeish yamienu k’kedem-Turn us back, turn us back, O LORD to You and we will turn, and we will turn. renew, renew our days as before.” We sing this verse from the Book of Lamentations during these days of awe. We return to the peak of our human drama during the High Holy Days. We come face-to-face with what makes us holy, with who we are and who we want to be spiritually. We make spiritual decisions. We decide whether to join the musical, or to stay on the football team. We weigh the options as we account for our souls.

The thing about returning to days as before…I don’t really want to go back, to return, certainly not to the tense middle school lunchroom the day after everyone found out that I made the spiritual decision to quit the football team and sing in the play. Sometimes we just want to return to moments, to feelings, to God’s melodies of memory. We use these days to navigate our way back to the purity of soul that God provides for us in so many ways. I had no idea what being a father was when I was holding a plastic baby and singing to it as a tween, but I knew that I felt something…something greater and holy that I was able to hold on to, and something that I am always able to return to. 

Speaking of Return, last Rosh Hashanah I shared with all of you about my wife Meghan’s brain illness, her autoimmune encephalitis that she was afflicted with before, during, and after, our son Cameron was born. I explained in some detail the horrific process that led to her comatose state, and the uncertainty I went through in terms of what the future would bring. This all led to a moment that I shared with the congregation about falling to the floor in the still quiet of a night alone while Meghan was hospitalized. I talked of being close to God in this moment of prostration and submission. This telling resonated with so many, and the drama of the story is certainly something that grabs the attention of most. What I didn’t get into last year, was PART II…watching as Meghan struggled to regain her ability to tell time, to write, to do simple math… seeing the frustration on her face and in her eyes as she struggled to count backwards, or to tell the neurologist during a follow up exam what time “ten of 2” was equal to. I have never mentally shouted 1:50 more loudly than at that appointment in particular. She was alive, but I wanted her to fully return. It just took time, patience, and love. It wasn’t perfect, and I had my own soul-searching, missing the mark, and returning to contend with.

Again, I remember the toy baby, the song, the simplicity of it all. I watched my adult wife learn “New Words” again, as if it were the first time. AVI, my parent in God held me and lifted me while I did my best to hold and lift her. When I was weak and felt I couldn’t do it anymore, I could look back and see myself as that 11-year-old, so confidently holding that swaddled child. Singing soprano…but so strong, so elevated. I returned there when I had to.

I do realize that I was also watching creation, creation as we heard chanted today. After the creations of each of the first five days, God says “ki tov,” it was good. On the 6th day, when we humans were created b’tzelem Elohom, in God’s image, “ki tov” is missing. This tells me that we are not fully created yet, we are still in the process. It’s not “it was good’ yet! Our Torah tells us much by sometimes leaving the words out. We have to always find New Words to continue on the path towards completion…toward Teshuvah, toward return to the source of creation.

I won’t stand up here today and tell you that the world is not painful. We spoke much about that pain last evening. Joyful Judaism, as we so often discuss, does not mean sugarcoating the hardships of the world. The Joyful Judaism that comes to a Crescendo Fortissimo on these High Holy Days is the Judaism that acknowledges the difficult path, the sleepless nights, the losses, and near misses. It acknowledges the liminal space between a boy soprano and a voice that is changing and has no idea what it is doing except for struggling to find a stable note. It is also the 20-something year old who returns to that uncertainty as he holds his actual swaddled newborn baby and hopes for a return to the family that keeps his voice strong. Joyful Judaism exists in the moments not just when we feel God, but also when we return to moments and realize that God was there. Hence our need for Cheshbon HaNefesh, our accounting for our souls on these days. We can find our moments of respite, of return, of God. Sometimes, even retroactively.

So, may we all be blessed on this Rosh Hashanah, this brand new year of 5785, to return again and again to the core of our souls, to find our moments of God to return to. To learn New Words. To find the moments worth returning to, and to create more and more moments that can be returned to in the future. Let us be blessed with the knowledge that the book of Life (Ha-Sefer Chayim) is not a book of affirmations, but one of real people and real life. We all began as that swaddled infant, and have all miraculously ended up here, this morning, together in the proverbial arms of God. Through it all, we have a chance to reset, to return, to renew. Just a few weeks ago, my son, who loves to sing, asked me if he was a tenor, if that was his voice type. I said, “maybe when you’re older. Right now, I think you might be a soprano.” I hope he can feel the power in that purity. I hope you all can.        

Shana Tovah u’Matukah

– Rabbi Josh Gray