Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove
September 21, 2005

Every Rosh Hashanah, at some point during services, I ask people to introduce themselves to someone new. This year, I want to ask everyone to do so, but to do it in the following way. I want you to introduce yourself to the person sitting next to you, even if he or she is not someone new. But when you introduce yourself, I do not want to introduce yourself as who you are now. I want you to turn the person next to you and introduce yourself as the person you imagine and idealize yourself being five years from now. So, for instance, you may say, “Hi, my name is Bill, I am three years into my retirement, my kids are all in loving relationships, and I have just returned from fulfilling a lifelong dream of spending six months on a kibbutz. I just got back in time to run my fourth marathon!” Your introduction may be different: living to see a grandchild’s bar-mitzvah, celebrating a cure for childhood diabetes, or an eighth child. Go ahead! Introduce yourself to the person sitting next to you not as who you are but who you seek to be.

Now, I imagine that for many of you, the exercise was very exciting-an opportunity to “shoot the moon,” to dream a little. And I imagine that for many, it was also a jolt to your mortality. For some of us, our deepest yearning 5 years out may be just to be alive, or perhaps to be remembered well by our loved ones. For everyone, what I hope the exercise forced you to do was to think, to exercise the muscle of imagination that you may not draw upon with enough frequency. If you took the exercise seriously, then what you just did was to imagine a future reality, a set of circumstances that exists only in the potential, not in the actual. Personally or professionally, for a brief moment, you had to shift your focus of vision from the “now,” to an unrealized but idealized future. And that act, that act of projecting oneself into the unknown, is a very difficult thing to do because it involves taking a journey into the unfamiliar, of making an honest assessment of your present circumstances and of letting go of reality just long enough to consider landing elsewhere. And in that moment when you are neither attached to your present reality nor experiencing a future ideal, when we are in limbo, trapeze-like between the two, well, that is an altogether scary, thrilling and dangerous proposition.

Today is Rosh Hashanah, the day upon which the world was created. We arrive here together, as individuals, as a Jewish community, to check in with each other, with our souls and with our priorities. We reflect on the year gone by and commit ourselves between now and Yom Kippur to address those relationships that are in need of repair. The essential ingredient of the day is that of imagination, the ability to draw upon the creative capacity that lies within each of us, and we must project an ideal for the year ahead and map out the steps by which to actualize that ideal. It was today, says the midrash, the first of Tishrei, that the first person, Adam, was created. And each of us is called upon to stand like Adam in the garden, beholding a creation full of potential. Today, it is not just God to whom we ascribe the title of creator; rather, today we must also view ourselves as people blessed with the power of creation. We open our eyes and look both outward and inward to find that same spark of imagination that is the sign of all things divine.

This year, I want to suggest to you that, as Jews, our most basic religious reflex is that of imagination. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg has argued forcefully that the entire holiday cycle-Pesach, Sukkot, Shavuot and especially Shabbat- is linked by a common goal of envisioning future redemptive realities. Just consider the Torah readings of Rosh Hashanah: On the first day we read the story of Hagar, the handmaiden of Abraham and Sarah, and her woeful tale of being cast out with her son Ishmael to wander through the wilderness, running out of provisions and bereft of hope. And at the critical moment, just as all was lost, God calls out to her and tells her “to open her eyes,” and, sure enough, she does and she sees a well of water that she had not seen previously, which restores herself and her son to safety. On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, we will read the more famous story of Abraham and the binding of Isaac. Abraham journeys three days to Har Hamoriah with son and servants, and it is at the very moment with his son bound for slaughter, the knife in his hand, that his eyes are raised by God, and he sees an angel of the Lord. Isaac is saved, and Abraham becomes aware of the ram in the thicket – the eventual offering.

It was the great philosopher of the 20th century, Martin Buber, who understood that embedded within these narratives is a lexical clue to the prophetic character of our matriarchs and patriarchs. The Hebrew root “ra’ah” meaning “to see,” recurs with extraordinary frequency, a textual hint at the common thread linking these foundational narratives. At the critical moment, Abraham saw, Hagar saw, and the mountain was called Har Hamoriah “the mountain of seeing.” The rabbis of the midrash explain how, on the journey to Har Hamoriah, Abraham saw a great mountain in the distance surrounded in a pillar of fire and a cloud signaling the divine presence. He turned to his servants and asked them what they saw. They responded, saying that they saw nothing but wilderness and shrubbery. Buber makes the case that the essential ingredient to Abraham, and all future prophets, was the element of vision, the ability to see that which is obscured, invisible or unimaginable to everyone else. This is, of course, what makes Moses - Moses. At the burning bush, G-d infuses Moses with the ability to see a future for Israel. The defining element of Moses’ ministry, therefore, is his ability to cause the enslaved Israelites “to see” a radically new social reality. And it is this ability that becomes the ultimate test of Jewish religious leadership; that is, to enable others to see an alternative social reality. The great Biblicist of our day, Walter Brueggemann, defines the task of a prophetic ministry to “nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.” This is the prophetic imagination. This is what David pleads for with the words: “Gal Eynai V’Abita”- “Open my eyes that I may see” (Ps. 119:8). This is what distinguishes the visions of Amos, Isaiah, Micah and others. With a theo-political chutzpah, they insist on not only speaking to the condition of humanity but also anticipating a future reality. Isaiah genuinely sought the day when swords would be beaten into plowshares (2:4), and he strove for the day that the wolf would lie down with the lamb (11:6).

When the Pope visited Israel in March, 2000, he was taken around by Prime Minister Ehud Barak. They visited the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem and Ehud showed the Pope one cage in which a lion was lying with a young lamb that was snuggled up next to the lion. The Pope was amazed. "For 2000 years, we've prayed for signs of the messianic era and the prophecy that the lion will lie down next to the lamb. I see you must really be a man of peace. How did you do it?" Barak replied, "It's easy. Every night we switch the lamb!"

The ability to create and to actualize a prophetic vision is not only the test of prophets, of leaders, but a basic ingredient to a vital human soul. The imaginative faculty in Hebrew is called koach hamedammeh, from Hebrew word Dimayon. In a play on words that, oddly, works both in Hebrew and English, the great hassidic master Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav points to the verse describing the creation of humanity: “Let us make man in our image” – “kedemutenu” and repoints it say, “let us make man with an imagination.” To be human, then, is to imagine. To decline to do so is to reject what it means to be fully alive. Children are imbued with prophetic imaginations. What to adult eyes looks like a shoebox, looks, to a kid, like a house for dinosaurs, a bookcase for baby books, the first block in a tower, or a hat.

This morning, we need to imagine like children. We need to look at the relationships most dear to us, assess where they are, and imagine what they can be in the year ahead. It was Rabbi Joseph Soleveitchik who, in his classic work Halakhic Man, makes explicit the connection between the act of teshuva and the prophetic imagination. The spiritual heroics of these holidays will be found in those of us who are able to re-conceive the relationships dearest to us: the married couple who is able to focus not on the “he-said, she-said” of the past, but on the desired relationship of the future, or the siblings who are able to go beyond past pettiness and learn to visualize their friendship as adults. We all must learn to shift focus from the failures of the past to the possibilities of the future. It is not easy. I’ll always remember when I was hemming and hawing over getting married, and I was unable to insert myself into a future reality. And Debbie, to her credit, responded by wanting no part of my lack of vision. Well, right around this time of year, I saw her across a crowded street, having not seen her for quite some time, and two thoughts crossed my mind while I was watching her at a distance: The first thought was: “Elliot, you are an idiot!” The second was: “There goes my wife.” It was only at that moment that my eyes were opened, and I could see and imagine my future, a future that has ended up being vastly more wonderful than I could have ever imagined. Today, we all need to find it within ourselves to turn to a friend, to a spouse, to a daughter-in-law, to a step-son, to a colleague and to create a shared future vision. What an amazing Ten Days of Repentance this would be if everyone in the room committed to having three conversations in the coming week, with three different people, that began with the words: “Let’s imagine where our relationship could be in the year ahead” and then proceeded with a discussion over the next hour about how to get there.

Maimonidies, in his Guide to the Perplexed, identifies the three essential elements of prophecy: 1) The Rational faculty, 2) Imagination and 3) Courage. In other words, one needs to have the rational faculty to coolly assess a situation as it stands. Dreamers are wonderful, but a prophet is not a dreamer; rather, a prophet is someone who can take a cold hard look at a present circumstance, blemishes and all. The second component, the imagination, enables the prophet to be guided by a message of optimism; in essence, the prophetic career is a sustained argument against complacency. And finally, courage enables a true prophet to take a leap, to let go of one rung and jump towards the other. Our world, wrote Thomas Grey, is full of “mute inglorious Miltons.” Anyone can have a great idea, but one needs the courage and the commitment to make it happen. When, and only when, these three elements work within an individual, or a community, then, according to Maimonidies, one can pass from “potentiality to actuality” (Guide II 38).

In this day and age, we are uncomfortable talking about prophecy in the way that Maimonidies does. These days, people use fifty-cent management words like “Paradigm Shift,” but these are just different ways to describe the same thing. Truly creative activity only occurs when one cognitive pattern, one construction of reality, is shed in favor of a new one. If you want an example, think of Einstein who, exactly 100 years ago this month, sat in a patent office and published a three page supplement in a journal, giving the world e=mc2 and revolutionizing how we see time space, matter, energy – everything. Think of Eliezer BenYehuda who arrived in Palestine in March of 1881 when no one spoke Hebrew and went on to spearhead a revival of our ancient language. Think of Jonas Salk who, 50 years ago this year, announced a vaccine for Polio. An entire world changed with that discovery. The prophetic imagination is all around. If there is a religious impulse shared among our people, it is the assertion that tomorrow can be better than today, it is the fierce insistence on believing that what you see today need not be what you see tomorrow. It is not surprising that in Dante’s Inferno, the punishment for false prophets was that their heads were turned backwards. Indeed, the measure of a prophet is the one who thinks in terms of possibility and potentiality. To paraphrase Robert Kennedy, it is the difference between the person “who sees things as they are and says, “why?” and the person who dreams of things that never were and says, “Why not?”

I spend a lot of time thinking about Jews and Judaism, and I do stay up at night, or go jogging on the lakefront, wondering what are the steps, simple or otherwise, that begin with a “why not or a what if,” that hold the key to a dynamic future for Jewish life in our day. This past year, one of the great teachers of our time, Rabbi David Golinkin spoke at Anshe Emet, and he offered three case studies of American Jewish life: The visions of Mordecai Kaplan, Shlomo Carlebach and the Lubavitcher Rebbe?

Golinkin explained how “each of these great leaders was able to discern a serious problem in modern Jewish society, and each of them invented a completely new method to address that problem.” Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan invented the idea of a Synagogue Center in 1918. Kaplan understood that the old world model of small shtiebel (a Prayer house) would not be enough for Jews in America, and so he created the Jewish Center – “a shul with a pool and a school.” Today, we take for granted our synagogues with their basketball courts, social halls, day schools and religious schools, but in his time, Kaplan created something entirely new that met the conditions of American Jewry in his day. The Lubavitcher Rebbe succeeded because he invented an entirely new way to reach Jews beyond the synagogue. He knew that many Jews were not opting to enter Kaplan’s vision of synagogue life and through his thousands of shlichim (emissaries), video and television productions, he changed the way outreach is done, not just by Lubavitch but by everyone. Finally, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach invented a new type of hassidic music, not hazzanut but also not classical hassidic melodies. Carlebach correctly “identified the modern Jew’s need for spirituality and chose the guitar to connect to young Jews…Carlebach succeeded because he invented something which spoke to [and speaks to] an alienated and assimilated generation”(Golinkin: “Women’s League Outlook for Conservative Judaism 75.3, Spring 2005). Each one of these greats innovated. They were religious entrepreneurs who created new institutional structures for American Judaism. They each had the three key elements of prophecy: they possessed the rational faculty, they correctly assessed the character of American Jewry, they imagined an institutional structure to address it, and they had the courage to build it.

And so, on this Rosh Hashanah, let us turn to the question of our community: What is our vision, what are our what ifs? We need to generate, articulate and seek to realize the ideals that, right now, may be beyond our reach. That only happens through open communication, a healthy exchange of ideas, and yes, sometimes standing in the middle of the room with a few crazy ideas: Let me give you a few:

1) What if every Bar-Mitzvah family had to donate 3% of the cost of their celebratory meal to Mazon to help fight hunger?
2) What if the membership form at Anshe Emet asked for a commitment to take one
adult education class over the course of the year. Let’s create an incentive system, in which the cost of every class is deducted from next year’s membership dues?
3) What if the Jewish Community worked together to buy the Hotel Chateau across the street and turn it into affordable senior housing? It would provide much needed low cost housing and get rid of the low cost street drugs at the same time.
4) What if nobody parked in the Associate Rabbi’s parking place?
5) What if there was an Anshe Emet buddy system whereby every Anshe Emet senior was paired up with a family with young children?
6) What if we shifted graduating religious school students from 7th grade to 12th grade so there would be no mistaking when our and your commitment to Jewish education ends?
7) What if the North American Jewish Community dealt head on with the fact that we preach the value of day school education but have not yet made it financially accessible to every Jewish family who wants to offer it to their children? What if the nation’s Jewish day school system acknowledged the contradiction that we expect our teachers to be the very best, all the while ignoring the fact that they can get a more competitive salary elsewhere?
8) What if Anshe Emet put a percentage of membership dollars in an account to the point that every 7th year it would pay for a trip to Israel and, if you didn’t take the trip, the dollars were rolled out of your account and given directly to Israel?

I’ve got more “what if’s” than I know what to do with, and I am sure many of you do as well. Voltaire counseled to judge a man by his questions rather than his answers, and so too the measure of our community is found in the questions we dare to ask. There was one group of people at Anshe Emet who asked the simple question of “what if our community took social action as seriously as it took Jewish education and prayer?” And you know what! Their efforts are paying off in the shape of a culture shift that is yours to experience. Social action at Anshe Emet is now called Na’aseh – it means, “we will do.” It is a program of “doers,” translating Jewish values into deeds on poverty, hunger, domestic violence, health care and beyond. The programs we are supporting are, without exception, programs that are infused with people who dare to ask: “What if and Why Not.” Why not have Anshe Emet volunteers tutor students at Greeley Elementary across the street? Why not create an Anshe Emet Hannukah gift-giving program in which the purchase of the gifts itself goes to support TEK, a program designed to give low income women the vocational skills towards achieving self sufficiency and dignity? Why not groom volunteers for the city’s Earned Income Tax Credit program, so you or I can, in an afternoon, be trained to assist low income citizens to receive the tax credit which is rightfully theirs. There was no greater pleasure than the news last week that our Maot Chittim, our pre- Holiday food delivery effort, was over subscribed. When this community has a waiting list to participate in social action projects, something seriously right is happening.

This morning is Rosh Hashanah, and there is one shared task at hand. As individuals, as a Jewish community, and as a society, we are obligated to reach inwards in order to imagine the outward possibilities for the future. There is a story told of the number nine bus, which was, and still is, the bus that connected downtown Jerusalem up to Mount Scopus, the site of Hebrew University. In 1948, with the establishment of the state of Israel, the city was divided, and access from the city to Mount Scopus was interrupted and the number 9 bus ceased to run. Only 19 years later with the reunification of the city, following the war in 1967, did the bus continue its route. Shortly after the ‘67 war, an elderly woman boarded the bus on her way up to Mount Scopus and handed the bus driver a transfer, a ticket from an earlier bus ride. The driver took the transfer from the lady, looked at it, and saw that it was not just from a bus trip earlier in the day, but one dating 19 back years. The driver turned to the elderly woman and asked incredulously, “what is this? This ticket is nineteen years old!” The woman looked at the driver and smiled. She said that she knew very well what the date was on the ticket but that she had never lost hope. She had imagined this moment for nineteen years, and she would very much like to go to Mount Scopus if that was alright with him.

It is in our ability to imagine a future reality that we are measured as human beings, as Jews and as a community. This is the calling and challenge of Rosh Hashana: to open our eyes wide enough so that we can see not just what is before us, but imagine realities hitherto believed to be impossible.

Gal Eynai v’Abita: Open My Eyes and I will see. May it be so for us in this New Year.