One of the lesser known benefits of being a rabbi or cantor is the extraordinary 'High Holiday' view from the Bima. As congregational presidents and choir members know, seeing our congregation fully amassed is awesome. In a world in which we are so often in the minority, the sight of so many Jews is breathtaking and inspiring.

 

And yet, at other times, this Bima hosts more intimate moments, like those celebrating life cycle passages. As a rabbi, it is a privilege to share the joy of baby namings, the private anguish at funerals, the k'velling at b'nei mitzvah, and, particularly, the air of expectation at weddings.

 

Weddings center on the expectations of bride and groom. Couples often set forth these expectations in a Ketubah, or marriage contract, expressing their hope for a mutually supportive relationship, a home built on Jewish values and rituals, a community of friends with whom to share life's passages, and the growth that makes marriage an enduring institution.

 

As bride and groom exchange vows, assembled family and friends tend to be contemplative. Some are reflective, caught up in memories of weddings past; others are wistful, for their own marriages may have ended through dissolution or death; and some are hopeful, planning the wedding they someday hope to celebrate.

 

No matter what they're thinking, their meditations are cut short by the breaking of a glass, a traditional reference to the destruction of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem. According to the Talmud, the broken glass serves a signal purpose: to remind us that even at the moment of our greatest joy, happiness is tinged with sadness. And indeed, even as the glass shatters, we know that not all of the couple's expectations will be met; in the fullness of time, some will remain unfulfIlled.

 

Given the contemplative mood, it's easy to see why the Talmud refers to weddings as a Yom Kippur Katan, a little Yom Kippur: both occasions inspire us to review our expectations.

 

On these high holy days, what are our expectations? Ideally? Of friends, we expect trust, friendship, and empathy. Of parents, we expect wisdom. Of children, we expect obedience. Of ourselves, we expect honesty and integrity. Of life, we expect health and happiness, opportunity and prosperity, equity and justice.

 

We learn fairly quickly that life doesn’t always work that way. All too often we are disappointed. Friends let us down, family is ... well, family; we don't always live up to our own expectations, and even the most blessed life can have moments capricious and cruel, at times calling to mind the Yiddish proverb: we make plans and God laughs.

 

At this season, our tradition urges us to confront our disappointments and even provides a ritualistic remedy. For the times we let ourselves or others down, we apologize to those we've disappointed, seek forgiveness from those we've held to unreasonable standards, and resolve to live up to our own expectations.

 

But what about when life lets us down? Not the trivial setbacks like having our playoff dreams for the Brewers evaporate almost instantly, (though some might argue that after 26 years of waiting, this was anything but trivial); or even the weightier disappointments like failing to gain admission to a college of one's choice. I mean the disappointments that consume us; major setbacks and tragedies that distance us from the path of life we thought we were on, that make us realize our lives aren't turning out the way we planned.

 

These disappointments require special High Holy Day attention. We begin by examining some examples from the places where disappointments originate, like where we work.

 

Work is often a place of unmet expectations. So it was even for our forbears who set out from Europe expecting the streets of America to be paved with gold. As the story goes, they arrived to find the streets weren't paved with gold. In fact, the streets weren't even paved. What's more, they discovered that they were the ones expected to do the paving! (as told by humorist Sam Levenson)

 

Even so, for them America was a land of tremendous opportunity. Their children were able to attend college and achieve material success. But for my generation, the last of the baby boomers, the job market has changed. No longer can we expect secure careers offering steady advancement and a rising standard of living. No longer does education guarantee satisfying work. In fact, given the pace of change, there's no guarantee that our skills will continue to be relevant. I think of a friend who studied Soviet Economics whose father later asked: " Let me get this straight: I sent you to graduate school to study a subject that doesn't exist anymore?"

 

It's an amusing remark, but for many the rapid shifts in politics, technology, and the economy have brought profound dislocation. Compounding these trends are recent events in the global marketplace not to mention the financial meltdown of the past few weeks. Is there any workplace that hasn’t been affected? We spend most of the week working; even our sense of self worth is often inextricably bound up with work related successes and failures. For these reasons and more, setbacks at work can be profoundly disappointing.

 

In addition to disappointments that arise at work, some of life's disappointments begin at home. There are so many challenges! The illness or death of a loved one, mental illness, disability, infertility, financial setbacks, all can undermine our attempts to establish a loving, supportive home. At such times, the primary relationships we expect to sustain us can sap our emotional reserves.

 

As for raising a family, those single or childless face limited options. Those blessed with children encounter a different challenge. From a child's first playground altercation or failed friendship, parents learn how hard it is to teach their children to deal with unmet expectations. And as children grow, issues multiply: substance abuse, sexuality, peer pressure: each emerges as a potential battleground for conflict and disappointment.

 

And this is true when everyone starts on a level playing field. But what happens when life presents a challenge that is truly life long? Columnist Melinda Sacks, whose son is motor and developmentally delayed, wrote: in (our) community of overachieving kids who are shuttled from flute to soccer to ballet and French class by their dedicated parents, every encounter, every gathering of youngsters and mothers is a reminder of what a less accomplished child is not."

 

When children are different, parents can experience deep alienation, unwarranted guilt and paralyzing shame. When families are challenged by developmental handicaps, or mental illness, or physical impairment, there can arise an ever-present disappointment, not in the child, but in the adult he should have become.

 

Home is not only where we build relationships and raise children, it's also where we grow old. Aging itself can confound our expectations as our strength diminishes. Moreover, the passing years can leave us with regrets: Did we accomplish what we wanted to? Did we make the right choices? Did we devote ourselves as much as we should have to the ones we love? And even when the answer to those questions is yes, life's limited duration can make life's meaning elusive. The Biblical author Kohellet, traditionally identified as the elderly King Solomon, amassed great wealth and wisdom in his life. Anticipating his death, he wrote: "utter futility; All is futile. One generation goes and another comes, but the earth remains the same forever. The eye never has enough of seeing nor the ear of hearing. " For Kohellet, our tradition's first existentialist, life's limited duration was disappointment enough.

 

When setbacks occur at work or home, whether due to economic trends, genetic predisposition, or the vagaries of old age, disappointment can leave us feeling betrayed, discouraged and disillusioned. How might we respond? In a life punctuated by disappointment, how can we cope?

 

While there is no simple answer, next week's Torah portion suggests ways through which we might cope with life's disappointments. The portion states: " I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; choose life, that you may live."

 

The first step is to acknowledge our tradition's unambiguous message: life is not an unending parade of peak experiences but a series of fragmented moments made up of blessings and of curses. Sooner or later, each of us will experience health and sickness, success and failure, happiness and sorrow, fairness and injustice. Life is not always fair. Life has inherent limitations we have to accept.

 

And yet, our tradition maintains there is no indignity in experiencing moments of brokenness. The Midrash relates that the ark carried by Moses and the Israelites in the desert contained two sets of tablets; the broken fragments of the set Moses smashed alongside the second intact pair. That both sets were held holy bespeaks Judaism's view that brokenness is not shameful, but rather a normal part of the human condition deserving of understanding, compassion, and support.

 

Having acknowledged life's limitations, our second step in coping with disappointment is to revise any unrealistic expectations we have of life or of ourselves. As products of a culture that measures happiness by physical perfection, material success, and the accumulation of power, we tend to see anything less as failure. While there is nothing shameful about attaining status and wealth, Judaism asserts other indices of success: menschlekeit, doing tzedakah, treating others with justice and compassion. "Who is rich?" the Mishnah asks. Those who are happy with what they already have. Thus, for Jews, success is not defined materially, but behaviorally; as the weekly cessation from work, the Shabbat, reminds us, our worth as human beings is not defined by how we make our living but by how we live our lives.

 

Having acknowledged life's limitations and adjusted our expectations accordingly, a third step in coping with disappointment is realizing that even when we are confronted by blessings and curses, we have choices to make.

 

Do such choices always exist? After all, the sickness or death of a loved one, the loss of a job or family problems or financial reverses are not always situations we create and can therefore remove. They are the things that happen to us. As a teacher of mine put it, "we need to learn to distinguish between "the way it is" and those things we can do something about - between what is beyond our control and what is possibly within it, between bringing the dead back to life and the possibility of reshaping one's own life." (Rabbi Jack Stern Jr.)

 

Rabbi Morris Adler wrote of a man who walked across the country from Seattle to New York. At the finish line, a cadre of reporters were waiting to interview him. The first question was: "What bothered you most on your walk?" Instead of what might have been an expected response - the rocky mountains or the expanse of the desert or some crowded city - he said the greatest obstacle he suffered were the pebbles in his own shoes.

 

Those who cope with life's disappointments ask the question: What is holding me back? Is it an immovable obstacle or just pebbles -- be they fear or self-delusion or self-pity. Those who cope, then go after the pebbles one by one and in order to do it they are willing to reach out beyond themselves because they are willing to admit they are not able to do it alone.

 

No one can make it sound easy. No one can ever play down the horrendous disappointments of a lost job, or the sickness or death of a loved one, or the disintegration of a family. But one fact remains clear: there are some of us who after being beaten down by life can ask only, "Why did this happen to me?" And there are others, who have suffered just as grievously, whose questions echo that of Rabbi Harold Kushner: If this has happened to me, now what do I do, and who is there to help me?" (after Rabbi Jack Stern Jr.)

 

Having acknowledged life's limitations, revised our expectations, and identified those decisions that are still ours to make, reaching out to others is a fourth step to coping with disappointment. U'vacharta BaChaim, the Torah tells us. When confronted with life and death, blessing and curse, you shall choose life. The Hebrew word for life, Chaim, is grammatically plural, suggesting metaphorically that to choose life means to find a community of others through whom we can seek support and to whom in turn we can offer our help. Even at the moments when we experience life's brokeness, precisely when we feel most alone, we can still reach out to others.

 

For "there is no solitary life," wrote a rabbinic colleague. "There is no "I" without "Thou," no "me" without "us." For our life, we are profoundly dependent on each other." (Rabbi Harold Schulweis)

 

I know he's right. Time and again I have seen people facing life's disappointments who have "chosen life," and through reaching out to others have chosen to reinvent their own possibilities.

 

- One congregant I know who lost her job, chose to view this misfortune as an opportunity, and went to Israel to volunteer her expertise and a month of her time. - Another congregant, a widower, dedicates his time counseling those who have lost spouses and are having a hard time coping with day to day household record keeping and billpaying. And a couple I know whose child is mentally ill have dedicated themselves to providing information, resources, and comfort to other families in similar situations.

 

Each of these people has known profound disappointment. Each has learned a Jewish way to cope with disappointment:

 

-acknowledging that life is imperfect;

-revising our expectations to be more realistic;

-realizing that choices still exist, even in the face of enormous obstacles;

-and then reaching out to help others, even when we ourselves are broken.

 

These four steps are essential but they are not enough; we might want to keep a fifth thought in mind: weddings, in fact, end not with a broken glass, but with a kiss - a singular act of human compassion and love, a transcendent moment which has the potential to mend this broken world, a simple gesture which reminds us of the importance of maintaining hope.

 

According to Jewish tradition, when we complete a book of the Torah, we recite:

 

Hazak hazak v’nithazek-"Be strong, be strong, and let us strengthen each other."

 

This Yom Kippur, as Shaarey Tefila – the gates of repentance swing open wide,

-May God strengthen us to cope with the disappointments we may encounter.

-May God strengthen us to seek wholeness even as we embrace an imperfect world and May God strengthen us to reach out to God, to our community and to each other.

 

AMEN

David B. Cohen

Congregation Sinai

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

5769 - 2008