Erev Rosh Hashanah 5773
iMatter: Living a Life of Meaning Part I
Living Simply

Shanah Tovah!
On the first day, God created the dog and said: ‘Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years.’
The dog said: ‘That’s a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I’ll give you back the other ten?’ So God agreed.
On the second day, God created the monkey and said: ‘Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I’ll give you a twenty-year life span.’
The monkey said: ‘Monkey tricks for twenty years? That’s a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like the Dog did?’ And God agreed.
On the third day, God created the cow and said:
‘You must go into the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer’s family. For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years.’ The cow said: ‘That’s kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. How about twenty and I’ll give back the other forty?’ And God agreed again.
On the fourth day, God created man and said:
‘Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I’ll give you twenty years.’
But man said: ‘Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten
the dog gave back; that makes eighty, okay?’ ‘Okay,’ said God, ‘You asked for it.’
So that is why for our first twenty years we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty years we slave in the sun to support our family. For the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren. And for the last ten years we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.
So you haven’t heard that version? Well, it sounds pretty familiar doesn’t it? Well, here we are again. 5773. Another year older, another year wiser. Another year of moments in our lives, in our world that have brought wonder and excitement, sadness and pain. Another year where maybe we have tried new things, or maybe stayed the course. If nothing else, certainly another year older.
I have spent a lot of time this past year trying to make sense of the joy and sadness, chaos and crises, happiness and laughter that has filled our world. Often I would wonder if there was just one simple answer to the seemingly endless cycle of peaks and valleys in which we often find ourselves. Oh…to find such an answer! It may be a perennial question, what does this life mean, but it is an important one nonetheless. So it is to this issue, bringing meaning to our lives that I hope we will endeavor upon to think about and discuss, beginning tonight and throughout these holy days and into our year.
In a day and age when our world moves so fast, when technology changes so rapidly, when our comfortable ways of doing things seem to get outdated faster and faster than before, now more than ever do we yearn for a moment of clarity that will bring a sense of meaning and significance to our lives. I believe that there are four ways to create a meaningful life.
To help us in thinking about this, I wish to quote not the rabbis of old, not my venerable professors from H.U.C., not the leaders of the Reform Movement. Rather, in the spirit of all the talk of president’s lately, I would like to quote President Ronald Reagan. Who did you think I was going to quote?
What President Reagan said, which I believe has a distinctly Jewish sensibility is that to live a life of meaning one must, “Live simply, speak kindly, care deeply and love generously, and leave the rest to God.”
Tonight, I would like to focus on living simply as a function of finding meaning in our lives, as we discover with our family and friends and community the power of the great sage, Ben Zoma who said, “Who is rich? One who appreciates what he has.”
I suppose on some level, searching for meaning in life has been the story of human pursuits from time immemorial.
It reminds me of the story of rabbi setting of to his first pulpit seeking the advice from his mentor, a wise old rabbi, who tells him that the meaning of life is chicken soup. The young rabbi nods approvingly and sets off to serve his community. Many years later, when he finds his older mentor on his death bed, he returns to his side and seeks his mentor’s final words of guidance.
Rabbi, I have used your advice, “life is chicken soup” as a source of inspiration and meaning, but I am afraid after all these years, I really don’t understand what it means that life is chicken soup. Can you finally tell me, once and for all? The older rabbi looks up and shrugs and says, “Ok…so maybe it isn’t chicken soup.”
We want so badly for there to be an answer to what life means that we can turn to in order to finally know, once and for all. Perhaps we will like the answer, perhaps we won’t. Maybe we won’t even understand the answer, like the scene in the movie The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a space comedy about a human and an alien who hitch a ride with a spacecraft just before the Earth is destroyed. Along with other characters, they go on a quest to find answers to the mystery of life. When they ask the supercomputer the meaning of life the computer famously responds, “42”. When the characters don’t understand the answer, the computer replies,” Only when you know the question will you know what the answer means.”
So we journey toward the answer, asking questions along the way. What does it mean? Why does it matter?
Much of the time, for much of our lives, we don’t spend too much time or exert too much energy thinking about this; after all, there are bills to pay and kids to raise, jobs to do and money to make. But the question hangs out there, like a strange penny showing up at the unlikeliest of places and forcing us to confront and clarify the work of our hands and the choices in our hearts.
Take Adam and Eve for example. Could Eden have been any better a place? They had everything. No wants, or needs overlooked. Except one. the yearning for meaning. And there was that darned tree. A reminder that even in paradise, there are things we cannot have. So why do Adam and Eve eat of that fruit? Perhaps precisely because it provided a means to identify what paradise is all about. And once they tasted the fruit there was no way they could remain. The meaning of their previous existence became clear; searching and yearning is human and necessary – God isn’t upset that we eat the fruit or with the search, God gets upset only when we don’t act human. The meaning is found in the search, not in the accumulation of the material things we find along the way. Thank God for Adam and Eve. As a result they had to leave the garden, which of course made our lives pretty difficult.
There are illnesses, and financial problems; career setbacks, serious family and relationship problems and sometimes all of these and more piling up one on top of the other all at the same time. The burden of these moments feels unquestionably heavy, maybe too heavy for some. For every moment of courage, for every time of great healing, there is a moment of weakness, of hurt, of disappointment. The balance is always there. This is exactly what makes the biblical story so interesting and holy; it is an exact mirror of our lives. It invites us to find ever-expanding meaning in both the neat and the messy; the triumphs and the defeats, the weaving and unraveling. It is up to us to see the holiness in all this messy drama; to bring it to life with our own reading and our own living.
And that’s where my friend Ben Zoma comes in. Ok…he’s not actually my friend, but if I had lived 2000 years ago,Id like to believe he would have been. Shimon Ben Zoma was a second century Sage whose stories of wisdom and insight fill the pages of the Talmud. There is even a legend of him that says that if you dream of Ben Zoma you can look forward to the gift of wisdom.
In one of his most famous quotations, Ben Zoma teaches,” Who is rich? The one who rejoices in his portion, as it is written in the book of Psalms “You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be happy, and it shall go well with you.”
I always liked this quote from Ben Zoma as it is a wonderful touchstone in the ever-constant battle with the messiness of our lives, in the ever-persistent struggle for more and better, in the ever-elusive answer to life’s meaning. When we are searching a way out of the economic morass which still is troubling us and our country, when we want more so we don’t have to feel that we have less, Ben Zoma appears. Ben Zoma asks: Who is rich? One who clearly sees the things and stuff that fill our lives are merely that, things and stuff.
Who is rich? One who looks around at their life and sees not what is NOT, but what IS. Who is rich? One who remembers to see with their heart, what is, was and will be truly essential. Ben Zoma forces us to look at the uncertain nature of the material things around us and turn our attention to the elements of our lives that are truly essential. Time. Health. Relationships. Sometimes those moments are hard to recognize as we are hopping on the rat races of our lives.
Did you ever have one of those moments where you were enjoying a walk, or a sunset, or a family gathering and then everything sort of goes quiet and you find yourself smiling at the stillness and sudden slow-motion of things. What is that moment? An eternal instant.
A moment that reminds you of the treasures surrounding you. Your home. Your peace of mind. Your health. A moment that tenderly rebukes you for spending so much time on temporal preoccupations such as savings accounts, houses, and traffic. A moment that can bring a mist to the driest of eyes and a hopeful perspective to the darkest of life’s moments.
Who is rich? We, are rich, my friends. Take a moment, a moment that I pray will be one of those eternal moments…take a deep breath. Look around. There are people here who care about you; your time matters; your work, your vocation, your efforts to help others matter; your lives have meaning even if you feel you have no idea what you’re doing and guess what? God cares about all of it. From this moment throughout this year, may we be so blessed as to know this every single day. I’m sure we’ll forget, but I am hopeful we won’t. Which reminds me of a story…
An American tourist finds himself at a small village on the southwestern coast of a small isolated country where he is watching a fisherman. “How long have you been fishing today?” the American asks.
“Not very long,” answered the man.
“But then, why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more?” asked the American.
The man explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.
The American asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”
The man replied, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs. I have a full life.”
The American interrupted, “I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat.”
“And after that?” asked the man.
“With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to a big city! From there you can direct your huge new enterprise.”
“How long would that take?” asked the man.
“Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years,” replied the American.
“And after that?”
“Afterwards? Well my friend, that’s when it gets really interesting,” answered the American, laughing. “When your business gets really big, you can start buying and selling stocks and make millions!”
“Millions? Really? And after that?”
“After that you’ll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish…take a siesta with your wife… and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends.” Sounds like the opening scene of this story…
And from here we see Ben Zoma clearly who reminds us that living a life of meaning means paying attention to the really important things around us, for we may already have what we need, giving us the life we desire and the meaning that we crave. Tonight, when you go home, and throughout this year, look around, take a deep life affirming breath, notice the blessings around you and offer a ‘modim anachnu lach’ God, thank you for that which is around me.’ I pray we have the strength and courage to do this for our selves and for our world every single day. Amen.