A Letter to G-d: Rosh Hashanah 5786 Day 2

Dear G-d, 

They say that you are in the field right now, closer to us than ever. So I’m sending you a letter.  And maybe I’ll fold it up like a paper airplane, cast it on the wind, and hope, somehow, that it will get to you. And maybe you’ll find it in some way-up-there tree branch, or nestled between the lush blades of grass at your feet. You’ll delight in my messy handwriting and all that I’ll catch you up on. Maybe you’ll read my letter and get started on your reply right away– finding clever ways to tell me the secrets of the universe. And maybe you won’t read it at all. Maybe I’ll never hear from you, and maybe next year, I’ll try again. 

But I know that that’s all part of the deal. That we long to be close to you, and you don’t always meet us in that place. But today, of all days, I feel like maybe we can reset. Push a big red button in the sky and start all over again. You, more present in my life, me not feeling so nervous or afraid of what it all means. 

Every year on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I feel that the boundaries, the many opaque and impenetrable layers between our worlds fade. That you’re here with us in our sanctuary, singing along, cheering us on. So proud of who we are and what we’ve built. 

Do you see how far we’ve come? Do you see that there are synagogues and communities all over the world who are still doing the sacred work, walking that same wandering path as Avraham when you said Lech Lecha, when you commanded him to leave it all behind in search of something better? Do you see how much Judaism has evolved? How we’ve become even more learned, even more resilient, even more diverse, than you could have ever imagined when you sat with Moshe on the mountaintop?

And yes it's all momentary, a fever dream of closeness, really. But every year it feels so promising and so real. That’s something I want to revel in today, just be here in this rare, intimate place with you. Because once the gates clang shut after Neilah at the end of Yom Kippur, it’s back to the usual struggle of trying so desperately to find you. 

I love our sanctuary. Sometimes I come in here during the week just to find some quiet, some peace from the noise and the clatter of the world. I especially love when the light is just right, and the colors from the stained glass windows splash across our Mikdash Me’at, our miniature temple, our most sacred space. And it’s even better still when the kids are playing in the back, or yes, wreaking havoc on the bimah. And when I see people chatting and catching up– yes during services! But today, there’s a different quality in the air. This place feels like a refuge, a place where we can come truly as we are and say to our hearts and our minds, to each other, “sshh, you can rest now.” Because the world out there isn’t just loud, it’s cruel, and broken, and all too much. Do you know that? Do you see that? 

People ask me if I believe in G-d, if I believe in you, all the time. And it’s such an important but puzzling question, because you’ve always just sort of been there. Not loudly or in an outsized, grandiose, larger-than-life faith kind of way. But always sitting just out of sight. Perched on a chair that doesn’t ever creak. Sometimes I can see you just out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes I can’t see you at all. And so I don’t know exactly how to answer the question. Do I believe in G-d? Sure. I believe that there is a higher power, that we are all part of something larger than ourselves, that we are all created holy and in the divine image. And I feel grateful to belong to a people and a tradition that doesn’t require us to be dogmatic about our faith. That it can ebb and flow, and we can fall in and out of touch with each other. No amount of distance or doubt a referendum on our Jewishness. 

But I struggle to articulate precisely what my faith means. Because I don’t think I have a precise faith. It’s always changing, susceptible to so many outside forces and factors. And I’ll admit, I sometimes feel a pang of envy for the people who are so certain. So positive that you exist. The people who see G-d or their deity in a piece of toast. Who feel constantly enamored with the possibility of heaven. Those people who believe that everything that happens is for the best, that you have a plan for each of us– however tragic or blissful– that we can’t possibly understand, but should delight in nonetheless. I wonder how they do it. 

It may not have been what you intended, but I feel that so much of what it means to be a Jew, is to carry our doubt around with us everywhere we go. To wrestle with you, like Jacob did, before his name and his fate were changed forever. It means finding G-d and godliness in other people, and in music. It means raging at you when we experience tragedy, or when we see so much suffering in almost every corner of the world. It means calling you to account like Hannah does in her restless and desperate prayer that we read in yesterday’s Haftorah portion. Calling out the absurdity of a G-d who is omnipotent, and omniscient, and yet often, still refuses to grant our most sought-after wishes, who often still refuses to bring peace, or to feed the hungry. The absurdity of a G-d who has the power to, but almost never just snaps those divine fingers to make everything ok.  

It means having codified into our High Holiday liturgy, texts about the arbitrary nature of suffering. It’s how we acknowledge and embrace the fact that belief in God, actually doesn’t provide all the answers. But maybe believing in you, and really just being Jewish, creates in us a posture and orientation toward life that allows us to simultaneously feel grounded, but also deeply uncertain. 

I remember noticing this duality in a very visceral way after my mom died. Feeling betrayed by G-d, angry, devastated. Feeling confused and unmoored, that even as a rabbinical student I couldn’t make sense of any of it spiritually. How can we ever do that? I wondered, briefly, if I really wanted to be a rabbi. Asking myself how I could possibly guide people through these unbearable moments in life that are ultimately inevitable but theologically inexplicable. I didn’t think I had the strength or the heart to do it. 

But I also remember the relief, and the joy, and the release that finally came when I found the right place to say Kaddish. It wasn’t with my friends in Rabbinical school, who, no matter how hard they tried, couldn’t be normal around me. The sudden death of my 58-year-old mother, too bizarre, too tragic. They couldn’t cope with it, much less me. And as much as they loved me, and rallied around me, I felt like a freak. Angry when someone would say the wrong thing, crushed when they didn’t say anything at all. 

And by some miracle, I found myself at Anshe Chesed’s morning minyan. Every morning, I made my way to 100th and Broadway, to daven Shacharit with 15-20 retirees, older, wiser men and women who embraced me from the very first moment I walked through the door. To them, I was another person who had gone through the inevitable, as so many of them had. They had experience with death, they knew how to talk to a mourner, had this instinct to make me feel normal and welcome without downplaying my grief. They became my family. 

Most days, as soon as minyan ended, I would practically run the 22 blocks north to school, maybe stopping for a bagel on the way if I had time, or even catching the bus if I was lucky. But on Fridays, I joined the minyan group for a leisurely breakfast at the diner just down the street from the shul. There was so much laughter and so much genuine connection in that group. Many of them had been davening together for years. And they made me feel like I had known them forever. That they had known me and cared about me forever. 

Those eleven months, and the people in that Minyan: Marty, Mayer, Suzanne, Steve, Rabbi David Kraemer, Rabbi Burt Vizotsky, Magda, Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky– they changed my life, and transformed my grief. And they made it possible for me to re-enter the world, to go forward into a totally unimaginable wilderness without my mom. 

They gave me a box of rain, and showed me that I could drill holes in the bottom, so I could water the ground all around me. That it was possible in the face of such a torrent of sadness and anger to plant new seeds, and watch new wildflowers bloom. 

But there was another thing I learned that year. I learned that hope requires discipline. That healing requires discipline. Once I returned to New York, back to our fast-paced city life, after having been in Chicago for two weeks for Shiva and some family time, it took everything I had physically and mentally to will myself out of bed each morning so I could make it to minyan and jump back into school. I wanted things to go back to normal as quickly as possible, and my body was telling me that wasn’t going to happen. And I couldn’t do it every single day, but having the structure that morning minyan and Kaddish gave to my life, that our tradition gave to my life, made it possible, just a little bit easier, to get back to myself. 

That, to me, is the essence of Judaism. The work. The persistence. The discipline and structure and people that it requires. I would have been completely lost without it. And I know that it’s one thread that has held our people together for thousands of years. Our Judaism doesn’t demand perfection. It demands effort. And it also acknowledges that sometimes even our effort might be difficult to muster. But every single day, we are presented with a million little choices, a million little moments to keep walking. But we can’t do it alone. 

And so I’m telling you all this G-d, because we’re doing ok. But it would be nice to have some reassurance from you every once in a while. That we’re moving in the right direction, that we’re healing and hoping toward something that is worthy of this relationship. 

After all, that’s what these sacred days are all about– teshuvah, about showing up not despite the fact, but because we are imperfect. We work so hard, all year, but especially during this season, to hold ourselves accountable. To reckon with our mistakes and shortcomings, to admit, and confess, and take seriously that our actions, our words, and even our thoughts have consequences. 

But the way we do that on Rosh Hashanah? We do it with the loving and gentle guidance of liturgy, poetry, and music. On Rosh Hashanah, we are invited into a deeply supportive conversation with you and with ourselves. We can ease into the work each of us knows we have to do. 

And I always feel this profound sense of reverence and love when I look around our sanctuary on Rosh Hashanah. Everyone engaged in personal prayer, yet, doing so in the company of two hundred other people. Each of us witnessing and holding one another through it all. And there’s a beautiful silence to it. We don’t have to say anything to each other– a knowing look, and a quiet meditation, more than enough. 

I hope you have that, too. 

Last week, we were in the car and I saw a woman lying on her side beneath a bridge. She had her things with her, and seemed to be living there. I couldn’t tell how old she was, but I noticed a walker. She looked so resigned. Not angry. Just totally and completely abandoned to the sad reality that it is still possible, in 2025, in the wealthiest country in the world, for someone to slip through the cracks. Her entire life on display for all the cars driving past on North Broadway to see. 

And I couldn’t get that idea out of my head. How many people (myself included) have driven past this woman? How many hundreds of cars pass this makeshift home, and do nothing, don’t even think twice about it? I wondered who her parents were and the future they must have envisioned for her. I thought about her as a baby, helpless and hopeful. I thought about any children she might have. 

And I found myself feeling so ashamed and so horrified. I wanted to leap out of the car and help, but I also wanted to run away as fast as I could. My heartstrings all tangled up in a terrible mess of moral obligation and self-preservation.

I think we tend to think about suffering in the extremes. Natural disasters, war, terrible accidents, shootings– the things broadcast in the headlines. But what about this woman? The news isn’t covering her story. No one has taken up her case. She has been all but forgotten by everyone with the power to do anything. And I wonder where you are in those cases? 

And I think as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that suffering is so much more pervasive, so much more present, and small than we like to think. It’s often invisible– most of us oblivious to the vast majority of suffering happening all around us all the time. 

And so when people ask me if I believe in you, it’s hard to honestly and fully answer in the affirmative. Because how can anyone see another human being on the brink of just vanishing, and have any faith? 

I have so many questions. All of them urgent and heavy. I know we all do. So I guess I’m looking for an explanation. For some help understanding the how and the why and the when of You. 

And yet, despite my anger, despite my sadness, and my doubt, and my heartache, I feel like we will be ok, you and I. 

I like to imagine what this time of year looks like for you, wherever you might be. Are you doing teshuvah, asking forgiveness, holding yourself accountable? Are you praying for a better world, asking for someone or something to give you the strength and the power to tip the scales. Do you beg to be written into the book of life? What do you feel when you hear the Shofar? Do you hear all of our cries and all of our joys balled up into a beautiful and honest cacophony of everything happening down here? Does the shofar move you to take action? Do you hear its urgent call the way we do?

Are you wearing white? Are you crying?

The Rabbis have always asked if you pray. In the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Brachot we read:

The Gemara asks: What does God pray? it was taught in a baraita that Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha, the High Priest, said: Once, on Yom Kippur, I entered the innermost sanctum, the Holy of Holies, to offer incense, and in a vision I saw Akatriel Ya, the Lord of Hosts, one of the names of God expressing G-d’s ultimate authority, seated upon a high and exalted throne. And G-d said to me: Yishmael, My son, bless Me.

I said to G-d: “May it be Your will that Your mercy overcome Your anger, and may Your mercy prevail over Your other attributes, and may You act toward Your children with the attribute of mercy, and may You enter before them beyond the letter of the law.” The Holy One, Blessed be G-d, nodded His head and accepted the blessing. This event teaches us that you should not take the blessing of an ordinary person lightly.

Here I am, just an ordinary person, offering my plaintive, if not scattered, prayer to you. And I’m hoping, that just as you accepted Yishmael’s prayer so many moons ago, that maybe you’ll accept mine today. 

With humility and urgency. You know where to find me. 

Shanah Tovah.