Library of Sermons

There are a number of Hollywood films about people who revisited a much earlier time in their lives. And when they return, having been enriched by decades of additional life experience, they do “better” the second time around with their situation. There’s Jennifer Garner in “13 Going on 30”, who discovers that her best male friend is in fact her bashert. Or Drew Barrymore in “Never Been Kissed,” who learns that a little self-confidence would have turned her high school years into a smashing success. Or, if you will excuse the salty language and crude sight gags, the clever “Hot Tub Time Machine”, a film about a group of fifty something men who are catapulted back into their early twenties and given a chance to head off the wreckage of their later lives.

Of course, this doesn’t happen in real life – or does it? If someone wants to make a film about me, I’m open to it. I have only one requirement – that I may only be portrayed by the actor Brad Pitt.

But tonight, my interest is this – having returned to the place where my career began thirty years ago, what advice do I have – for myself. What would the fifty-eight-year-old me say to the twenty-eight-year-old me? What do I know now, that I didn’t know then, and how does that make a difference? I want to offer four examples.

First, learn from tragedy and trauma. In life, most skills increase as you enjoy success. But pastoral skills – the ability to reach others, arguably the most important skill a rabbi can have – are shaped on the anvil of adversity and failure. My life has been filled with many joys over thirty years but also, unquestionably, more than a bit of hardship. When people struggle with telling loved ones a hard truth, I know first-hand because I struggled myself. What’s the perfect way to tell your oldest son, who was just dropped off for his first year of college, that he has to board the next plane to attend the funeral of his maternal grandmother? What’s the perfect way to explain to three teenage boys that my mother, their paternal grandmother, is in the early stages of Alzheimers and probably unable to process much of what they are saying? What’s the perfect way to tell your children that despite their mother’s cancer diagnosis with the help of the doctors that “you’ve got this,” when you’re not entirely sure that you have “got this” and when you occasionally have to talk yourself around to normalcy. So when you tell someone you understand what they’re going through, at that point, you really will understand. I don’t commend these experiences at all. But if you can use these hard-won lessons to help others, they will possess a measure of redeeming value.

The second lesson is to pay close attention to the holiness hidden in mundane interactions. Every encounter has potential meaning, so stash away as many memories as you can. People tell me all the time that I have a strong

memory. I remember not merely as a demonstration of academic prowess; I remember because so much of what goes on in life has religious meaning. That significance is lost to us in the moment, but wait long enough –often many years – and it will dawn on you that there’s a hidden truth lying just beneath the surface. And when you share its truth, it will be a unique truth because it’s your truth. So Iwould tell my younger self, pay close attention to the contents of our holy books. But pay closer attention still to the lives of the Jewish people, who can be holy even when they don’t seem to be.

Third, always remember that there will never be a day when you do not feel self-conscious about the awesome title of rabbi. I don’t mean self-conscious in the sense of unworthy, but in the sense of needing to prove oneself deserving of the appellation. Because serving as a leader of the Jewish people is a privilege and a responsibility, to be successful you must question yourself over and over again. You do this with a commitment to learning, by observing the commandments, by visiting the sick and comforting the mourners and rejoicing with the bride and groom. And, yes, by always being a mentsch even in the most trying of situations. Respect is earned, never given.

The fourth and final piece of advice is the most crucial – measure your years in simchas. I spent last Sunday in the Chevra Thilim Cemetery, and I was astounded by how many of the names I knew. Grave after grave marked the

passing of a friend, a neighbor, a congregant. Time does pass on, and thirty years represents an entire generation. But I prefer to focus more attention on the growth that has taken place in that time. How many people sitting in our audience today were children during my first stint? How many were ten years old, or six, or three, or in a few cases not yet born? Yet today, all of them are accomplishedprofessionals, many with spouses and families of their own. There’s a great deal of joy looking at these new faces not yet known three decades ago.

In contrast to a Hollywood movie, I get to be here, on Kol Nidre, in New Orleans, in real life – thirty years later. My prayer is that my passion and energy of those earlier days return, this time layered with the lessons of three decades of life. I wish us all the best of health and happiness as we emerge from a period of chaos to one of order, to one of community rather than isolation, from one of fear to one of normalcy.

That would be, for all of us – well, a Hollywood ending. Gmar tov.