Fear and Hope on the Narrow Bridge

Rosh Hashana 2019/5780

“Fear and Hope on the Narrow Bridge”

A nine year old boy writes a letter to the President of the United States:

Dear Mr President

I want you to stop killing in the city. People is dead and I think that somebody might kill me. So would you please stop people from deading. I’m asking you nicely to stop it, I know you can do it. Do it. I know you could.

Your friend James.

Nine days later, James was fatally shot in a drive-by shooting in his neighbourhood.[1]

Greta Thurnberg, a fifteen year old girl stands before the UN Climate Change Panel and pleads with world leaders: “you say you love your children but you are stealing their future…you need to treat this like a crisis because it is a crisis…I want you to panic, I want you to feel the fear I feel every day and I want you to act.”

Young people are afraid for the future, we are afraid in the present. This past year the sanctuary of our prayer spaces has been desecrated by acts of terror and hate, blood has been shed upon our altars, Jews, Muslims, Christians, none have been spared the force of hate. Here in Australia, women have been murdered, in the places they should feel most safe, at the hands of those who should be protecting them. We are afraid for our world, for our country and we are afraid for ourselves. We fear our failure, we fear loneliness, we fear death. Our world is shrouded in a blanket of fear and it is driving our actions and our behaviour.

Our national conversation seems to be about who and what we should fear. Politics has become polarised, there is little room for debate and we are being challenged to take a side. “You are either with me or against me” is the rally cry, “us and them.” The discussion centres around who and what we should fear and there are very real threats. When Microsoft launched its artificial intelligence bot “Tay” into cyberspace to absorb knowledge and to learn, it very quickly became a Holocaust denying, racist, homophobe who supported abusers and purveyors of hate.[2] It learned what was in the discourse and that is frightening. We live in a world where hate and otherness finds a home and then is fed by the relentless cycle of news and political discourse which sends us to be bound together not by hope and positivity but fear. And as a result we are cocooning ourselves, retreating from each other and we are feeling lonely and alone. We are afraid: afraid of being vulnerable, afraid of being hurt, afraid of our world and our lack of control.

There is a teaching from Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav which we sing with an up beat tune that we sing in a rousing chorus with clapping and hand actions. It is one of the phrases etched into the panels of our new sanctuary and it has always troubled me: “Kol ha’olam kulo, gesher tzar me’od,” “the whole world is a very narrow bridge” “Veha-ikar lo lefached klal.” But the main thing to remember is to have no fear. “Have no fear” Rabbi Nachman seems to be saying it’s simple, just let go of your fear, have none. I struggled with this idea; that it is so easy to let go of our fears, to ignore and deny them. How can that be the path? But it turns out that the song is a slight misrepresentation of what Rabbi Nachman actually said: keshe-adam tzarich la’avor gesher tzar meod, when a person must cross a narrow bridge, haklal veha-ikar shelo yitpached klal, the most important thing is not to frighten yourself.”[3] Rabbi Nachman is saying we all have fears, we are afraid, the bridge is very narrow, we might fall but we should not allow ourselves to be driven by that fear, we need to recognise it, to see it, to feel it but then to find ways to cope and move forward.

We are all walking that narrow bridge and it is frightening, we are afraid of the abyss of falling into the darkness but the fear must not be what is guiding us. We cannot deny our fears, our uncertainty, it is a part of who we are. Some of our greatest role models in the Torah were terrified, they were mired in uncertainty and fear. They did not deny that fear, instead they faced it and found a way to move forward along that narrow bridge. When Moses was called by God from the burning bush he said he was afraid, he said he would not go, he was not a man of words, God should find someone else. Jacob was alone in the desert, fleeing his brother’s wrath, his own wrongdoing he was wracked with guilt and fear. Jacob again later in his life, about to face his brother once more was overcome with fear. So too the Israelites in the desert, fleeing from the Egyptians, the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonah, all afraid of their mission, afraid of walking the narrow bridge. But they moved forward, they become our heroes not because they had no fear but rather because they were afraid and they moved ahead anyway.

I recently watched the movie Divergent with my daughter and there each of the characters is forced to face their fears in a virtual world. One of them escapes by telling herself that none of it is real. She does not pass the test, because the challenge is to face the fear, to overcome it, to act in spite of the fear. We cannot control our world, we cannot find certainty in our personal lives or on the national stage, we cannot remove the forces which cause us to fear so instead we need to find a way to live in the grey, to exist in that uncertainty. Often we are told that religion is all about providing people with certainty, with answers, with a clear path forward. But I would argue that Judaism does the opposite. It challenges us to dwell in the uncertainty, to exist in the place where the future is not in our hands, our destiny cannot be wholly shaped by our actions. Our ancestors were led from Egypt into the desert, to the unknown, they knew their end destination but they did not know what would happen in those years of wandering. It is the same with us, we walk along that narrow bridge from the abyss before our lives, to the abyss which is afterwards and we don’t know where the journey will take us, but we walk overcoming our fears, not allowing them to drive us.

But how do we do that? Rabbi Mendel Futerfas spent many years in a Russian gulag incarcerated with a tightrope walker. He asked what was the secret to walking along the tightrope: was it balance, stamina concentration? The tightrope walker answered that the secret was keeping your destination in focus, keeping your eyes on where you are going and the most difficult moments are not necessarily when you are in the middle of the rope, but it is the times you take your eyes off your destination because it allows the fear to enter.[4]

We are walking the narrow bridge, the tightrope and we need to see ahead. The Hebrew name for these days are the Yamim Nora’im, the days of awe, but the word “nora,” awe can also mean fear. So how do we transform fear into awe? The answer perhaps: within the word norah is ra’ah to see, or envision, we transform our fear into awe when we have a destiny, a vision of what we want to see before us.

This morning we read the story of Hagar, cast out from her family and her home, she sits alone in the wilderness preparing to watch her son die. She places him beneath a tree, unable to cope with holding him in her arms as he takes his last breath. She is filled with fear and dread. She can see only her hurt and pain, her terror, she is walking the narrow bridge and feeling only fear. But then an angel opens her eyes to the life saving well, there all along but she could not see it. It is only when she looks beyond her distress, sees a different future, finds hope, that she is saved. She sees. She was walking the bridge, looking down at the abyss not ahead at the future she wanted to see. It was the same with Abraham, the story we read tomorrow, as he binds his son on the altar, so focused on his pain, his fear as he prepares to take his own child’s life, he does not see the ram caught in the thicket. He sees the darkness, the fear but not the hope.

If we focus on the narrow bridge and our vision is seeking fear, that is what we will see. Instead, we need to readjust our vision, look not for what will make us afraid but for what will bring us hope. The tradition asks who is wise? The answer, the one who can see the new moon in the dark night[5] The one who can find the sliver of light in the blackest of skies, who can focus on the possibilities of that place of light.
Rabbi Naomi Levy’s daughter Noa was diagnosed with an unidentified illness which impaired her physical capabilities and gave her challenges with her cognitive development. Rabbi Levy was in the whirlwind of taking Noa to doctor’s appointments, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy she was consumed by her daughter’s limitations. She had stopped seeing her child and instead saw various challenges and conditions that she would now have to face. One day the rabbi found herself in yet another doctor’s waiting room while her daughter was undergoing one of her many therapies and a stranger in the room said “I have been watching your daughter for weeks now and I want you to know that she is something special. She has got the real thing, that rare quality. She is going to surpass you…she will achieve things you won’t even be able to dream of. When that day arrives, just remember that I was the one who told you so.” Naomi writes: I had been sitting in that waiting room worrying about Noa and this extraordinary man transformed my thinking. This man told me my daughter would shine. He delivered a prophecy of hope and instead of worrying about the future I needed to start looking forward to it eagerly…yes there were (people) in my life who predicted Noa’s doom but this angel appeared in my life and taught me to hope.”[6]

Rabbi Levy saw the narrow bridge, she saw the abyss but her angel helped her to see the sliver of moon, the light in the darkness, the hope, the future and she saw her daughter differently. Our forefather Jacob too had an angel to guide him to hope, to the future, to vision and dream of what he wanted to see. And it is when we can see that vision, when we can hope for the future that we focus not on the darkness, the nothingness, the fear, but rather the possibilities. But who are our angels, where do we find the guidance to see, dream, imagine and hope? Our angels are the same as our ancestors.

Our prophets inspire us to see not what is but what we want it to be. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says that “Judaism is a sustained struggle against the world that is, in the name of the world that could and should be.”[7] Hope is not optimism, it is not ignoring the reality of our fears, of the challenges, hope allows us to see it all, to acknowledge our fears, to know that we walk on that narrow bridge, but it gives us the strength and the courage to continue the journey drawing courage from the vision of the world we want to create.

When Jacob asks God’s name God replies, “Eheyeh Asher Eheyeh,” “I am what I will become” and we too are what we can become, and what we can become is what we can see and imagine. Hope is not passive, we cannot sit and wait for that future to unfold, it will only happen when we can dream it, see it and then take action here in this real, messy, imperfect world. 

The Torah describes the incident of the 12 spies who were sent to scout the Promised Land. They all returned with the report that the land was magnificent, beautiful, the stuff of their dreams and imaginings but then 10 of the spies expressed their fear, their belief that they would never be able to settle in the land. Many have asked what it was that the spies feared. Rashbam one of the Torah commentators suggests that their fear was the challenge of living and existing in the real world.[8] No longer in the desert with manna falling from the heavens, God’s tangible presence close guiding them. But Judaism is about living in the world as it is and dreaming of the world it can become. 

And it is hard in the real world but if we walk together we can dream and hope and become. Rabbi Daniel Pressman says that when we walk along that narrow bridge together, the bridge widens for us to walk side by side.[9] Instead of our fear separating us, our hope can bring us together and hand in hand we can go on the journey, guided by a vision of the world as we want it to be.

I often think of a friend of mine who was on a terrible plane ride, there was so much turbulence and she remembered grasping the hand of the person next to her, a stranger, and they closed their eyes and she prayed. When the plane eventually landed safely they embraced, strangers no more. The person thanked my friend for being there with her, she said “you prayed so hard I am sure that you helped guide the plane to the ground.” My friend did not have the heart to tell her seat companion that she was so scared the only prayer she could remember was the blessing for bread and for the last 20 minutes she had recited “hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz.” But those moments of fear brought two strangers together, they held hands and they hoped, they walked the bridge together. Rabbi Levy once said: “there are no strangers on a plane with turbulence.” Our world is in a time of turbulence and we can allow that to drive us apart into our cocoons, or we can use it to come together so we are not alone in our fears, we are holding one another, walking together on the bridge. I once heard someone say that they don’t like the notion that life is a race where we each try to move ahead of the other, she suggested life is a dance where we create an ever widening circle of people joining hands together. When we stop running, racing from our fears, when we stop trying to escape and deny them and we join hands together we can begin to dance with them, a dance of hope, a dance of blessing and community a dance which not passive it is moving and dynamic, hope that is more than just a belief it is inspiration to dance.

Rosh Hashana is the time for hope, for imagining the tomorrow we want to unfold. We come together in community in these moments to touch something eternal, to connect with each other and with something beyond ourselves, to dream together, to hope together in this turbulent world, to read the words of the machzor, God’s hopes and dreams for us and the world. Hayom Harat Ha’olam, today is the birthday of the world, the day when God pushed back the darkness and fear and infused the world with light. The creation of the world was an act of hope, a dream which is being recreated every day. We are part of the unfolding story of our world and it can be filled with fear or a chance for it to become what we want it to be. In our siddur for Shabbat we read “may we live not by our fears but by our hopes.” And I pray that together we can join hands, walk across the narrow bridge, our hope a beacon of light, drawing us forward through the darkness of fear to a place of hope and dreams and dance.

Shana Tova.