This is Forty!

 I delivered this sermon this past Shabbat, Parshat Shelach. Enjoy!

I have no problem admitting it.

The seemingly mild-mannered rabbi standing before you today is forced to make the very same admission that will soon be made by Alex Rodriguez of my beloved New York Yankees.

This is the very same admission made by Hollywood heartthrob Bradley Cooper and versatile actress, Drew Barrymore.

It is nothing juicy enough for TMZ or the New York Post.  But I still want to come clean.

I'm turning 40.

And, should any of you be wondering, let me declare loudly and publicly: my wife is much younger than I am.

Yes, starting July 3^rd, all of those clichés – the red sports car, it must be his mid-life crisis, etc. - can be directed at me.

Some people are uncomfortable with aging. You may have heard Larry Miller’s comedy routine about the only time in our lives where we really like to get old is when we're kids. If you're less than 10, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions. I’m four and a half, six and three quarters, etc.

As we get older, it all changes. You turn 30. Makes you sound like sour milk. Then you're pushing 40. You reach 50 and you make it to 60. (After that…you just age gracefully!)

The good news is that Judaism has a more positive and reverent way of looking at aging.

40, for instance, is the age of binah - wisdom, understanding. It’s an age of maturity. The Talmud (Avoda Zara 5b) says one does not fully comprehend what one has learned until age 40.

40 is also a Jewish age for transformation. Rabbi Akiva was 40 when he completely changed his life. He went from ignorant shepherd all the way to being...R. Akiva. So it's an age of potential and promise.

The Jewish view is that any age holds potential and promise.  Any age gives us the opportunity to heed God’s call and serve life with great purpose.  Birthdays, therefore, are an appropriate time for all of us – even Rabbis - to reflect on where we are in life.

Who are we? Are we on the right path?  These are questions we should consider at any age, although numbers that end in a zero seem particularly appropriate.

Back in September, I started to send personalized birthday messages to KJ members whose birthdays we have on file. I wanted people to be aware that birthdays are an ideal time for reflection.

            Judaism encourages each and every one of us to ask the famous question: What is the purpose of my life? This is often the most difficult question to answer, at least honestly.  It’s particularly difficult because sometimes we get stuck on our way to achieving our purpose.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow introduced the Jonah Complex into the language of human behavior.  It is defined as the fear of success which prevents self-actualization, or the realization of one's potential. It is the fear of one's own greatness, the evasion of one's destiny, or the avoidance of exercising one's talents. The name is based on the actions of Jonah the prophet, who tried to evade his mission to warn the people of Ninveh that God would destroy them.  

Any time we face a crossroads or a decision that may bring more or different responsibility – a new job, marriage, or aging, we may get stuck and think “I might succeed, and that will make my life more complicated. There may be even greater expectations to follow. I will be different from others.”

Just like the Biblical Jonah, we may need a little push from above to fully examine our purpose.

It is this very question of purpose that leads us to one of greatest failings in the history of humanity, found right here in this week’s Parshah.  The spies failed, FAILED, to confront their purpose.  They FAILED to rise to the challenge, and they ultimately FAILED in their mission to enter the land of Israel.  The price of their failure:  40 years of exile.  Here, 40 is not such a good number. 

How is it conceivable that ten of the 12 greatest leaders of Israel did NOT want to enter the land of Israel? Had they completely forgotten God's miracles of the last 12 months? Had they not just seen with their own eyes the glory of the land? Weren't they excited to see this national dream come true?

Sadly, God's miracles and promises were not enough.

The grave sin of the spies was quite simply a blindness to their purpose. They didn’t realize who they were. They didn’t realize their own possibility. They were so close to living in the promised land, living happily ever after. So close, but they failed to believe that God believed in them.

The challenge of the spies, the Lubavitcher Rebbe teaches, was to confront their destiny to live in the land of Israel. But, they had grown comfortable with their current reality. They didn't want to live in the real world of sowing and reaping, of worrying and struggling.  It was much easier to remain in the desert with a high level of spirituality and God providing for all their needs.

Their JOB was to cultivate the land and combine the physical with the spiritual. To raise the level of the physical world by infusing it with Godliness. To show that the infinite can dwell in the finite.  That was and is the purpose of mitzvot and why Bnei Yisrael was going to enter the promised land.

Instead, they, we and Jewish history itself were left with this colossal, calamitous failure.

All of this then begs the question as we reflect on our own actions:  Are we like a modern day version of the spies, or are we heeding God’s call? Are we succeeding or failing?

I would argue that we are doing both, and we need to do better. And by we, I include myself as I, too, reflect on the challenge of heeding God’s call.

On a day to day basis, we try to heed God’s call and generally do the right thing. We come to shul. We give tzedakah. We care about family. We act ethically. We’re civilized – even at a hot Kiddush.

But do we have the driving sense of purpose and divine mission that the spies were supposed to have? Do we feel that God is calling us and calling us now?

The answer is often no.

We can forget – even in shul – that we can and must find God’s presence and calling in what we generally call ordinary. Al nisecha she-b’chol yom imanu – There are miracles that surround us every single day.  (That’s why we say v’techezena before Modim. We need to open our eyes.)

We can also forget that the challenges that confront us are opportunities to grow. We may think they are obstacles to prevent us from progressing, and we get discouraged. Not so. They are not obstacles; they are building blocks. They, too, are part of God’s plan.

Like the spies, we may want to settle for the current reality and rest on our laurels. How many of us have said, “I’m a good Jew, I’m a good person, I’m doing enough already.” It’s completely understandable, and I do it myself sometimes.

But this is where we can learn from the spies’ failure. It wasn’t just that they failed in their mission. They failed in their mission because they were afraid to fail. And so they orchestrated a strategy by which the people would stay in the desert.

They were wrong to avoid the challenge. The possibility of failure is part of the beauty.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks notes: Fear of failure causes us to fail. The willingness to fail is what allows us to succeed.

So, I offer one simple action item today.  Take one new risk in your life. Undertake a commitment that frightens you a little and know that when you do so, you are serving God and answering His call. It can be large – like an hour of daily mediation on God’s glory – or small – one extra prayer or blessing a week.

For my part, I’m going to try to manage my time better. Be more careful to spend time with family. Share more of my thinking on Judaism through my blog. Exercise more.  To be more disciplined in these areas is a challenge for me.  I will have to confront scheduling pressures as I strive to maximize God’s gift of time and use it most effectively.

What will be your challenge?  If you think you might fail at it, that’s even more of a reason to try it.

Before I close, I’d like to offer one final point.  A very simple one, but worth reiterating:  Believe in yourself.

The spies did not.

The spies not only felt inadequate to the task at hand, they even thought that they knew what the Canaanites thought of them! "We're like grasshoppers in THEIR eyes." How did they possibly know what the Canaanites thought?

They didn’t. They just did not believe in themselves.

R. Tzadok HaKohein, the Rebbe of Lublin, (154) notes that it is actually a mitzvah to believe in yourself.

This week, I attended the closing retreat for UJA-Federation’s rabbinic fellowship for visionary leaders. The program was a one-year opportunity for study and collaboration with 14 New York rabbis of all denominations. I was the only Orthodox rabbi in the group. One of the recurring topics throughout the year was articulating vision. Vision is what we aspire to and what ultimately gets us out of bed in the morning. It is our “why.”

So I have been doing a lot of thinking about:  Who am I? What's my why? This goes beyond things that are important and fundamental like family.

What's my vision? What gets me out of bed each morning?

I came to the conclusion that the answer is simple: To be a rabbi.

It was actually on this very date 12 years ago that Rabbi Lookstein offered me the job to be a rabbi at KJ, and the rest is history in the making.

I am a rabbi in my bones, and my vision is to change lives by sharing kedusha (holy, meaningful experiences). I see my role as a rabbi to lead a synagogue that fosters individual Jewish identity as well as collective Jewish identity.

That's who I am.  That’s my vision.

What is your vision?

Each of us needs to have our own Godly calling.

It is never too early or too late to explore who you are and what your vision should be. Know who you are and own that role.  Start with minor steps.  Add one pushup to the exercise routine.  Donate a little more to tzedakah.  One extra unit of Torah study. Take on a new volunteer project – even if only one time. Spend an additional 20 minutes each evening with your children.  Heed God’s call and mission for you.

This process together will be transformative, and, as a community, not only will we not fail like the spies, but we will flourish and grow together.

If we embark on this mission together, then I am hopeful that by my 50^th birthday, that we will have, please God, many beautiful realized visions and accomplished missions to celebrate.

---