Treasure Under the Bridge – Kol Nidre 5786

There was once a very poor man, a simple and pious Jew, in a shtetl somewhere in Ukraine, or maybe it was Poland.  He could barely feed his family and all the doors in his house were broken.  One night he had a dream and in his dream he saw that if he set off on a long journey all the way to Vienna, there was the majestic palace of the emperor and in front of the palace was a bridge and under the bridge was buried a huge pot of treasure.  Unh, it’s just a dream he said to himself as he woke up.  The next night he had the same exact dream! Unh, just a dream.  On the third night, he had the same dream that if he set off on a long journey to Vienna, he would see the palace and in front of the palace was a bridge and under the bridge was a huge pot of treasure.  Maybe it’s not just a dream?  He set off on the journey, day and night, night and day, through forests and across rivers, until, exhausted from his journey, he arrived at the palace in Vienna just as he had seen it in his dream!  What he had not seen, however, was that the bridge was guarded day and night by fierce looking officers. So, he just stood there not knowing what to do.  After many hours, one of the officers approached him and said, “hey you, Jew, what are you doing here?  I’ve been watching you just standing here.  He decided to come clean and tell him about his dream and his long journey.  The officer laughed and laughed!  “You stupid Jew following your dreams!  If I followed my dreams, where would I be, huh?  I had a dream last night that if I travelled to some Godforsaken little town somewhere in Ukraine, or maybe it was Poland, there was a house there on the outskirts of the town with broken doors and I went into that house in my dream and down in the basement, there was a huge pot of treasure! But, you think I am going to follow my dreams?”  The Jew, recognizing the description of his town and his house, thanked the officer and set back on his long journey and, sure enough, when he got home, he went straight to his cellar, his basement and found a huge pot of treasure!

It’s easy to read this story and conclude that the journey was pointless; everything you need is already right here, but Rebbe Nachman taught of this story that we all have the treasure, but sometimes we have to go on a long journey, away from home to find it, or we need help from others.  Versions of this story exist in many different cultures and traditions; some of you may have read The Alchemist by the Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho, which is essentially the same tale. So what is this treasure and how do we find it if it is not literally sitting there in our basements?  Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav, born at the end of the 18th century, was the great grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, founder of Hassidism, and I visited his burial place in Uman and other significant sites in Ukraine in 2012, the physical landscapes of the stories. I want to relate the story to the work of Yom Kippur and living a meaningful Jewish life, based on other spiritual teachings from Rebbe Nachman. 

Elohai neshama sh’natata bi t’hora hee (singing) – this is one of the first prayers we say in the morning after waking – My God, the neshama, the soul that you have planted in me is totally pure.  Over the course of a day, a week, a month, a year, it is so easy to lose sight of that essence as it gets tarnished, covered in shmutz.  The daily morning practice of chanting this prayer gently invites us, in our sometimes grumpy, dark morning mood, to acknowledge what is true at my core; that I have a soul that is totally pure. The holy work of preparing a body for burial by the hevre kadisha is called taharah, as that body is ritually washed and returned to its purest possible state, restored to the pure essence of the soul carried in that vessel.  

A man came to Rebbe Nachman, burdened with a deep sense of despair. “Rebbe,” he cried, “I am a completely bad person. I have no merits to my name, no good deeds to speak of, and no mitzvot to defend me”. He proceeded to list his failings at length, convinced that his life was full of darkness and that he was too far gone to ever be redeemed. After listening patiently to the man’s long, desolate confession, Rebbe Nachman leaned forward and replied calmly, “Well, if you are truly and completely bad, then there is nothing I can do for you”. 
The man, shocked by the Rebbe’s response, suddenly sat up a little straighter. “What do you mean, Rebbe? I mean…I suppose… sometimes… I was kind to others,” he stammered, scrambling to find some small shred of decency. Rebbe Nachman smiled. “That is the start,” he said.

Many of us, myself included, have days where we despair and cannot find anything worthy or redeeming about our lives. Rebbe Nachman’s core teaching is about finding the nekudah tovah, literally a good point that he says is in each of us.  Our work is to look for this spark of absolute purity and goodness in all those around us and, ultimately, the hardest part often, in ourselves, and to let that tiny speck of goodness grow and expand, becoming the focus, starting with a few very small acts. Assur l’hitya’esh – it is forbidden to despair, chides Rebbe Nachman again and again, as a man who likely felt despair in his own life. Al tityaesh – do not despair!

This spiritual practice happens throughout the year; to find those little nekudot, spots of goodness in the people in our lives, especially the ones that appear to be wicked, or at least who are deeply annoying to us, and in ourselves.  This work becomes more intense at this time of year and then Yom Kippur is not about earning back a lost goodness, but clearing away the debris, the shmutz that obscures the purity, revealing the treasure that was there all along. The fasting, the prayers, the vidui, the confessions—these are the tools we use to scrub away the dirt, revealing the shining soul beneath.

The language of the al chets and the ashamnu are pretty heavy; long lists of all the terrible things that we have done individually and collectively, the chest beating as we punish ourselves for being so terrible, which for some of us, can just help us spiral into despair.  Of course it is essential to acknowledge our failings, the ways in which we have let down ourselves, others and God, but that is all part of the messiness of being human and it is not good for our mental health to stay in those dark places, but allow the ritual of confession to release us from them and move into the light.  There is a verse in psalms (Psalm 34), that says “sur me’rah, v’asseh tov, bakesh shalom v’rodfeyhu – turn away from evil and do good, seek peace and chase after it.” In the work of teshuvah, say some commentators, we often spend too much time focusing on the rah, the bad stuff we’ve done and get lost there.

Reb Yitzakh Meir of Alter taught, “it does not help to remain stuck in the quagmire of sur me’rah. You will end up asking yourself, “what’s the difference if I sift the mud this way or I sift the mud that way? It’s still mud!”  In the time wasted on this negative thinking, one could have been mining for diamonds and precious stones.  Don’t dwell on the sur me’rah, he says, instead move quickly to “aseh tov,” do good deeds to counteract the bad ones.”  In the same way, don’t focus on the negative traits of ourselves and others, but look for that nekudah, that spark of tov, goodness, the treasure.

These are strong teachings, looking for the sparks of goodness, the purity of soul inside ourselves and others, important practices for us all on Yom Kippur and every day, but also in a year that’s been so hard there’s something more that’s needed – and that’s about our relationship to community and the tradition. That is also a treasure that’s right here, possibly gathering dust in our basements. Sometimes we need to take a journey to find these connections, and this year I think we really need it. With so much antisemitism in the world, existential fear and angst in the daily news cycle, it is so important to live vibrant Jewish lives, to learn and embrace the rich treasures of Judaism’s wisdom, rituals and practices with curiosity, thirst and pride.

Sarah Hurwitz recently published a book called As a Jew – Reclaiming our Story from Those who Blame, Shame and Try to Erase us.  The book describes her long journey from being “a cultural/ethnic/social justice/good person/remember the Holocaust Jew” to a thoughtful, educated, practicing and continually studying Jew. 

She says:
“People who make false claims about Judaism and Israel are often very loud and very confident, even when they do not know what they do not know.  Back when I too was ignorant, they used to intimidate me. But once I knew my story, our story, I was no longer scared of such people.  And once I felt connected to Jewish communities and the Jewish people – in the city where I live, nationally and globally – I knew that I was not alone.  We are all part of this story.” (p.270)  Hurwitz honors the people, dead and alive, young and old, who inspire her “to live proudly, gratefully, and joyfully – as a Jew.”  This is also finding that treasure right in our own homes and an important antidote to antisemitism. We are all part of this story.

Like Sarah Hurwitz, who was a speech writer for the Obamas in The White House and a graduate of Harvard Law School, many of us have inherited a somewhat infantilized and superficial version of Judaism, and when we get such existential and moral angst about Israel and about the future of Judaism globally, it’s very easy, in our despair, to dismiss or diminish the value of Judaism and its treasure; the great wisdom of our texts, our rituals and practices, our sacred calendar whose journey doesn’t end with Yom Kippur, but goes into the sublimely beautiful and powerful practices of Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah; the whole arc of the year, including every Shabbat, that gives us depth and connection, Jewish pride that allows us to flourish as humans through the lens of our own tradition.

We’re blessed here in Boulder still to have so much of the legacy of our teacher Reb Zalman Schechter-Shalomi who had such an influence on me personally and on many of us here in Boulder. Reb Zalman saw that there were many, many deeply spiritual Jewish people in the 60s and 70s who were finding their spirituality anywhere but Judaism, they were finding it in Buddhism and Taoism and Hinduism and native Americanism. He realized that post-war Judaism, through the trauma of the Holocaust, had become focused on large institutions more than the individual seeker.  Reb Zalman really helped people find that nekudah tovah, that point inside them, that helped them see their own spiritual depth in the practices and teachings of Judaism, and he helped all the denominations in the Jewish world, especially in America, refind the treasure, the hidden sparks of goodness that had been lost, and many people came back to living meaningful, spiritual Jewish lives. In this time where many of us are feeling so afraid of the future, it might be time once again, to find those buried sparks, to recognize the power and impact, like Sarah Horowitz, of being proud, knowledgeable, practicing Jews; by always looking for that nekudah tovah, the good point, in ourselves and all around us, by starting each morning saying elohai neshama sh’natata bi, t’horah, my God the soul you have given me is completely pure,  finding treasure that’s been there all along. And Al titya’esh – do not despair!