Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

Selichot, 2000 by Harold M. Schulweis

Rabbi Nachman of Brotzlav, the great grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidim, taught his followers through stories, parables and tales. He himself fell into periods of deep despair and learned and taught that every ascent is preceded by a descent. One of his celebrated tales concerned a prince and a turkey.

The royal prince was convinced that he was a turkey. So, he sat beneath the table naked, pecking at some bones or crumbs.

The king was worried and he called upon the royal physicians, who gave up on the prince.

A sage volunteered to help. The sage undressed and sat under the same table with the prince. Now the prince had company. “Who are you?" asked the prince, "And what are you doing here?"

And the other said "And you, what are you doing here?"

"I am a turkey."

"Me too" said the sage. So they sat together for quite a while. Then after a number of days, the sage signaled the king's servants to throw him two shirts.

The sage put his shirt on and said to the prince, "What makes you think that a turkey can't wear a shirt?" So the prince put on a shirt. And so it was with the pants. "What makes you think that a turkey can't wear pants?" The prince emulated the sage until they both were completely dressed.

"What makes you think that you can't eat what you want?" And he ordered a meal. And the sage continued, "What makes you think that you can't sit at a table?" So the prince sat at a table. The king was rejoiced, the prince returned to his former self.

What does the parable mean, especially for this evening of Selichot?  Who is the prince but me? And who is the sage but myself?

There are times when I feel no better than a turkey, a dumb animal that feeds off the fallen crumbs of a king's table. I no longer feel worthy to sit at the royal table or to drink out of silver cups and eat off golden plates. I am not deserving of that. No, I belong under the table. I have lost respect for myself. I do not look into a mirror. I do not dress for I feel naked, not worthy of royal apparel or cosmetics.

I do not wish to converse with anyone. I am ashamed of my failures, of promises unkept and expectations unfulfilled.

I sit alone beneath the table. I am afraid of others. Will they not reject me, turn on me, yell at me, chastise me for my stupidities, for my laziness? Will they not compare me with the others around the table, the royal ones who have made it, the successful ones, the talented ones, the smart ones?

The sage is the only one I can speak to because he does not speak from a place far above me. He does not look down at me with condescension. He has joined me, removed his clothes and seated himself beside me under the table. He does not pounce at me with recrimination. He does not scold me or shout at me. He does not say, “Look at what you have done. Look how you have ruined your life, shamed your father and your mother. Look how you have wasted your life, become like an animal, a wild clucking fowl.”   He sits with me, encourages me step by step to put on my clothes, to sit at the table, to eat, to engage in conversation. 

Slowly, slowly, slowly I regain a little respect for myself.

So it is the way of t’shuvah repentance. It is not something that comes over me all at once, an epiphany like a bolt of lightning from above. Repentance is not sudden, does not come with fearful judgment. It is a process that grows. Repentance requires attentiveness and patience and love.

The sage respects my fall. He knows that he will be able to raise me up without himself going down. You cannot climb up out of the pit without descending into it. The rabbis put it “aliyah tzerichah yeridah” —  to leap up, you need to crouch down like the sprinter who must lower his body to get a fast start in the race.

I have learned from the sage in me. On Selichot, I do not deny my depression, my fall from my self esteem. I know it may not be the last time that I will feel this merciless melancholia. But I recall that once before I did ascend and that gives me hope that I can again raise myself up.

The parable is for Selichot. It tells me the great, great truth of Judaism. I can change. I am not trapped in the dungeon of determinism, I am not caught in the web of fate. I can change. Better yet, I can return to the original promise, to the sacred potentiality, to the divine image that was imprinted on my soul.

I can return. I can turn vice into virtue. I can convert the hardness of my heart. I can become a prince once more and join the royalty of God's greatest creation.

I now understand the slowness and the repetition in the liturgy. I now understand why there are so many confessions, so many ashamnus, so many al chets. It is because the change I seek cannot come at once, by magic, by miracle from above.

Change requires confession, repentance, awareness and resolution. T’shuvah is not once and for all. T’shuvah is the nes that we can experience every day; evening, morn and noon.

I understand why it took forty years to leave Egypt and to wander in the desert toward the promised land.  Life is not linear. It is a progressive process, two steps one way, two steps another way, two steps forward, one step backward. It takes time and patience and repetition.

"Why,” says one rabbi, "did it take ten plagues to accomplish what could have been accomplished with one great plague and free the people? Because," he answers, "Every plague has its own lesson to teach."

Selichot teaches me suspect quickness, to be wary of instant conversion and instant repentance and instant salvation. The instant miracle boomerangs on us. No sooner do we have the miracles of Egypt than we end up prancing before the golden calf.

Do not rely upon miracles. Maimonides explains that God does not work His ways through miracles. Surely God can with one whisper convert the heart and soul of everyone, but to do so is to destroy the freedom of human choice, the cultivation of character. Instant miracle will turn us into robots, but the goal of repentance is to turn us into free human beings.

Why did the sage not pray to God to turn the turkey into a prince by divine fiat? Because the grand purpose is to become a human being and that requires human choice, human freedom. Life is a process. T’shuvah is a process. Change is a process.

I did not become a turkey overnight. Should I expect that I will become a prince overnight?

Selichot is a self-transformation. It is the greatest challenge and the greatest opportunity that Rosh Hashanah celebrates. Bridging the Hasidic insights of Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlov and the rationalism of Maimonides is the insight of J. B. Soloveitchik. In his Ish ha-halacha he writes, "Man is free to create himself as a man of God; he has the ability to shatter the iron bars of universality and strict causality that imprisons him...man as a random example of the species." He lives in his own domain; he lives in a free, autonomous, individual and unique existence. What is shared in common is the belief in the will as the source of repentance.

We are to imitate the qualities of God. As God is merciful, be thou merciful; as God is forgiving, be thou forgiving. And now the most amazing act of emulation: as God creates, do thou create. As God is a Creator so I am a creator. I can leave these high holidays, this intensive period of self-transformation, as a new man, a new person. In the beginning God created. Through making a beginning, my world can be created. Who is the turkey and who is the prince and who is the sage? Don't you recognize yourself?

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