Rabbi Jon Hanish
Kehillat Israel Reconstructionist Congregation
It was Oct. 2002 and shiva had just ended. Our relatives had gone home. Our children were sleeping soundly in their beds. The leftover food was resting safely in the refrigerator.
My wife, Lisa, and I sat at our dining room table talking…. Just the two of us for the first time in days… Talking about Lilly, her ninety-nine year old grandmother who died a few months short of her centennial birthday.
Talking about her amazing life…
Talking about the dreams she and her late husband lived…
Talking about the dreams that kept them together for sixty nine years of marriage…
For a moment, we sat there in silence, thinking about Lilly and all the dreams that had been dreamed and fulfilled over the course of her life.
Breaking the silence, Lisa turned to me and asked, “If you died tomorrow, is there something you would regret not having done, not having accomplished during your life?” I was a little shocked that she had asked it. I wasn’t sure that she really wanted the answer. We had a wonderful life – a thriving business, two great kids, friends, a home. We were happy. I was happy. Maybe she knew more about me then she let on. Because, in truth, there was something gnawing at me, something that I had always wanted to do.
Unknown to Lisa, every fall I would go to websites of the local rabbinic schools and peruse their catalogues. I would imagine the classes, I would think about the experiences that would finally lead me to becoming a rabbi. And then I would close the websites until the next fall when I would look and imagine all over again. I’d tell myself year after year that I was too old to start over.
I was deep in thought when she repeated the question. I hesitated for a moment and then responded --
“Lisa, I always wanted to be a rabbi.”
My words hung in the air.
“Okay, let’s do it,” she responded.
We spent the rest of the night talking, planning and dreaming. Should we change the direction of our lives? Should we take an adventure with a two and a four year old in tow, the former still in diapers? It was Lisa who started the application process. She went to our cantor, who happened to be on the Hebrew Union College Staff, and asked him to speak with me about rabbinic school. After meeting with him, I knew I wanted to change my life, our lives, that I didn’t just want to dream a new dream, I wanted to live a new dream. Nine months later, Lisa, Lila, Sydney and I departed for the adventure of a lifetime.
The celebration of one woman’s life, changed our lives forever. After Lilly’s death, we decided it was time to dream a new dream. With the support and guidance of my wife that dream has become a reality. And that dream has led us here.
The 16th century mystic Joseph Karo believed in divine guidance. He believed that God spoke to him in the form of a maggid, literally a narrator or a storyteller. For Karo, his maggid was a spirit sent by Adonai who would come to him late at night and advise him through visions and automatic writing. It guided his life. It gave him direction. The maggid provided him with confidence. His maggid even had a name – Mishnah.
Karo had many dreams but they only became a reality with the push of his maggid. He wasn’t alone. Many of the mystics of the 16th and 17th centuries had personal maggidim. Through their dream experiences with their maggidim, they took Jewish mysticism to new heights.
I’d like to reinstate the role of the maggid.
I think each and everyone of us could use a maggid now and then.
As Reconstructionist Jews we believe that God’s work is seen through the work of each and every one of us. Holiness is inside of me. Holiness is inside of you. Your maggid might be sitting next to you at this very moment. In my story, in my life, Lisa is my maggid. She inspires me to follow my dreams. She is my holy guide.
Who is yours?
Who advises you as to the direction which your life should take? Who pushes you to make your dreams come true?
In the early 1900’s, Enterprise, Alabama was a thriving town. Everyone’s lives were about growing cotton, profiting from cotton, understanding cotton. Cotton was their vision of a perfect world. If you asked anybody in that town, they’d probably have told you that cotton was their dream come true.
Then a little pest crossed the Texas-Mexico border. Its name – the boll weevil. The boll weevil, like the citizens of Enterprise, liked cotton. Every year, that little pest crept closer and closer to them until, one day, it was at their doorstep. They didn’t know what to do so they kept planting cotton as the boll weevil ate through farm after farm. They were stuck on one vision of the world – farming cotton – and that vision was falling apart.
In 1916, local businessman H.M. Sessions convinced a deeply indebted cotton farmer to take a chance on Peanuts. Session agreed to supply the seeds for planting, a picker to harvest them with, and to pay a dollar a bushel. It was an offer too good to refuse. The crop was a success. The 8,000 bushels of peanuts were enough to pay off the farmer’s debts and then some. The next farming season, the town of Enterprise didn’t plant a single acre of cotton. Everybody planted peanuts.
H.M. Sessions knew that their dream really wasn’t about cotton. It was about farming… It was about raising their families… It was about taking pride in what they did and who they were…. The citizens of Enterprise had a dream – they thought it was cotton but they were wrong. A nasty bug got in the way. Then a maggid pushed them to understand that the essence of a dream can be brought back to life with a little push, a little inspiration and a little financial support.
This story is reminiscent of a tale found in the book of Genesis. Do you remember Pharaoh’s dream? Do you remember how pharaoh dreamed of seven fat cows being eaten by seven thin cows? He didn’t know what it meant but he knew it meant something. It took someone else, Joseph, to interpret his dream. After he interpreted the dream, he helped Pharaoh organize his nation so that no one would go hungry. Just like the people of Enterprise, Pharaoh had a dream. Just like the people of Enterprise, It took someone else to explain it to him and to create a plan for the dream to come to fruition.
Every one of us has a dream. You might not know what it is. And it just might take someone else to figure it out and to push you toward accomplishing it.
The maggid formula isn’t just about someone helping you. It’s also about you helping someone else. Let me ask you… To whom are you a maggid? Who do you push to make their dreams come true?
I’m going to wager that most people in this room know what a jack in the box is – not the burger chain, I’m talking about the toy. By the way if you have to choose, eat the toy – it’s better for you than the burger and fries. As I was saying, I bet that most of you have played with a jack in the box at some point in your lives. Now, Jack lives inside a dark little box. He spends most of his time dreaming about escaping the box and seeing the outside world. He knows that something amazing is surrounding him. But, he just doesn’t have the strength or ability to fulfill his dream no matter how hard he tries. He needs someone to help.
That’s where you come in. You start turning the handle outside of Jack’s box. Music begins to play. Jack hears the heavenly music. He waits in excitement. And then, suddenly, light breaks over his head and he sees the sky. You’ve opened the door allowing him to pop out of the box. It’s a dream come true.
Who is the Jack in your life? Who can you free from darkness to make their life a little bit brighter?
Professor Muhammad Yunus has millions of Jacks in his life. Back in 2006, he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work developing micro-loan programs in Bangladesh. By lending as little as twenty or thirty dollars to individuals living in poverty, he has helped the poorest of the poor fulfill their entrepreneurial dreams. The program has enabled millions of Bangladeshis, almost all women, to buy everything from cows to cell phones in order to start and run their own businesses. World wide, over 92 million clients – should I say dreamers – have been helped by the micro-loan system developed by Yunus. Since founding his bank, he has made an estimated 5.7 billion dollars in loans to more than six million people in Bangladesh, 96 percent of them women. Statistics show that the women use the profits from their businesses to feed, clothe and educate their children.
Yunus is a reminder that it sometimes it is the little things that matter most. Just giving a hand to someone in need, bringing a little light into the darkness of their lives might change their lives forever.
It’s not just individuals who dream. Communities dream, too.
As a nation, we should dream and dream big. We should dream of days when healthcare is available for everyone. We should dream of days when unemployment is a forgotten term. We should dream of days when our public education system rivals the best that the world has to offer. As a nation, we should dream about creating a country which leads by example.
If our nation needs improved health care….
If our nation needs to help the unemployed….
If our nation needs to upgrade our public education system….
Then we need to be the maggidim to our country’s representatives. Rabbi Joseph Karo had dreams but he always waited for his Maggid to push him to action. We need to push our elected officials. We need to let them know that it is in their hands to make this nation’s dreams a reality.
Read a newspaper.
Follow an issue.
Take a stand.
Let your elected officials know that you will support them to help make our nation’s dreams come true. Bestselling author Jerry White once wrote: “No one survives on their own, and no one thrives alone, either. We have benefited from anyone and everyone who has ever been kind to us, encouraged us, taught us, mentored us or parented us” (Jerry White, Getting up When Life Gets You Down, page 77 – 78) . Sometimes it’s easy to forget all the maggidim in our lives and to believe that we’re completely self-made. A lot of people have helped me to get towhere I am today. I have to believe the same is true for every one of us.
In our busy lives, it’s not always easy to take time to help others fulfill their dreams. I have a friend who owns a business. His business keeps him pretty busy. One day, he realized that he wasn’t taking the time to really listen to other people and that he wasn’t taking the time to help anyone… well… besides himself…. He was focused purely on turning a profit. So he decided that each day he would take the time to assist someone, somehow. He didn’t know who that someone was going to be but he knew that if he just listened…
listened…
listened…
to the people around him, he would know who and what he was supposed to do. So he began listening more. And each day, he would find a moment where he could help a friend, a client, relative or sometimes a complete stranger. Sometimes he would help them start on the road to fulfilling one of their dreams by giving them the confidence or guidance they needed to move forward. Sometimes he would give them much needed advice. Sometimes he would succeed by doing nothing more than just listening. Each person needed something different. He learned that if he listened hard enough, they would tell him what he needed to do for them.
It wasn’t always easy waiting, wondering what would come his way. But most days, something did come along. If you listen enough, you will find yourself in the same position. Listening is the first step in becoming a maggid.
Too many people have come into my office – into all the clergy offices -- over the last year as they watched their dreams fade away due to unemployment… mortgage defaults… bankruptcies. These are congregants who had dreams, watched those dreams come to fruition, and then watched those same dreams fade away. Some are overwhelmed by the changes in their lives. They are so bruised from the disintegration of their dreams that they are afraid to dream new dreams. And even if they’re able to dream, they’re unsure how to proceed. They are too shell shocked by our changing economy or by personal tragedies.
I know that the keyword for the High Holiday season is T’shuvah – Repentance. But maybe we should focus on some different words this High Holiday season –
Caring.
Helping.
Loving.
Empathizing.
Motivating.
Inspiring.
Look around you. Who do you know that needs some help in fulfilling a new dream? Who needs help dreaming a new dream? We are a community. We can’t turn our backs on the plight of our neighbors, friends, fellow congregants. Have your dreams all come true? If you’re living your dream, then maybe it’s time to help someone else to live theirs.
I’ve been witness to many amazing maggidim this year…
Congregants offering up guest houses for congregants who had no place to live.
Congregants joining together to create a job fair, not just for themselves but for the entire Jewish community (To be held here on Weds. from 9 – 12)
Congregants giving out-of-work congregants job guidance
Congregants offering services to congregants who have undergone physical hardship
There are so many ways you can help. It’s up to you to take the first step. Everyone has dreams. It’s time for us to help make each other’s dreams come true. It is time to not just be a dreamer but a maggid – the holy force that helps make the dreams of others become a reality.
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