"Caring For Each Other"

2009 Rosh Hashanah sermon by Rabbi Jodi Kornfeld

Today’s Torah portion appears in Genesis 4.  It is the well-known story of Cain and Abel.  It is often referred to as the story of the first murder as Cain does indeed kill Abel.  If that were the only point, it would be an odd and perhaps inappropriate choice for Rosh Hashanah, a season of renewal.  But, as always, we look deeper into these ancient stories to find a message that is less obvious, one that requires more than a superficial acquaintance with the text.  It is only when we interact with these characters that we can transcend the generations and understand the profoundly human issues that people have wrestled with for millennia. Why did the biblical author find it important to create and retell this story?  And here, of course, is where the story gets interesting.  Genesis 4 also tells the story of the first birth in the Bible as Eve bears Cain, and then Abel.  As you may remember, Adam and Eve were creations of the biblical god.  Then these two human beings became parents. The notion of birth presents so many opportunities and possibilities.  Birth and death are the two universal events of humankind.  It is what we do in between that distinguishes each of us. What gives meaning to our lives?  What allows each of us to achieve our potential?  How do we assure purpose?  These questions are the hallmark of Rosh Hashanah.  The intervening days from now until Yom Kippur can be ya-mai bo-chan, days of introspection to consider these matters.  Genesis 4 warns against squandered opportunities in this one precious life we have.

We know nothing from the text of the brothers’ formative years or of how they came to be the people they were.  Neither do we know how they reached the point that the elder slew the younger and was punished by endless wandering.  The brief tale of Cain and Abel takes just over one hundred words to tell.  But no words are more well known than the five English words:  Am I my brother’s keeper?  In Hebrew, it takes only three:  ha-shomer achi a-no-chi.  Ha-shomer achi a-nochi; am I my brother’s keeper?  Phrased as a question, our tradition begs each of us to provide an answer.  The answer we supply tells of our formative years, and how we came to be the people we are.  It reveals our relationship to others, our sense of community. It tells how we wish to be perceived and indeed whom we see when we look in the mirror.  Am I my brother’s keeper?  If we engage in some creative word play between the Hebrew and the English, the answer already lies in the text itself.  The Hebrew word for ‘yes’ is ‘kayn,’ the homonym of the English pronunciation of one of the brother’s names, Cain.  Cleverly, then, he clearly answers his own question.  Kayn. Yes. Yes, I am my brother’s keeper, my sister’s keeper; and they are mine.  How could it be otherwise?  For if we are not, we too are condemned to a life without purpose, a life of uprootedness and wandering; in short a life lived by Cain.

On Rosh Hashanah we recommit ourselves personally and collectively to those things that make our lives meaningful.  We bear witness to each other’s pledge to purpose and commitment to connectedness.  It brings us together and as a consequence gives us strength.  Were this not the essential reason for our gathering, we would be like Cain – alone and cast out.  We would be left to observe this day independent of one another, isolated and impoverished for the experience.  Instead, we come together communally to celebrate and commemorate.  When we speak metaphorically on this day of being inscribed in the book of life, it is a book of meaningful life to which we allude. Cain, you see, could be said to have been inscribed in the book of life.  His punishment was not death, but a life as a fugitive outcast.  A life, yes; but one of questionable meaning.  Cain himself says it is a punishment greater than he can bear. We must aspire to be our better selves so that our lives are not empty.  To do this, though, we must recognize that we have a great interconnectedness and interdependence.  It is only through community that we achieve potential.  Auschwitz survivor and existential psychologist Viktor Frankl wrote, “A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life.  He knows the ‘why’ for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ‘how.’”  This responsibility to another ultimately ensures not only their well being but paradoxically our own.  The reciprocity that is required forms the basis of our very humanity.  It recognizes the inherent value of each one of us personally, and our value to each other. When I am my brother’s keeper, I am my own.  When I am not, I am lessened.  My empathy and compassion are compromised if I am tone deaf to the needs of another.  My essence and well being likewise are compromised if they ignore me.  And as an overall consequence, it should be obvious that my community is weakened.  It is perhaps for this reason that the sage Hillel admonished centuries ago, ‘do not separate yourself from your community.’

It is important to understand that this mutual guardianship need not be a burden nor a task that wears us down.  Rather, it is a joyous and liberating experience.  It is a gift to ourselves which, when accepted, makes us better than we otherwise would be.  Let me illustrate.  There is an old story said to have been told by Jews in the Middle Ages.  It recounts the tale of a rabbi who wanted to know about the paradigmatic places of paradise and purgatory, heaven and hell.  To see hell, he was taken to a room with a huge and delicious smelling cauldron of soup.  Yet all around the cauldron were people who were weak and famished.  In their hands, they held spoons long enough to reach the soup, but too long to get it into their mouths.  Next the rabbi was shown what purported to be heaven.  He was brought to another room that was identical to the first.  In this room, the people held identical spoons, but instead of starving, they were joyously feasting on that same delicious soup.  They were enjoying themselves, savoring the soup and the experience. The difference between the two rooms was that in the one called heaven, the people learned to feed each other.  Sustenance, physically and emotionally, can only come with the help of another, not at the expense of another.  Only when we act as our brother’s keeper are we ourselves nourished.

This is a moral obligation, an essential responsibility from which we cannot escape. We must be on guard for the communal consequences of what we do; always assessing what have we done.  We can push ourselves by asking have we done all that we could, or have we done enough.  As each of us individually raises these questions, all of us benefit by the mutual concern that underlies them.  If we ignore the question, we ourselves will fail to thrive. Excuses will not suffice. Cain tried to offer excuses as we can imagine him shrugging his shoulders and evading responsibility when asked where Abel was.  It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.  There will be times when we find it easy to maintain our place in our community.  We can sustain others when we experience the sweet joys and abundance that life offers.  But just as significantly, there will undoubtedly be times when we feel the enormous toll of circumstances.  Perhaps it is the economic downturn, or the pain of a personal loss.  We lose our bearings, our strength or even our awareness of others.  At those times, we must trust that others in our community recognize their mutual responsibility to us.  That is the very definition of community.  As Jane Addams said, “The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.”  Or to paraphrase, the good we secure for ourselves is precarious unless and until we embrace the notion that we are our brother’s keeper.  To which we say, “kayn ye-hi,” “yes, it will be.”