“Crossing the Narrow Bridge”

Rabbi Rick Brody

Elul 5767

The whole world is a very narrow bridge.  The essential thing is not to be afraid.

- Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav

            The recent tragedy of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis evoked many prayers.  We prayed for healing for those who were injured, for consolation for those who lost loved ones, and we expressed hopes for repair—not only for the infrastructure that was affected but also for the wounded psyches of all those who, on a daily basis, place their basic trust in the products of human design and construction.  This collapse was yet another reminder of how fragile a world we live in.  There’s something even more poignant when the reminder comes from an incident that involves a bridge; bridges possess great historical and symbolic meaning for us.

Our own traditional Jewish texts discuss the precarious role bridges play in our lives, and although the Rabbis are talking about the physical danger of traveling across real, rickety, narrow, swinging bridges fashioned by fallible human beings, I find it impossible to avoid seeing the symbolism in their words of caution.  The awareness of the uncertainty of our lives, the symbolic bridge-building and bridge-mending—the inspection and repair of our spiritual infrastructure—and also the bridge-crossing we must do to get through life all call out to us with the thunderous power of a shofar blast at this time of year.  The imminent Days of Awe awaken us to the changes we must make in our lives, call us to account for our shortcomings, and prepare us to take the steps into a new year that can bring us and those around us a feeling of goodness, peace, love, and holiness.

The Babylonian Talmud, in Tractate Shabbat 32a, explores the connection between our encounters with danger and the belief that our lives are judged.  The discussion begins with an idea that our modern outlooks on life, God, and cause-and-effect are quite likely to lead us to reject—the notion that bad things happen to us because of something for which we were judged, some moral failing in our past as the explanation for the tragedy.  The focus then shifts subtly, away from a facile declaration of the causal relationship between certain transgressions and certain fates that occur at a later time; the new focus is on the experience of being judged in general for one’s entire life at the moment one faces a clear danger:

“And when are men examined [for the merit of their lives]?  Reish Lakish said: ‘When they pass over a bridge’ … [meaning, really,] anything similar to a bridge.”

When each of us finds ourselves in mortal danger, it is almost inevitable that we will have the proverbial experience of “our lives flashing before us.”  Immediately, we are likely to judge ourselves for the merit of the life we have lived.  If these are our final moments, after all, we wish to make peace with the contributions we have brought to the world, the impact we have had on others, the legacy we will leave.  In order to reach anything resembling such a peace, we need to evaluate our lives.  Incidentally, the word l’hitpalel (“to pray”) literally means “to judge oneself.”  So, whether or not there is any external Judge, we impose judgment upon ourselves—regularly, and certainly when we come face-to-face with our mortality.  This is essentially what the High Holidays are about, especially Yom Kippur, a day in which, with trepidation, we “act out our own death.”

            How, then, did the Rabbis of the Talmud respond to the dangerous possibilities that lay before them? 

“Rav would not cross [a river] on a ferry on which a gentile was sitting.  He would say, ‘Lest judgment be visited upon him, and I be seized together with him.’  Samuel would cross [a river] only on a ferry that had a gentile on it.  He would say, ‘Satan has no power over two nations [simultaneously].’  Rabbi Yannai would examine [the ferry] and then cross over [on it].

Here, we find three very different responses to the same general uncertainty.  The advocates of each of the first two approaches seem to be focused on an aspect of their situation that is quite irrelevant.  The fact that these two great sages take countering views (without any further exploration of the debate)—on the question of whether or not to ride on a boat that has a gentile aboard—seems itself to suggest that they are both “missing the boat.”  The Talmud makes this eminently clear by letting the final word on the matter not only dismiss both earlier strategies, but also actually yield the desired conclusion—the crossing of the waters.  Rabbi Yannai is able to overcome the uncertainty by paying attention to what matters.  Rashi makes Rabbi Yannai the consummate pragmatist, explaining that he was checking the ferry to make sure it didn’t have a hole in it!

            I understand Rabbi Yannai to be saying that we need to take real stock of the infrastructure we rely on to get along in life.  The infrastructure—the bridge, the boat—is a metaphor for ourselves.  We can waste lots of time and literally get nowhere by debating about external factors that we cannot control.  Or, we can get down on our hands and knees and apply an observant, careful, reasoned examination of the vessel that transports our souls and determine if it is fit for travel, for carrying the precious cargo that we are.  Are we in good enough shape to get us where we need to go, or are we in need of repair?  Is the bridge the result of our own work of patient compromise, understanding, and resolute firmness in getting us to our destination?  Or has it become unsteady through neglect, has it been trampled on, weakened, become too erratic?  What role can we play in addressing the shortcomings that hinder our forward movement?  We can begin with a thorough examination.

The Rabbis of the Talmud understood our inclination towards self-judgment, even if they couched their discussions in troubling connections between random suffering and “what one deserves.”  I believe the Rabbis were less concerned with explaining away the disasters that have already occurred by linking them to the moral character of the victim and were much more concerned with establishing within us all a sense of the importance of self-judgment, of repentance, of steering our lives in a new direction as long as we have the power to do so—as long as we remain blessed with life in this fragile and dangerous world.  In other words, let us repent now, before we find ourselves in more compromising circumstances.  If we have made our amends, repaired our own bridges, continued to strive to do the right and the good, and executed a satisfactory accounting—then perhaps we render a better chance that meeting our end (even if we can’t prevent it) will occur with greater equanimity and less trepidation; and in the meantime, before we meet our end, let us render ourselves fit for continuing our journey with a sense of passionate purpose and joyous contentment.

Shanah tovah – a good, sweet new year to us all.