Jewish Geography & Spiritual Literacy
Erev Rosh HaShanah, 5768
Rabbi Rick Brody
A few weeks ago, a young woman named Lauren Caitlin Upton treated the nation to one of the most memorable gaffes in recent pop culture history. Her twenty seconds of unintentionally hilarious gibberish on live national television have become a media sensation. If you know what I’m talking about, please know that although I’m about to share Caitlin’s words for comic effect, I do so in the same spirit with which she laughed at herself later that week on the Today Show. I don’t know her, I have no interest in drawing conclusions about her or vilifying her, and I actually think there’s much we can learn about the whole episode. So… who is Lauren Caitlin Upton and what did she say?
Caitlin was Miss South Carolina in the 2007 Miss Teen USA Pageant. During the question-and-answer portion of the show, Upton, one of the finalists, was asked why she thought one-fifth of Americans couldn’t locate the United States on a map. Here is how she responded:
“I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps. And I believe that our education like, such as South Africa, and, the Iraq, everywhere such as, and I believe that they should … our education over here in the U.S., should help the U.S., and should help South Africa, and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children.”
Amusing, but unfortunately also humiliating for a young woman who simply had a total lapse of concentration. Some have chosen to add further insult to the injury Caitlin suffered – stereotyping and demonizing her. To those who’ve latched onto this amusing story with angry, spiteful energy directed at this one woman, I say – relax. Leave her alone. Sure, it’s worth a little laugh. And yes, this incident does suggest some larger problems with the current state of education for America’s youth; and there are legitimate criticisms to be made of society’s overemphasis on superficial “beauty;” but in this season of forgiveness, can’t we give Caitlin the benefit of the doubt? Don’t we have enough decency to just recognize that sometimes people simply freeze under pressure? Hasn’t each of us, at one time or another, become so flustered that what came out of our mouths was totally incoherent?
This story raises other questions about our priorities: How has our competitive drive and our desire to categorize people into neat little boxes warped our perception of the sanctity that dwells within humanity? Why do we revel in other people’s misfortunes and exaggerate their flaws, even when the consequences are trivial? Can we focus on identifying the good within people and within the world, apprehending the rich variety of what we can truly call beauty? What can we learn about our ability to pick ourselves back up after we stumble, learn from our mistakes, and grow? And what do we really know about maps and locating ourselves on them? And why does that matter?
These are the big questions I’d like to explore over the course of the next 10 days.
I’ll return to them throughout my sermons during these Yamim Noraim, these Days of Awe that penetrate our lives the way the shofar blast penetrates our ears and our hearts, calling us to reflect, take stock of who we are, refine our awareness of our selves and our relationship with God and our communities. And through these questions I have posed, and through this simple story of the beauty queen caught like a deer in headlights and the millions of people laughing, we can find ourselves on the map. This irony about the teenager who got utterly lost in response to a question about Americans’ lack of geographic awareness, can become even more ironically relevant, helping us discover a map that can restore to us a sense of where we are and where we are going. From the questions I have posed, along with our tradition’s ancient rituals and words, and the very rhythm of these days, we will form our collective map, which will guide us back, help us do t’shuvah – to return to the path that we truly wish to be on.
We start with the idea that we’re lost. Let’s imagine Caitlin’s little blunder as a metaphor for how we stumble through life, especially in the face of judgment. Each of us stands as she did, in absolute dread at finding an answer. We’re all looking for approval, trying desperately to respond to the big questions life hurls at us. We laugh at this poor woman who got lost in her words and under the pressure of a national television audience, but we refuse to look at ourselves and recognize that we’re all lost. We go through life not really understanding our place in it, not knowing where we’re going, not knowing what tools are available to us – or how to make us of them – to actually go somewhere meaningful and to comprehend the significance of the journey. As we try, we fumble nervously through a list of key words and concepts that are supposed to get us to the right answer, but we’re hopelessly unable to organize them into anything logical or articulate. Repentance. Um, forgiveness. Judgment. Like, second chances. I’m sorry. The Shofar, such as. Book of Life. Inscribed. Sealed. Birthday of the World. … What does it all mean? Did we say enough of the right buzz words, or did we simply mimic the platitudes our coaches trained us to say – something about world peace and children? Do we pass? Can we go home now, fleeing from the bright lights of judgment and the dread of knowing that the whole world is waiting for our answer? Can we pat ourselves on the back and go back to our regular lives?
My sense is that most of us, while here in synagogue, rarely think about the dreadful encounter before a judge and the risk of real, personal humiliation. This is so difficult to do emotionally. We’re scared of that encounter and so we just avoid having it in the first place. Who can blame us? Instead we just go through the motions. But let’s think about the way we feel when we’re not here in synagogue and actually do reflect upon our fragility. We do feel pain, confusion, doubt, loneliness, failure, separation. We know we are vulnerable, and the scary truth is that right here, right now is the place and time to lay ourselves bare, admitting we don’t have the answers. If we have them, why are we here tonight? Let’s bring that humility into our ritual experience of these Days of Awe, and let’s allow ourselves to trip over our words.
Fortunately, we do have maps to guide us – spiritual maps – our customs, our prayers, our stories. They are all generously presented to help us from falling on our faces, or to pick ourselves up after we have fallen. What do maps do? Essentially, they use landmarks to help us feel grounded and guided. Not only do they help us get somewhere – they also let us know where we are. And that always needs to be the first step. Before we can set a course for a destination, before we can figure out where we want to go, we need to know where we are right now. How do we locate our spiritual selves? Is there any map that can answer that question for us? When faced with answering that daunting question, can we make any sense out of the world?
I’ve offered a little bit of help tonight, providing each of us with a little landmark, a “You are here” sign. It’ll tell the truth wherever we go – as long as we take it with us. But it only scratches the surface – we need to fill in the details of that statement. So, let’s have this sign remind us all about being fully present wherever we are. We can’t run from ourselves, or from the challenge of accounting for ourselves. And the solution doesn’t lie in rehearsed answers. It lies in an honest soul-searching at any given moment. And that means the map is always changing. The “you are here” sign is always in motion. One hope I have is that we can come to appreciate how religion – and Judaism in particular – celebrates the process that life is, rather than providing a set of answers that run smoothly from fixed point A to determined destination B. Answers are always shifting; each of us is always unfolding more of the map and discovering new possibilities.
There are two important maps from our tradition that aid us in our journeys and that I’d like to explore tonight: Torah and Am Yisrael, the Jewish People.
When we speak of Torah we mean the entire corpus of Jewish texts and the ancient practice of study, interpretation, and application of those texts. We mean the stories and the immense legal tradition, the halachah, that itself is a backbone for Jewish living. And when we talk about Israel, we recognize that although we have a deep connection to a special point on a regular, geographical map – our homeland that exists within physical space – we’re also speaking about the Jewish People, the social experience of belonging that transcends both space and time. How do we map the Jewish People? Certainly not simply through where we live.
We joke about the game “Jewish Geography,” in which two or more Jews who have never met can establish an almost instantaneous bond by figuring out whom they know in common.
Suddenly, the gap between us is bridged, and the world no longer feels so vast and disorienting. The connections we make around the shared paths we have walked and the people we have known help to build a map that is really more like a web that strengthens all the connected dots. The more we play, the more dots emerge, and the more intricate the web. We are able to exclaim “it’s a small world” because of our connection to others in it. And yet, the more we play, the more the map continues to unfold, offering new perspectives.
The larger society talks about the same idea of “Jewish Geography” with the phrase “Six Degrees of Separation.” In the play of that name, one of the characters, Ouisa, reflects on the idea:
“I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find it extremely comforting that we’re so close. I also find it like Chinese water torture, that we’re so close because you have to find the right six people to make the right connection... I am bound, you are bound, to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people.”
I find this reflection profoundly moving and inspiring. There is spiritual significance of being part of a network of attachment. With the bonds of Jewish Peoplehood, we are not lost and we are not alone. Jewish Geography is no mere game. It nourishes our souls.
The other map that navigates us through our lives as Jews and as human beings is Torah. Quite simply, Torah is the blueprint or handbook for how to live. The sages of the Talmud didn’t know enough about the geography of the world to draw an accurate map. Instead, they made Torah their spiritual map. We might not be able, our sages say, to locate where we live on a geographic map of the entire world, but we can find ourselves through Torah, identifying our spiritual whereabouts through stories and mitzvot.
The Torah can offer a step-by-step, GPS-style set of directions to get us to very practical places of ethics and ritual. Torah also challenges us, opening us up to us a whole new world of mystery. Yet, within that mystery is the potential for much beauty and awe. The Zohar, our primary mystical text, reminds us that David said to God in Pslams: “Open my eyes, that I may behold the wonders from your Torah.” …
Let us open our eyes and see where we are. We have the opportunity to see wondrous things within the Torah. Every story we engage, every mitzvah we perform, can guide us on our journey. But our tradition also gives a more mystically exciting reason to keep digging deeper into Torah: Our Rabbis believed that this exploring actually plays a vital role in preserving the world.
Torah is more than just a helpful guide for each of us on our personal journeys – it has real significance. The Talmud offers an image of the scales of global justice depending on our smallest choices: “if an individual performs one good deed, happy is he for turning the scale both for himself and for the whole world on the side of merit; if he commits one transgression, woe to him for turning the scale both for himself and for the whole world on the side of guilt.”
Our tradition is telling us that the world depends on us. Answers from beauty queens about reading maps might not have any impact on the world – but our answers to life’s real questions as spelled out in how we live, how we interact with others, how we see ourselves in the world – those answers do matter. So it is with the accounting we do for our past year of actions – our mitzvot and our transgressions – throughout the Days of Awe.
As we stand in prayer this Rosh HaShanah, let’s let down our guard so we can tremble with teenage nervousness the way we would if we were in the spotlight on national television. Our answer counts. It is quite likely that we will stutter and stumble and spew gibberish as we attempt to account for ourselves, but the world and God will continue to listen. This is our chance to be heard, to save ourselves, and to save the world. The world is counting on us. We’re counting on each other.
Let’s fully embrace the idea of community and of our Jewish community. Let’s play Jewish Geography. But more importantly, let’s live it. We’re all connected to each other right now in this room. We all made a choice to be here today. What matters is our being with each other – not just talking about our connections but living them out through real presence with one another.
“Open our eyes, that we may behold the wonders from your Torah.” And as we behold the Torah that surrounds us, let us be sure to locate ourselves as well, in every moment. We are here. It starts with us. We’re part of a larger map, that stretches well beyond ourselves, but we begin our journey by locating ourselves. We are here. I am here: Hineini, the Biblical declaration that I am fully present. You are here, on the map. We are all part of a larger map. Community is our map. Torah is our map. We are here.