"To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner.  I am not a teacher, only a fellow student."  (Soren Kierkegaard)

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A FEW PRE-SHABBAT WORDS FROM RABBI AARON

The Crossroads
Parashat Ekev continues the discourses of Moshe revisiting the challenges faced by the Israelites, along with some painful chapters in their relationship with God. In Deuteronomy chapter 9, verse 25 Moshe recalls pleading before God prostrate on the ground for forty days and nights, begging for God to forgive the people for the terrible betrayal represented by the Golden Calf. Below you see a bit of a visual cross-cultural sampling of bowing, genuflecting, and kneeling. Notice how the gesture is so widespread across human culture. There are so many nuances being expressed - from the aesthetics of the Tea ceremony, to ancient Chinese gestures of loyalty and submission to the Ruler, to Ethiopian Jews praying to God, to Moslems, to Christians, to the etiquette expressed across a range of martial art forms.

The title of this drash harks back to the classic blues tune penned by Robert Johnson [covered by so many blues artists]... here are the opening lyrics:

I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees.
I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees.
Asked the lord above for mercy, save me if you please.

That classic song takes you to popular American legends surrounding those words [highly worth the journey to the intersection of routes 61 and 49, in Clarksdale, Mississippi!]. Underneath those lyrics is that same gesture of petition. Listen to Moshe's words as he desperately sought to turn God away from destructive anger, evoking God's compassion and God's promises to our forefathers. 

I lay prostrate before the Lord those forty days and forty nights because the Lord had said he would destroy you. I prayed to the Lord and said, "O Sovereign Lord, do not destroy your people, your own inheritance that you redeemed by your great power and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Overlook the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin. Otherwise, the country from which you brought us will say, 'Because the Lord was not able to take them into the land he had promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to put them to death in the desert.'  But they are your people, your inheritance that you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm."

When the Rabbi [or Cantor] falls upon his [or her] knees and prays prostrate on Yom Kippur, what is the meaning of the gesture? I think it is a clear form of surrender. 

God, You are in charge. I may cling to the [delusional] notion that I steer the ship forward, but I know that at any moment, such pretense can [and probably will] be stripped away. I lay myself down in order to acknowledge Your sovereign will.

There are some Jews who are beginning to return to praying with such choreography on special occasions such as Yom Kippur. They are not leaving it up to a rabbi or cantor to "go there" on their behalf. There is some risk: in order for the gestures to be real, you have to believe it, you have to have arrived at the understanding that God really is in charge. That is a very humbling truth, one that clashes with our cherished notions of being in control. You might say that the gesture of falling upon your knees or lying prostrate before God - is a serious threshold, something worth pondering, but not something you mess with casually. If prayer is to become more than formalized mumbo-jumbo - sooner or later - you find yourself at the crossroads. And then, what will you do?

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Aaron

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