This past Sunday, a woman from the shul called me to ask me a shaila, but before she began, she asked me if my family in Canada was alright. Aside from a lousy economy and rabid antisemitism, I told this woman that my family in Canada was doing just fine. “Why do you ask?”
“Well,” she said. “I came to shul last week and noticed you weren’t there. When I asked someone where you were, this person told me that you went to Canada to save your family from the Canadian forest fires.”
So allow me to clarify. No, I did not go to Canada last week. And no, I am not a fireman.
But it did get me thinking – if I decided to quit the rabbinate, what second career would I pursue?
According to recent data, Google searches for “career change” were at a record high through June, about triple what it was five years ago. With the exception of politicians, who in the words of Nelly Bowles, would rather have a heart attack on C-Span than give up their jobs, most Americans are looking to switch careers.
Parenthetically, the top careers that people were looking to switch into were going into real estate, becoming a social worker, and becoming a… firefighter…
In our tradition, the most impressive, boldest, career changer was Rabbi Akiva. He was a vicious anti-rabbi and desperately poor shepherd for forty years. Until one day he decided to start learning Torah, and became the most famous, accomplished, and wealthy, Torah scholar in history.
We all know the famous story, how Akiva the shepherd saw a rock with a hole in it. And he realized that a small drip of water over years, maybe centuries, created the hole in that rock.
How many people walked by that rock? How many people observed a hole in that rock and never stopped to ask themselves, how did this happen? How many people realized what happened, but never stopped to consider how that holy rock could be relevant to their lives?
Albert Einstein once said: “Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought.”
That is the greatness of Rabbi Akiva. His defining feature was thinking what no one else had thought. The Talmud tells us that Rabbi Akiva’s specialty was deriving inferences from the crowns over the words in the Torah scroll. For centuries, those crowns were meticulously drawn over certain letters, but no one ever stopped to ask why; what do they mean? Rabbi Akiva saw what everyone else saw and thought what no one else was willing to think.
The most famous story of Rabbi Akiva has him standing over the ruins of the Bais Hamikdash with his colleagues. They see the ruins and cry; he laughs. They are astonished; how could you laugh when coming face to face with such devastation? He responds by connecting two seemingly unconnected verses and extrapolating that somehow the fulfillment of the destruction prophecies will lead to a fulfillment of the rebuilding prophecies. His colleagues reply, Akiva, nichamtanu, Akiva, nichamtanu. You have comforted us.
Notice how his comfort does not come by seeing something new; it comes about by thinking new thoughts. This is the essence of true Torah learning, chiddushei Torah. In response to Jewish thinkers who tried changing the fabric of Judaism by advocating for changes in Jewish law, Rav Soloveitchik beautifully distinguished between shinuyim and chidushim. A shinuy, a change, is a distortion of Judaism; it dismisses the sacred and eternal nature of G-d’s word. A chidush is the essence of Judaism; it reminds us that each precious word is packed with infinite meaning, waiting for the next generation of Torah scholars to mine its eternal message. A few decades before Einstein’s formulation, the great Sefas Emes taught his students that “A chiddush, a new Torah insight, is not creating something out of nothing; it is revealing the hidden light that was always there.”
Many people make changes; far fewer innovate. A change, a shinuy, is moving from one set of circumstances to another. Making aliyah, taking a new job, or getting remarried are all profound changes, but they can still be little more than replacing one address, one office, or one relationship with another. It’s not working out with this spouse; let me find another. This job is too taxing; maybe being a fireman will be less demanding. I don’t have any friends here: I’ll move somewhere else and hope for the best. That’s change; shinuy.
Chiddush, innovation, is different. It is the willingness to create a new way of living. The successful innovator doesn’t simply move, find a new job, or remarry. They build a new reality shaped by the wisdom, scars, and growth of the past. Change alters our circumstances; innovation transforms the person living within them.
This Shabbos we are celebrating two wonderful and amazing couples. Jon and Rachel Groner joined our shul a few years ago. They were both retired, having dedicated decades of their lives to professional accomplishments and community building. They had a lot of experience and yet, there was one question that they would always ask me, “How are things done over here at Ner Tamid?” They wanted to help, but they didn’t want to recreate Ner Tamid. Rachel and Jon appreciated what we have going here and within those parameters, they applied themselves. In the few years they were here, they were on countless committees, always volunteering to help, leading the Sisterhood, sitting on the Israel committee, and more. You did not make changes, you innovated, and in doing so, you transformed our shul.
And during this time, you also transformed. The dedication to Torah study, which was dormant, was awakened; you learned together as a couple, you came to every class you could. You didn’t run away from your past; you embraced what you had before you and evolved. And now, you are off to the next step in your journey; one that you never saw coming, but you opened yourself up, and allowed the power of chiddush to take you to Israel.
We are also celebrating the upcoming wedding of Mark Schwartzman to Julie Katz. Mark is probably one of the most long-standing members in this shul today. He is also one of the most creative people I know. Through the 13 years I have known him, he has constantly come up with new ideas. As creative as those ideas were they were always sober – he was very cognizant of what Ner Tamid is, where Ner Tamid is located, how we can evolve without losing the spirit of our beloved shul.
And now, I have had the pleasure of watching you evolve. Since meeting Julie, you have become a new person. Not because you have changed, but because your bride has brought out the most beautiful traits that were always there, they were just waiting for Julie to breathe new life into them.
There is an age-old question that is asked about this Shabbos, Shabbos Nachamu. How could we go so quickly from sitting on the floor reflecting on the most horrific moments of Jewish history, highlighting the brokenness that exists in the world, to a Shabbos in which we are expected to be overjoyed, to a weekend in which concerts are taking place all over the Jewish world, a Shabbos of unbridled simcha? Did anything change? Can we just forget the Holocaust? Can we just ignore the raging antisemitism in America?
The answer is clear. We don’t just walk away from Tisha B’av. Shabbos Nacahmu is a time to reveal the hidden light that was always there.
It’s a time to say that yes, Jewish history is tragic, filled with persecution. But it is also filled with people who had the courage to rebuild.
It’s a time to say yes, the political climate is frightening; more and more Americans are turning to antisemitism. But there are also more and more Jews who have been awakened to the beauty that Torah Judaism has to offer.
It’s a time to say yes, my life is imperfect. I feel stuck. I feel lost. I feel down. But as a Jew, as a disciple of Rabbi Akiva and the holy Sefas Emes, I have the ability to reveal hidden light that is always there.
Mark and Julie, nichamtanu – you have brought us comfort. Rachel and Jon, nichamtanu – you have brought us comfort. May we all find the hidden light within our history, our relationships, and ourselves, and may we have the courage not merely to change our circumstances, but to reveal what was waiting there all along. And may the day soon come when Rabbi Akiva’s laughter is fully understood, when every promise of rebuilding is fulfilled, and when Hashem transforms our mourning into joy and brings true comfort to the Jewish people.