Before the law sits a
gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to
gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry
at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to
come in sometime later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not
now.” The gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to
the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the
inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you
so much, try going inside in spite of my prohibition. But take note. I am
powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to
room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I cannot endure even
one glimpse of the third.” The man from the country has not expected such
difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but
as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large
pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would
be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives
him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There
he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears
the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper often interrogates him
briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many other things, but they are
indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells
him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The man, who has equipped
himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how
valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. The latter takes it all but, as he does
so, says, “I am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do
anything.” During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost
continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this first one seems to him
the only obstacle for entry into the law. He curses the unlucky circumstance,
in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud; later, as he grows old, he only
mumbles to himself. ..Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know
whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely
deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which
breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law. Now he no longer has
much time to live. Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences
of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the
gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening
body. The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great difference has
changed things considerably to the disadvantage of the man. “What do you still
want to know now?” asks the gatekeeper. “You are insatiable.” “Everyone strives
after the law,” says the man, “so how is it that in these many years no one
except me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that the man is already
dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at
him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to
you. I’m going to close it now.”
Thus wrote the great Jewish writer Franz Kafka, but it is a
story familiar to all of us. How often have we been kept out, found the gate
and the gatekeeper blocking our path, excluded and alienated for no reason we
can fathom, except here we are, the entranced barred. And this is especially true of our Jewishness, our
personal spirituality, our connection to God and each other, a thing we glimpse
in darkness, barely illuminated, but blocked, it so often seems, by so many
guards, the next more intimidating than the last. Questions of authenticity, of
legitimacy, of value, of commitment come flooding toward us. Some are
indifferent questions, questions about dues and congregational culture and
youth groups and programs. Some are costly questions indeed, about identity,
about dedication and obligation, about intermarriage and access, about what we
want to teach our children, and how we want to see ourselves.
And still. We sit on our stool and curse our luck, and never
wonder why we never see anyone else try to enter. We never look to move past
our gatekeepers, our questions, because sometimes those gatekeepers, the most
powerful gatekeepers, are the ones we put up ourselves. We deny ourselves the
opportunities for intimacy, for real, meaningful connection; we fear making a
mistake, or exposing ourselves, so we keep our connections on the surface. Or
we put the onus entirely on others, then call them ‘unfriendly’ and
‘unwelcoming’ when they don’t live up to our expectations. Rabbi Elie Kaufner shares
a story of going to onegs and playing a little game, standing just outside a
conversation and waiting to see how long the people talking would acknowledge
him. How often have we felt like the interloper in such settings, but as
Kaufner points out, the barrier was not them, but him. What would have
happened, he wonders, if he had introduced himself to the people talking, and
joined their conversation?
What would happen if we would give ourselves fully to one
another—to our spouse or partner, to our children or parents, to the people
standing near us—rather than go through life standing just outside each others’
circle, fearful of what might happen?
[move away from the
podium] there is nothing that frightens me more as a rabbi than this [gesture], the space between us, that seemingly endless chasm where
we can pretend somehow that we’re not engaged, not praying together, not really
present in each others’ midst, and when I collapse that space [move forward] many in this room
recoil, as if I’m violating some kind of trust. There is too much space here,
too much opportunity to disconnect, and as a rabbi, a Jew, a friend, I want
nothing more than to create that closeness, to get rid of this space!
[return to podium].
So here we stand, on the holiest day of the year, and we are already preparing
our gatekeepers—the ones that keep us out of synagogue, the one that keeps us
from each other. Or, we could make a promise to eliminate that gatekeeper once
and for all, and to bask in the light of Torah, the light of prayer, the light
of intimacy, the light of each others’ holiness. Let’s not let the moment pass!
Let’s not let our gatekeepers close the door! Let’s strive for that closeness,
that relationship with one another that is rooted in holiness, and let’s start
now. I invite you to open yourselves up and participate in a ritual. Hold the
hand of the person next to you, or lock arms, or place an arm around the other—even
if that person is a stranger to you! Even if that person is someone you have
never met in your travels in this world! Take hold of the person next to you,
and say these words with me:
I pray in this new year
Include me
Invite me in
Allow me to make space for you
May I be supported by those around me
May I be a strength to those who need me
May I let others see the real me
May I see what is real and holy in you.
May our words be true. Amen
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