Partners in Uncertainty
Dear God, It has been… a year.
The uncertainties of life compounded by the uncertainties of this moment.
We all know the feeling of waiting for the results of a medical test, of watching the weather forecast before a simchah, of constantly checking our phones for news from a loved one. Ordinary moments that feel unbearable because of what we don’t yet know.
And these days in particular are thick with uncertainty. We feel unmoored, searching for dry land in the fog.
This past year, we have navigated our way through hate, through lies, through a world that has turned against us. And we have made it here.
And you are all here. Your presence here matters, for yourself and for others. For me to be here is easy. I have a reserved parking spot. But for you – thank you for being here.
Tonight, together, we gather vulnerable and exposed. Concerned, worried, anxious even, about tomorrow. Alarmed by the uncertainty of what comes next, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It is the not knowing that is harder than almost anything else.
אָבִֽינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ נָא אַל תְּשִׁיבֵֽנוּ רֵיקָם מִלְּפָנֶֽיךָ
Our Father, our King, do not turn us away empty-handed from You.
We need to leave this sanctuary tonight with more than what we carried in. Trapped in uncertainty, we ask of God, as we ask of one another: how do we live through our fraught moments, when it feels as though anything might happen – good or bad, peace or war, life or death?
We should take comfort in remembering that this isn’t our first brush with uncertainty.
When Pharaoh decreed that sons be drowned, no mother was sure if her child would live until morning.
In the wilderness, our people did not know whether the rock would gush with water or if they would die of thirst.
In exile, our ancestors asked: Will the rulers tolerate us this year or turn against us?
Pharaoh is gone. The wilderness is behind us. There is a Jewish State. We always persevere.
אָבִֽינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ בַּטֵּל מַחְשְׁבוֹת שׂוֹנְאֵֽינוּ
Our Father, our King, annul the designs of those who hate us.
If this feels like an existential moment in Jewish history, recall and take solace that we have been here before too.
Jacob, on the eve of meeting Esau, feared annihilation.
Our ancestors, at the Red Sea, stood with waves before them and Egyptian chariots behind.
Esther fasted three days, declaring: “If I perish, I perish.”
To be Jewish is to live at the edge of history, between dread and deliverance – and then to survive.
אָבִֽינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ הָפֵר עֲצַת אוֹיְבֵֽינוּ
Our Father, our King, thwart the plans of our enemies.
Dear God, Where are you? What are you doing during our distress, amidst our moments of uncertainty?
For some of us, it helps to imagine God sharing in our troubles. Shmot Rabbah (2:5) imagines God saying to Moses: “Don’t you sense that I am suffering just as Israel is suffering? Know that from the place that I am speaking with you, from the thorns, as it were, I am party to their suffering.”
This is the God some of us feel sitting in a hospital room with a loved one. The Shekhinah. The Divine presence. Sitting beside you.
God, a fellow sailor in the uncertain night.
But others among us need a different God. We need God asצוּר יִשְׂרָאֵל, the Rock of Israel, unshaken and immovable. We need solid, dry ground when everything else is crashing waves.
Both Gods are true. Sometimes God is the One who aches with us; sometimes God is the One who steadies us.
Sometimes God is אָבִינוּ our Father and sometimes God is מַלְכֵּנוּ our King. We need both.
Whatever your spiritual beliefs, find language in the Mahzor that enables you to enlist God as a partner during uncertainty.
אָבִֽינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ כָּתְבֵֽנוּ בְּסֵֽפֶר גְּאֻלָּה וִישׁוּעָה
Our Father, our King, inscribe us in the Book of Redemption and Deliverance.
If you’re thinking of the year to come and are anxious about what might come next, you’re in good company. All of our souls quake at the uncertainty of family, fortune, and future.
Every phone call carries the possibility of devastating news.
Blink and your world has changed.
This makes us exposed. It also makes us united.
Because covenant is not just between a person and God. Covenant stretches horizontally, between Jew and Jew. Kol Nidre itself declares: עַל דַּעַת הַמָּקוֹם וְעַל דַּעַת הַקָּהָל – By the authority of God and by the authority of this community, we permit ourselves to pray with the transgressors.
No one prays alone. No one is cast out. Even in uncertainty, even in failure, we belong to each other. We take care of each other.
The People of Israel ride on a stormy sea. The waters rise and fall; sometimes they threaten to capsize us. But covenant, brit – between us and God; between each one of you – covenant is the ballast, the heavy weight at the bottom that keeps the ship from toppling.
This is how we survive the storm.
Soon, we will strike our hearts and say together: אָשַׁמְנוּ, בָּגַדְנוּ, גָּזַלְנוּ. The Hebrew is first person plural. Not “I.” We. Even our guilt is communal. Even our trembling is communal. Even our uncertainty is communal.
When fear presses in, it is not the absence of fear that saves us. It is the presence of one another.
אָבִֽינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ כַּלֵּה כָּל צַר וּמַשְׂטִין מֵעָלֵֽינוּ
Our Father, our King, rid us of every oppressor and adversary.
Dear God, I haven’t checked the news in the last thirty minutes. Has anything changed? Do we have a deal? It feels like the very future of Israel is at stake.
Will Hamas really relinquish its arms and authority? When the world’s attention moves elsewhere, will there be someone to police borders, oversee dismantling of tunnels, and verify compliance? How can a people taught to hate learn to love?
And if we don’t have a deal, what then? What are the ripple effects here? On campus, in boardrooms, on the street?
So we find ourselves standing where Jews so often stand: between what is proposed and what is possible, between what is necessary and what is workable. With bated breath, we know not what tomorrow will bring.
That is not a failure of faith – it is the truth of our condition. A truth that we have faced and a truth that we will face in partnership with God and with each other.
אָבִֽינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ הָרֵם קֶֽרֶן מְשִׁיחֶֽךָ:
Our Father, our King, raise Your anointed with strength.
The Book of Proverbs teaches, “Happy is the person who is always anxious”. Well then, we should be the happiest people on earth. For we are at peak anxiety.
But perhaps King Solomon meant happy is the one who is attuned to uncertainty, who lives awake to fragility. Not prisoners of uncertainty, but partners in it – learning to live faithfully even when the future is unknown. That is how I hope we are feeling.
And hope can only exist in an uncertain world. Only once mashiach arrives will uncertainty disappear.
Until then, our instructions are clear: Teshuvah. Tefillah. Tzedakah. Repentance. Prayer. Giving.
We worship. We donate. We build. We raise children. We show up for each other.
Think of the mitzvot that surround us here: the volunteer who delivers meals to the homebound, the donor who supports a school in Israel, the teacher who opens a child’s mind to Torah, the family who shows up to shiva so no mourner sits alone.
Each act of covenant steadies the boat. Each mitzvah fortifies the hull. This is not naïve optimism. It is covenantal realism. We cannot control the storm, but we can strengthen the boat.
אָבִֽינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ הַצְמַח לָֽנוּ יְשׁוּעָה בְּקָרוֹב
Our Father, our King, cause deliverance to spring forth for us soon.
I am grateful to say that we are not alone here as we try to stay afloat.
With us tonight is Chief Superintendent Frank Barredo of the Toronto Police Service, who recently returned from Israel where he spent time with the IDF, the Border Police, and National Police.
It was not too long ago when law enforcement came to shul they arrived as part of the pogrom. Tonight, the police chief sits here as a protector. That is a reversal worth naming.
Thank you for being here.
אָבִֽינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ כָּתְבֵֽנוּ בְּסֵֽפֶר חַיִּים טוֹבִים
Our Father, our King, inscribe us in the Book of Good Life.
On this holiest night of the year, our prayers are not recited in calm abstraction. They are whispered, cried, sung between the cracks of uncertainty.
“Who shall live and who shall die, who by fire and who by water?” We ask because we don’t know. But I’m glad we’re asking here. And I’m comforted to be asking alongside you.
At a time when political right and left is tearing us further apart, we remember that the people who are sitting on our right and left and the One Up Above s who matter most, the ones who will be there as we face the void of the unknown.
Whatever this year may bring, let us greet it in faith and together.
אָבִֽינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ חָנֵּֽנוּ וַעֲנֵֽנוּ כִּי אֵין בָּֽנוּ מַעֲשִׂים עֲשֵׂה עִמָּֽנוּ צְדָקָה וָחֶֽסֶד וְהוֹשִׁיעֵֽנוּ
Our Father, our King, favor us and answer us for we have no accomplishments; deal with us charitably and kindly and deliver us.
All of us. Together!
