“It’s alright to cry…crying gets the sad out of you.
It’s alright to cry…it might make you feel better”

Free to be you and me…Rosie Greer

Sometimes we don’t want to do what we are supposed to do. Many of you may have wanted to stay in bed a little longer this morning. But we’re glad you are here. Sometimes our leaders don’t want to do what they have to do either. Moses thought he wasn’t capable because he was “slow of speech” according to the midrash. Jonah felt that it wouldn’t matter if he went to Ninevah and he tried to run as far away as possible all the way to Tarshish. We will hear that story again on Yom Kippur. Esther didn’t want to go to the king, she was afraid for her own life until Mordecai convinced her she might be in that very place and time just for that reason. She found her voice.

It’s alright to cry…G-d will hear our cries.

Yesterday we read the story of Hagar and Ishmael being sent into the wilderness by Abraham at the behest of Sarah. It is not a pretty story. After the water and bread run out, Hagar places the lad under a bush and cries out, “Do not let me look on while the child dies.” She can’t even use his name; she is so pained. Then something remarkable happens. The Lord hears the cry of the lad. Wait, what? Didn’t Hagar just cry out? Then Hagar’s eyes are opened and she finds the water from the spring that was there all along. The message is keep trying, again and again, and you will find the life giving water.

The message is that G-d hears our cries. All of our cries. Even the silent ones.

When the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, they cried out, and their cry came up to G-d. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt and have heard their cry.

The message is G-d hears our cries. All of our cries. Even when we are enslaved. Even when we are in pain.

Yesterday, we also read about Hannah, barren, who prayed long before the Lord and wept bitterly. She prayed without her lips moving, so that Eli, the priest, thought she was drunk. Yet, the Lord heard her weeping and gave to her a son who she called Samuel, Shmual, The Lord Heard.

The message, again, is that G-d hears our cries. All of our cries. Even when we have no words.

Rosh Hashanah seems like a holiday of tears. Sarah is happy at giving birth, but then as we read this morning, there is the Akedah, the binding of Isaac. She may have died of a broken heart. And Isaac, the midrash teaches that he went blind from his tears. And in the haftarah, Rachel cries for her children.

Over and over again in our liturgy, we beg G-d. “Sh’ma koleinu, Hear our voice. Do not hide Your face from us.” We want to be seen. We want to be heard. We need to be.

Yet we are told in Psalm 30, “I cried out and You healed me…Weeping may tarry for the night but joy comes with the dawn.” It reassures and comforts.

Why do we care in this day and age if G-d hears our cries? Why do we cry out to G-d at all? In Brene Brown’s book, Dare to Lead, the ability to cry, the ability to express our own vulnerability is an important part of leadership. Leadership is not about titles or the corner office. It’s about the willingness to step up, put yourself out there, and lean into courage.” Ultimately the goal of her book is to live and lead wholeheartedly. To be wholehearted means to operate from a place of worthiness—that regardless of what might or might not happen during the course of the day, you are enough.

Our Biblical leaders exhibit exactly that. They are not perfect, not by a long shot, but they are living and leading wholeheartedly. Authentically. Even when they don’t want to, even when it means they have to cry. Remember, it’s alright to cry.

That’s what G-d demands of us. Not that we be perfect, she talks about perfectionism in her book too, but that we strive to be whole. The word Shalom in Hebrew, which we translate as peace, has that sense of wholeness or completeness.

Soon we will hear the voice of the shofar. It is the only commandment for Rosh Hashanah, that you hear the sound of the shofar. We have a master shofar blower here at CKI…and several budding ones.

The shofar cries too. A wordless cry. From deep within. Three different notes, all to sound like crying. Tekiah, a long battle cry, an alarm clock waking us up, preparing us for action. Shevarim, three short notes, broken sighs or weeping. And Truah, nine staccato notes that some say sound like whimpering.

But this is Judaism, so there was an argument, a debate about how those second notes should sound. Perhaps it should sound like groaning. Woe is me. Or, perhaps, it should sound like crying. I am terribly sorry about how I misbehaved. And so we have the 3-part Shevarim, the groan, the sigh and then the 9 part Truah, the nine part piecing cry.

Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz teaches us, “…This is the theme of Rosh ha-Shanah. We were whole, we became broken, but we shall be whole again. We were whole, broken, even shattered into the fragments of the teru’ah but we shall yet be whole again.” [quoted in The Jewish Holidays, Michael Strassfield; p. 100]

When we listen carefully to the notes of the Shofar, we are listening to our whole self and our broken self. The challenge is to bring them together.

The shofar service is an ancient service. The rabbis of the Talmud mandated 100 blasts of the shofar, based on the 100 cries of the mother Sisera. (Talmud Rosh Hashanah 33b). She is waiting for her son to return from battle and is losing hope. She begins to weep. Soon she learns that her son has been killed in battle.

This day itself is called Yom Truah, the Day of Groaning or Wailing, not Rosh Hashanah, the head of the year, in the Torah. The word Truah is in Psalm 150, the last Psalm in the book of Psalms. Praise G-d with taka shofar, b’tzelah truah.

The Ben Ish Chai writes that these sounds are meant to contrast with the tekiah. The tekiah, he explains, is a sound of triumph and joy, while the shevarim and teruah are sounds of pain and suffering. Because of the opposing feelings they represent, when one blows the shofar, he is not to connect the tekiah with the others, by blowing the sounds with the same breath.

There is so much pain and suffering in the world that when Rabbis for Human Rights of North America, of which I am a proud member for over a decade chose a new name, we are called Truah. It offers a clarion call for justice, just as the shofar demands.

Sherri Mandall writing for Aish.com teaches: “The shofar’s cries tells us that inside of all of us there is a place of brokenness, of darkness, of shock, of tears. But the shofar also reminds us of the word shipur, to improve, to get better. The shofar is supposed to remind us of the fact that Isaac was spared, that a ram was offered instead of a person. That is the purpose of the tears, of the wordless cry. Not to surrender to despair. To be shocked, not into complacency but into elevation, into making our lives an offering — not by dying but by living and loving God.” https://www.aish.com/h/hh/rh/shofar/48964221.html

We show that love by our very actions.

But before we can act. Before we can show that love of G-d, we need to hear the wordless cry from deep within. We need to bring our wholeness and our brokenness together. That is the message of the shofar’s cries. That is the message of the leadership of Hagar and Hannah, Sarah and Rachel. We lead with our vulnerability. It’s alright to cry. The message of the shofar is that G-d will hear our cries and make us whole.