When one
flies international, there is a chore to complete sometime during the
flight. There’s almost always some kind
of document to fill out, to present to passport control and customs upon
arrival at the destination. It’s often
referred to as, a ‘landing card.’ Just
about every country uses some form of this document. Usually, the flight attendants distribute them
during the final hour or so of the flight.
On the landing card, you fill in your
personal details. Your name. Your date and place of birth. Your current residence address. Your nationality and passport number.
Then, you fill in the details of your
trip. Your flight number and its origin
and terminal cities. The purpose of your
trip. How long you anticipate being in
the destination country. Perhaps an
address, such as the name and city of the hotel where you will stay.
And then the final section of the
form. The section where you are asked to
declare what goods you’re taking with you into your destination country. The ‘normal’ items one takes – clothing,
personal care items, a reasonable amount of cash – one need not declare. But anything else – and the form usually
lists examples of what sort of things they mean – you have to declare to the
customs officers upon arrival.
This last part can be the most
problematic. Certain goods are
prohibited in the destination country.
For others, you must pay customs duty.
Nobody wants to be separated from what they’re carrying. Or to have to pay to take them across a
border. So there’s a tendency to avoid
declaring the types of goods in question.
And hope that the customs agents don’t choose you for one of
those random inspections.
The message of the landing card is
clear. Who are you and what is the
purpose of your trip? Your acceptance in
the destination country depends on your being upfront about your personal
details, and on your having a valid reason to enter the destination
country. And then, your acceptance
depends on what you’re carrying with you.
This is, at least in part, a good
metaphor for Rosh Hashanah. This evening,
we stand at the threshold of a New Year.
We want to have a good year. But
having a good year is not automatic. It
depends on us being upfront about who we are and what is our purpose. And it depends on what we are carrying with
us as we enter the New Year.
How can we possibly have a good year
if we cannot come to terms with who we are?
Some of us spend a lifetime denying ourselves. We pretend to others, not to mention
ourselves, that we are someone we’re not.
We do it in small ways, like exaggerating on a CV. Or exaggerating our exploits in a superficial
conversation with a casual acquaintance.
But we do it in large ways, too.
And the one we hurt, when we do not come to terms with who we are, is
ourselves. Because in failing to come to
terms with ourselves, we make it impossible to work on our self-improvement.
And how can we have a good year if we
don’t know our destination? If we don’t
have clarity in what our goals are for the coming year? When people fail at something, it isn’t because
they planned to fail.
Rather, it’s most likely that they failed to plan. They drift through time, year after year,
without setting reasonable and achievable goals for the near, medium, and
long-term. Some of us fail to set goals
out of a fear that we won’t reach them.
But that makes no sense whatsoever.
Didn’t reach your goals?
Re-assess and adjust. Replace
those pie-in-the-sky goals with more reasonable ones. But the solution to unrealized goals in the
past is definitely not to avoid goals in the future.
Finally, how can we have a good year
if we do not take control of what we are carrying along with us? I don’t mean the ‘stuff’ we acquire, although
that can surely weigh us down. What I
mean is the emotional baggage that we carry.
Really, that is the key to a good and successful year. Are we going to go into the New Year with the
same old quarrels, the same old conflicts weighing us down? Or are we going to get over it and
leave these leaden weights by the wayside?
You’ve heard often enough, the
metaphor of life as a journey. You’ve
doubtless heard and heard and heard it.
And the reason you have heard it so much, is because cliché that it is,
it is an apt metaphor. So let me
expand on it. If our lives as a whole
are one long epic journey, then the years of our lives are like individual
trips. So whenever we are at the
threshold of another trip, let’s take stock as if we were filling out the
landing card for the country of our next destination. Let’s ask ourselves: Who are we? I mean, who are we, really? And what is the purpose of our
trip? That is, what are our goals
for the coming year? And what goods
are we carrying, which we need to declare?
That is, what excess baggage is weighing us down? What aught we to jettison before departing on
this trip?
Many rabbis try to compose and deliver
sermons for these important days that are like valedictory addresses. They struggle to come up with some message
which will serve as the very apex of the preacher’s art. That will present a complex and
intellectually satisfying tour de force for the congregation. That will outdo anything the rabbi offered
during the years now ending. If you’ve
been known to attend services at this time of the year, then truly you know
what I mean.
In that context, I do hope that you
are not disappointed that I’ve offered you a very simple message tonight. I have, in the past, fretted seriously over
sermons for these Days of Awe. But at
some point I realised that the greatest gift I can give you, sermonically-speaking,
is the simplest. I could try to dazzle
you with my intellect, and would probably fail.
Or I can offer some simple, intuitive message that will somehow help you
to find renewal and redirection during these days. Because that’s really what’s at the heart of
the matter of these Ten Days of Repentance.
It is a time to take stock, to take inventory of our lives. To examine, re-assess. And to the extent called for, re-direct.
Indeed, what excess baggage are you
carrying tonight, that will hamper your happiness in the coming year? All of us have some. And some of us have more than others. Now is the time to be honest about what we’re
carrying. And how it will hamper and
weigh us down. And how we should leave
it behind. I won’t kid you; it isn’t
easy. But the reward – a good year –
requires it. Shana Tova.
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