Rabbi Joshua Hoffman Sermons

"God was upset with David." It's a biblical story that unexpectedly turns for the worse. God sends His prophet, Nathan, to speak to the King of Israel. The message is unusually delivered by a parable:

Once, there were two men in the same city, one very rich, and one very poor. The rich man had flocks and herds, but the poor man had only one little ewe lamb which he had bought with what little money he had. The poor man tended to it and it grew up with him and his children. The lamb would share his morsel of bread, drink from his cup, and nestle in his bosom; it was like a child to him. One day, a traveler came to the rich man, and as is the custom of hosts and guests, the rich man was obliged to prepare for him a feast. But, rather than take from his own bounty of flocks and herds, the rich man took the only lamb of the poor man and prepared a delicious feast for the wayward traveler.

King David was so deeply moved by this contemptible tale of greed, of arrogance, and of self-absorption that he flew into a fury, forgetting it was a tale, and demanding to know who this perpetrator of evil was. He says, "As the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He shall pay for the lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and showed no pity."

David. His name means the beloved of God. A man of great moral conviction. A valiant warrior. The champion of Goliath. The devoted servant to his predecessor, Saul, the first king of Israel. The admired partner in friendship with Saul's son Jonathan. The wistful and emotionally attuned author of the Psalms. When we hear David's disgust and rage, we are equally disgusted and enraged. What kind of man — what kind of human being would treat another with such utter disdain and apathy?

You know what is coming next. After all, the story began, "God was upset with David." If we read the entire story of David in the Bible, we would have read the shocking details that hastened this confrontation - the moment when he sees Uriah's wife, Batsheva, lays with her and secretly has Uriah killed in battle to cover up his indiscretion. The secret is so tightly wound into David's aching conscience, that he thinks even the prophet will not know the truth of his misdeed.

The prophet Nathan, after listening to David's call for punishment by royal decree, responds. Through Nathan, God's words pierce with conviction, "That man is you! It was I who anointed you king over Israel... I gave you the House of Israel and Judah; and if that were not enough, I would give you twice as much more. You have put Uriah the Hittite to the sword; you took his wife and made her your wife... Therefore the sword shall never depart from your House ...I will make calamity rise against you from within your own house .... You acted in secret, but I will make this happen in the sight of all Israel and in broad daylight."

It is a tragedy. "David, Melech Yisrael, Chai, Chai, v'Kayam." Our children sit in circles slapping hands on knees, clapping hands and waving fingers to a great song. At joyous occasions, weddings, baby namings, b'nai mitzvah, we sing these words along with blessings of Siman Tov u'Mazal Tov. Through him the messiah is promised to come as the rabbis teach us, "If the Messiah king comes from among the living, David will be his name; if he comes from among the dead, it will be David himself " (Yerushalmi Berakhot 17a)

And yet here our great hero has fallen. David is the mythical emblem of the underdog defeating the giant. Our hero who overcame the most impossible odds has let us down.

Did we gloss over sins of murder and adultery so we can anoint this man to be the ultimate hero, the Messiah? Shall we keep his sins deeply hidden in the pages of the Bible so we may avoid the painful truth they reveal? Can we chant David Melech Yisrael, clapping hands and Mazal Tovs, without the whole story?

No. We have to tell the whole story. It's the whole story that reminds us of a much deeper and important message: There is no such thing as moral perfection. Ever. Go through the litany of patriarchs and matriarchs, soiled and stained with duplicity and manipulation, egotism, and failure. The lesson is: We need to know of our hero's flaws to help us become fully human.

It is in our nature to look up to our heroes, to perfect them with our own visions of our perfected selves. That is why it hurts to see a hero fail. The failure of the hero is in some way a failure of the self.

It's a human drama that speaks to a deep truth - will our failures become our triumphs? We rehearse the narrative again and again because the failure is as real as the triumph. We rehearse the narrative again and again because if our heroes cannot emerge from the depths victorious our chances seem that much more distant.

We rehearse the narrative again and again. A hero emerges, saves the day, fails in a moment when we need him, and returns to redeem himself when we need him the most. We pay good money to watch the Crazy, Stupid Loves, The King's Speeches, Captain America, and even Cars 2, because it is a rehearsal for our own lives.

Hollywood knows this story, and we will watch it over and over even with the slightest nuance to make the message seem fresh and new. The Greeks knew this story well, and even coined a term to describe it - Anagonorisis – which describes the moment when the hero recognizes his/her fatal mistake. As Jews we know this story and need to re-read the story of King David.

But, we must be suffering from heroic amnesia, and even when reading David's story, we miss it because we've been trained to think he is the ultimate hero - the infalliable monarch destined to bring the world to redemption. If we don't read his story, and focus only on his heroic qualities, we forget just how human he really was. The whole story is one of triumph and failure, repentance, and redemption. So, let us go back to the beginning and tell the whole story.

Once there was a boy, a bratty little boy, the youngest of eight brothers and his name was David. He was a musical talent and was brought into King Saul's court to play the harp. We are mesmerized by his sensitivity. Time and again he got in the brothers' way, including one day when they were off to battle against the Philistines and David decided to follow. David couldn't wield a sword, but he was brave. He could wrestle sheep out of the gnarling mouths of bears and lions. He could bravely stand up to a seven foot tall, bronze helmeted giant of a man. He was courageous. He was musical. He had a talent, a gift for fighting and strategy. Even in the midst of a royal assault on his faith and character, he emerges victorious from the paranoid schemes of his benefactor King Saul. He was a hero's hero. And for all this, he becomes the rightful heir to the throne of Israel and leader of the Jewish people.

And then he became the king. It’s a classic boy meets girl story. Boy sees girl. Boy sees girl in a ‘vulnerable’ situation. Boy invites girl to ‘hang-out.’ And you know the rest. When David was king, he became a perpetrator of adultery, murder, greed. He became an abusive parent, and developed a healthy paranoia and could not trust his closest allies. He literally allows his son, Abshalom, to oust him from the throne; and where he was once willing to kill to preserve his power, he acquiesces. Once again, the hero has fallen. But we don't stop reading there.

Something changes again. He returns to the field, becoming a hero all over again. He moves swiftly to cut down the advancing threat of his son and defeats the army he used to command. And when he is victorious, when the messenger returns to triumphantly announce his son has been killed in battle. But his humanity resurfaces. He screams,” O Abshalom, my son!” His heart is rending with pain. We never see him turn back to his regal ways again. He is the king, but he has changed. His path toward teshuvah begins.

He returns as a king, the tragedy and failure of his life transformed. And what reads like the Godfather novels by Mario Puzo, the final years of David's life are busy securing his future through his son Solomon, and avenging the betrayals he experienced as the king.

The heroic model of David isn't when he's the king - he's the most heroic when he is acting himself, being the courageous, impetuous, and ever faithful servant of the God of Israel. That's the powerful message the Bible has preserved for us. When he acts himself, he is the most heroic and whole.

Heroes and kings - It is what the great American playwright, Arthur Miller, once observed, "It is time, I think, that we who are without kings took up this bright thread of our history and followed it to the only place it can possibly lead in our time - the heart and spirit of the average man." (Tragedy and the Common Man, Feb. 1949)

"The heart and spirit of the average man." Could that be true? Remember the ancient Midrash of the ministering angels who argue and plead with God to hide the Tzelem - to store all goodness and glory far away from the human being? "Put it on the highest mountain - they will never find it there." No, they will climb and discover my Truth there. "Place it in the greatest depths of the sea - they can surely never reach it there." "No, they will plunge to the depths of the oceans and discover God's Truth there too." "Place is deep within their souls - they will never discover it there." How clever the angels thought they were. And how true it is that most of the time, most of us forget, over and again, the blessed divine spark deep within our souls. How clever the angel was, and how true can the acts of heroism be found deep within us.

There in the depths of our souls, where the failures seem so impossible to overcome - there is a spark, a light of God's truth waiting to burst forth. David had a spark, lost it, and found it once again. I cannot think of a better message to share on Rosh HaShanah. We have the spark, deep within us it is there waiting to shine. And now, as we celebrate the Kingship of God Almighty, we celebrate our own coronation of heroic ability. We are here to unravel the scrolls of our whole stories, and to remind ourselves that we are the heroes we've been watching others become around us. We are here to become, in the words of noted psychologist

Philip Zimbardo, heroes-in-waiting. Rosh HaShanah is our reminder to be ready at any moment to do the right thing.

This year marks the 20th year since my graduation from High School, and while mathematically you can guess how old that makes me, you can still think it was just my Bar-Mitzvah last year. I really don't mind. This anniversary is becoming a milestone for me, a time in my life when I can look back and truly reflect if I am the person I thought I was meant to be. This I know for sure: I graduated in a class of over 700 students, and there were only a handful of Jewish classmates. Becoming a rabbi was not the calling I envisioned when I was 17.

And what a blessing of two decades of life and growth! To find a life-partner, to share the awesome responsibility of creating and raising three children, to find myself in a community that nurtures and supports me, to enjoy collegiality and challenge to always be learning and growing. I thank God every day for the life I have been so fortunate to experience.

I can look back and see that along the way I have met individuals whose triumphant acts and words have inspired me to reach higher and farther than I can ever have possibly imagined I could grow. They are my heroes. There have been rabbis and teachers, leaders and thinkers, people who play a stand-in role in my life and have motivated me to become a hero myself. My heroes are great human beings, whose courage and bravery have enabled me to push beyond the boundaries of my own humanity and made me a greater human being for realizing my own potential. I’ve learned who we are and who we are inspired to become is inextricably linked to the influence of another.

And still, what I notice in myself is not always my best. I was the 17 year old who dreamed of a hero's life, serving in some great position of power, an elected official, or a reputed appellate court lawyer on his way to Supreme Court justice. I have stumbled along the way, trampling over the feelings of others and missing an awful lot of opportunities to be a hero.

I am undeniably proud of the person I am becoming, yet I too feel a sense of failure, for all the times that I am not the rabbi, parent, or friend I believe I should be. I'm just not there yet. Where my heroes have ascended the loftiest heights, I still cannot find the right foothold to make the climb.

Failed thinking can be crippling. I imagine we all confront this voice of failure; that our heroic visions of our selves have failed to respond to the call at least once, if not often in our lives. We begin by acknowledging the real hero is one who understands "not all mistakes are sins and not all sins are mistakes." as my teacher, David Wolpe once taught (2 Jews).

Turn to the Psalms and read them with David's life in mind. Read Psalm 51, a psalm dedicated to the very moment he realized his failure as a king and as a hero. "Wash me thoroughly of my iniquity, and purify me of my sin; for I recognize my transgressions, and am ever conscious of my sins. (51:4)" This is what David did. Where there are lapses of biography and narrative, the Psalms is our best record of David's emotional life. It's the record of a hero's life, fraught with failure and fear, with joy, and triumph. The whole story is a beautiful, poetic song to prepare ourselves to be heroes in waiting.

We need our mantras to snap ourselves from the uncontrolled moments of self-flagellation and narcissistic critique. To be a hero-in-waiting means we have to constantly strive to avoid the abyss of self-doubt and fear. It's not about being more than who you are, but recognizing who you are - overcoming your missteps along the way - and remaining true to your best virtues. The heroic self needs to be saved so in turn we can save others.

The real hero is as Rabbi Zoma taught 2000 years ago. Aizeh hu gibbor, HaKovesh et Yitzro - Who is a hero? A hero isn't a person who is without sin. A hero is one who overcomes his impulse.

This kind of heroic living enables us to release the tensions of fundamentalist mindsets and fearful behaving. We can be uplifted and inspired by our own flaws - not left ashamed or embarrassed. Every day we prayer before the Shema, "V'Lo Neivosh L'Olam Va'ed." We pray for the day that, "we will not feel ashamed again." That's a redemption I can aspire to - for it neither absolves my sin nor diminishes the work - through my teshuvah, I can attain acceptance, even gratitude.

On Rosh HaShanah we crown our God as King and on Yom Kippur we are judged by that King. There is a mythical urge in our encounter with God at this time of year. Read King David's story. Read the whole story with all its triumph and hope, all its failure and complexity.

Our sacred task as Jews has always been to bring Adonai Tz'vaot, the King of Kings, the ultimate hero, into the world.... It is in our nature. To aspire toward that kingship, malchut, is the beginning of our mystical and spiritual ascent toward the divine. Realizing our potential for union with God is what makes us better Jews and better human beings.

`Who we are and who we are inspired to become is inextricably linked to the influence of another.' The work of these next ten days is to turn to another - find their heroic ability - and celebrate it. And if you can't find their heroism because you have something obstructing the view, then ask for their forgiveness. Let heroic words and deeds be the message you share in the world. These next ten days are a test - a laboratory of heroism. Let us return here and share the pride of renewal and the sweet taste of redemption.