11 September 2010 | 3 Tishrei 5771

I wanted to be a famous Rock and Roll guitarist. When I was in high school this was my dream, my goal, my aspiration. I played guitar morning, noon and night. I even had “the look” - the clothes, the hair, everything I needed to be a real “shredder” (the affectionate term we used to call guitarists whose fingers were able to play a thousand notes a minute). In those days, if anybody would have told me that I was going to be a rabbi, I would have laughed in their face.  In fact, I was told that I was going to be a rabbi and I laughed. In the 11th grade as part of our home economics class, all students completed a career aptitude exam. I don’t remember the questions but I can’t forget the results. It stated that according to my answers, a career as a minister, priest or other clergy would be well suited for my personality and skill set. A Rabbi?!  Clearly this exam was faulty. In addition to a Rabbi being the most “Un-cool” career imaginable, I already had my career carved out for me. I was going to be the greatest guitarist EVER! 

Twenty years later, I should look back on my life and consider it a failure. I never accomplished my original goal of being the next Eddie Van Halen. Even with this dream unfulfilled, I don’t feel like a failure. In fact, I feel blessed by the life that God has given me. I feel blessed to have the opportunity to be a rabbi of a congregation like Ahavath Achim. I feel blessed to have an observant lifestyle where holidays and lifecycles are spent at home with family rather than on a tour bus somewhere in Europe. When looking back I wonder if there were other signs similar to my high school aptitude exam guiding me towards a life in the rabbinate. The truth is that even if there were billboards that proclaimed, “Laurence Rosenthal will one day be a Rabbi.” I would never have seen them because I wasn’t able to hear anything that contradicted with my finger-picking ambitions. I wonder how things would have been different if I could hear other voices and contemplate other directions during those formative years. 

In this week’s parsha, Ha’azinu, Moses recites a poem to the people which begins as follows:

Give ear, O Heavens, let me speak; let the earth hear the words I utter. (Deuteronomy 32:1)

If you read my Torah Sparks from last week, I weaved together the titles of all the Torah readings that were studied in the month of Elul leading up to the New Year. By titles alone, I tried to show that there was a guide for evaluating our actions over the past year and fulfilling the Jewish tradition of completing a Heshbone Ha’nefesh, an “accounting of one’s soul,” prior to the New Year. Now that our soul evaluation is complete we should look at the remaining titles and see if our Torah is trying to communicate something more. 

This week, we read the second to last Torah portion, Parshat Ha’azinu, “give ear,” and then over the next few weeks we will read the final portion, Parshat V’zot HaB’rakhah, “this is the blessing”.  It is not by accident that the command to listen (Ha’azinu) comes before the declaration of the blessing (V’zot HaB’rakhah). How often have we been given sound advice, though unable to hear because we were focused on our own voice? As Moses alludes to, sometimes the “sign” directing us on the right path can come from the most unlikely place (the heavens or the earth), in my case the results of a career aptitude exam. Instead of laughing at the idea of being a Rabbi maybe I should have given ear and listen to the ideas and advise being sent my way. 

All that being said I don’t have regrets. I enjoyed my guitar slinging days and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. However, now I am a bit more open to listening to advice, considering coincidences and examining unexpected results. I now know that sometimes the very things I am prone to laugh at might really be the blessings in my life. 

Shabbat Shalom and Shana Tova U’metuka.