Many people came up to me right after the second day of Rosh Hashanah and asked me what I would be speaking about on Yom Kippur. When I answered that I didn’t know, some of my friends thought I was being facetious. The truth is that I do work hard on my messages for the Yamim HaNoraim, after all it is like “The Super Bowl” for Rabbis, but I must add that even though I have extensive notes with me on The Bimah, I almost never have a full manuscript of my sermon with me. When it comes to delivering my messages during Shabbat and Holy Days, I do it from notes that I have sketched out on several pieces of paper, and that is why when people ask me for a copy, it is sometimes hard for me to produce one. 

For the first time in many years and to the best of my ability, I am going to try and reconstruct some of my sermons to post them on my blog. Here is my first attempt, the sermon for The First night of Rosh Hashanah 5769.

Once in a while during the middle of the day I get the opportunity to do things that people with regular jobs can’t do that frequently. One of the most amazing privileges of being a Rabbi besides being able to be present in many people’s life changing events is that I can research many of the things that I will be speaking about in unusual ways. For example, this summer I went to see “The Dark Knight,” first because I love Batman but also because I wanted to write and perhaps speak during Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur about the inherent presence of good and evil in the world. For me, watching “The Dark Knight” was not only entertainment — it was also research.

I know for a fact that many of you did not instantly think of Moses when you first saw Batman punching his way through the streets of Gotham City! For me the comparison was obvious. Allow me to explain how the comparison evolved. Last August while I was attending a special program at The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, I went to The Metropolitan Museum of Art to watch a relatively unusual exhibit. I know that there are many unusual exhibits in New York but The Met had a special exhibit on Super Heroes!  After I completed a couple of rounds around the exhibit, after I carefully examined Aquaman’s suit and Superman’s vibrant red Cape, I came face-to-face with the hero of my childhood — Batman! 

There in all his majestic glow I saw for the first time in my life the mythical substance of many of my dreams. What is so different about Batman? I always knew he was better than the rest but I never knew why, and then it just hit me — Batman is the only of all the super heroes that has no super powers! Batman is just a human being. Batman spends his time fighting evil because he needs to, not necessarily because he wants to. 

Batman, just like Moses, is perhaps one of the most reluctant heroes that ever was. Batman doesn’t come from a planet that  exploded, he was not shocked by an unusual amount of electricity! He is just a man, a man trying to do his best to keep evil in check. A man trying to do his best so that his life mission can be completed, and again he does it not because he wants to but because he needs to.

What lessons can we learn from “The Dark Knight” in this new year? Is there anything to be inferred by knowing that heroes, real heroes, are just simple human beings like you and me? I must admit all those crazy gadgets and the best butler in the world do seem to come in handy for Batman! What about us, if we had to behave like super heroes, if the world was depending on us to save it, who would we choose to be?  What kind of super power would we choose to have?

The other day I noticed that many of our children here at Temple Beth Sholom are using an application in Facebook called “Which Super Hero are you?” It is interesting because once you feed the program all the information it pairs your personality with one of the Super Heroes! I think that is a nice idea but I seriously want to know, if you had the chance to choose a super power, which one would you choose? Would it be x-ray vision? It could come in handy! Perhaps you would choose to be able to fly, or maybe it would be wonderful to breathe under water or to have unusual strength! I believe that the best super power to have is to be simply a real human being.

Think about how we could change the world if we just concentrated more intensely on being ourselves. We spend so much time trying to acquire other people’s powers that we forget that the most important power we have is the one that resides beneath the surface of our own heart. I know that it’s not easy! After all, look at how many times Moses himself tried to get out of the role of leadership. Moses came to God and told God in no uncertain terms that he was simply not qualified to be a hero! “I have uncircumcised lips!”  “Choose anyone but me!” So, why did God choose Moses? Moses’ imperfections made him whole! Moses knew himself better than anyone else. He knew he was a simple human being, flawed, broken, imperfect! God knew that too.

As we begin a new year, a new cycle we too can be super heroes. I remember my first Batman costume; it was not fancy or elaborate. The yellow bat on the shirt was cut out by my mother and sewn onto the shirt by my grandmother. I didn’t particularly like the tights but oh, did I love that cape! It took me almost 40 years to understand that it is not the suit that makes you a hero, it is who you are, your imperfections. It is your humanity that makes you powerful. Moses was always a role model for our People. He was the unlikely hero, the one with no super human strength like Samson but he also was a giant whose only super power came from his ability to take the mantle of leadership even if it was reluctantly, even when he knew he wasn’t worth it.

Another incredible parallelism that I found between these two unlikely heroes is something that should become a life changing lesson to all of us:  Sometimes things are not easy! In trying to achieve your goals you will ultimately fail at some point and then it becomes ever more important to raise yourself up and try again. Imagine what Moses felt, after all those years — leading the people from place to place, everyone complaining, no one listening too closely and yet even though sometimes he felt like a failure, he never gave up! 

It reminds me of something the Irish poet Samuel Beckett once wrote that we should all take to heart especially on Rosh Hashanah: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better!”

About 30 years ago, one fateful afternoon I came home to discover that my mother had thrown away my Comic Book collection. Today, I feel as if I have finally outgrown that trauma because now I know that more than in the way they look, super heroes are powerful because of what they have in their heart.

“The Dark Knight” is one of the best movies I have seen of late. The message although troubling is exactly what we need to hear because I believe we struggle with it all the days of our lives. Is it at all possible to rid this world of evil? Evil it seems is an inherent part of the world in which we live. Part of what we do in our effort to make our world a better world is never give up in our fight to bring justice, truth and peace to our midst. I know, sometimes it seems impossible but if we try, if we never give up, even if we sometimes do it reluctantly, one day we will see how much we have built, how much our journey has made us grow and how beautiful the world can be if we just realize our super power to be truly human.

Funny! After all of this I now realize, what I said in so many words can be said in only a couple — for some fighting to rid our world of evil requires you to be a hero. In The Jewish tradition it just requires you to engage in a Mitzvah, Tikkun Olam.

© Rabbi Felipe Goodman.  All rights reserved.

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The first such website I want to recommend for you to visit is www.piyut.org.il/english– which is an extraordinary Jewish Music website. When you visit this site, you will have at your fingertips an incredible amount of Jewish traditional Piyutim “poetry” as sung by Jews all over the world on different occasions.

For example, if you want to hear what Lecha Dodi sounds like as chanted by Jews from Algeria, this is the website you would go to listen to it. I know what you are saying — “this is too traditional for me, I will be bored!” Give it a try. You won’t be disappointed.

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