Gazing Into the Sacred Void
Rosh Ha-Shanah Eve Sermon
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
September 15, 2023
Lately, I’ve been staring into space. No, not deep space, no images from the James Webb Telescope. Nor have I been gazing aimlessly at a blank computer screen. It’s a particular space I’ve been looking at, left intentionally empty by its creator—the void between God and Adam in Michelangelo’s magnificent mural of the Creation of Adam.
I’ve been fascinated with Michelangelo since childhood. My grandparents had a book of photographs of his artworks, and on many occasions I would take the book down from the shelf and devote hours to studying these amazing masterpieces—which I found both beautiful and moving.
I was fortunate enough to see some of Michelangelo’s art in person: the tragic yet eternally hopeful statue of The Dying Slave in the Louvre; and, on a trip to Rome a few years ago, the famous statue of Moses—the one with the horns sprouting from his head; and of course the Sistine Chapel ceiling, at the center of which lies the reclining figure of Adam, awakening to life, his index finger just beginning to rise upwards towards his Creator, with only a short space between it and God’s powerful finger stretched out towards him. It’s that void, that empty space, that I’ve been gazing at with endless wonder and fascination.
To be sure, there is so much to see in this mural: God’s ancient face, filled with both love and concern for this creature that He had seen fit to create and give life to; Adam’s muscular form, which occupies nearly half the panel, almost the same size as God, a figure not yet aware of his own strength, his face reflecting both innocence and gratitude.
Yet for me at least, the most puzzling piece of all is that empty space, the one between the figures of God and Adam. It seems that at any moment Adam would complete his hand’s motion upwards and touch God. Yet we know that that will never happen. The space must remain empty forever.
It was the genius of Michelangelo to be able capture and portray the longing that we humans carry within us to know our Creator, to touch and be touched by God’s Presence.
Not that we haven’t tried, so often and in so many ways!
The creation of Adam comes at a sacred moment in the Biblical narrative of Creation—at the very end of the sixth day, just as the seventh day, the Sabbath, is about to commence. In Jewish belief, Shabbat—the Sabbath—represents God’s holy and eternal Presence in our lives. It’s the moment when God chooses to stop working, leaving yet so much more to be done. If only God had continued the sacred work of Creation, this world would look so different! There would be no pain, no want or need, no desire, hunger or thirst. Ever. Yet because of God’s purposeful choice, the world remains incomplete, unfinished, and it becomes our human response—our calling—to reach up and fill in this void, to call it holy, to take on the responsibility of carrying on God’s work into the Seventh Day.
As children, we think our time on earth is limitless. There will always be tomorrow, and tomorrow, and the one after that. Except for those things that the law requires of us—such as going to school—how we fill our time is largely our choice. But then, as we grow older, our days become filled with greater needs and demands. Our workload increases, and somehow the days seem to get shorter and fly by so much more quickly than when we were younger.
At some point we become aware that our time on earth is not infinite, and we start filling what we have left of it more wisely. We learn to punctuate time, to separate it into cycles of work and rest; into intervals we call secular, and those we consider holy.
We reach towards God by making Time—our time on earth—sacred.
But it isn’t only the infinite expanse between God’s Eternity and our finite time that we try to bridge. It’s also the physical space that separates us. Gazing into the night sky we realize how grand God’s Creation actually is. The distance between us and the host of heavenly lights is almost immeasurable; and so, trying to understand the structure and configuration of the cosmos, we strive to make space holy.
We learn to measure the miles we traverse. We keep lists of places we would like to visit. In the words of the Psalm (121:1-2), we “lift up our eyes to the mountains” and imagine the endless vistas that must open for us from those magnificent peaks. There are places we come back to, simply to revisit, or in order to celebrate special moments such as birthdays, weddings or anniversaries; and we call cities that anchor our faith and traditions holy: Rome, Mecca.
Jerusalem.
Churches and synagogues, even burial places, are sites we call holy. Even tumbledown ruins and ancient walls, remnants of a sacred history.
Little by little we realize that the entire Earth is God’s creation and we learn to treat is as holy. We become pilgrims along all our paths, and we learn to find God’s Presence all around us.
Still, something in Michelangelo’s masterpiece leaves us questioning. What compels Adam to reach out to God? Looking carefully at the empty space between the earthbound figure of Adam and the floating image of God, we can see that there are no strings attached. Adam is not a puppet, nor a robot carefully wired to respond to commands. Is it merely the innate need of a child to reach toward their parents, to be picked up, loved, and guided along life’s journey? Or is there something in Adam’s gesture that expresses more than that, more than an instinct?
Just as God’s choice to create Adam was freely made, so is our response. We can go beyond instinct. We can choose to answer the call or disregard it. Rosh Ha-Shanah is all about that choice. We have impulses that drive us, yet we are free to go beyond them. Rosh Ha-Shanah reminds us that we can reach beyond our needs, that we can respond to love with yet more love, that we are capable of giving even more than we take.
We can enrich the world with our deeds. We can be messengers of holiness through the ways in which we interact with one another. Like God, we can cause a spark to become a bright light when we bring a measure of love and hope to the desperate and downcast among us; when we show compassion to those who are bereaved; when we share our abundance with the needy.
The Torah teaches that God created human beings “in the Divine image.” Embedded within each of us is a spark, a touch of God’s own holiness, a measure of the same force that motivated God to create the universe in the first place. When we discover that spark within us and learn to use it, it becomes a powerful drive. This is the force that artists feel when they take up brush or chisel, when writers search for the words that will describe precisely what they see and feel within themselves, when scientists search for the answers to the puzzle of existence, and when teachers try to impart knowledge and wisdom to their students.
And that is our purpose in coming here tonight, and tomorrow—and ten days after that. Because at this season of the year, on Rosh Ha-Shanah, we hear the ancient call and we pause to remember and rededicate ourselves to the charge we accepted thousands of years ago: to the best of our abilities, to discover the holiness that surrounds us and is imbued within us; to live up to the highest standards and expectations placed upon us at the moment when God instilled the Divine breath within us and enabled us to rise from the dust.
This is what I see when I look at that empty space in Michelangelo’s mural of the Creation of Adam. What I have come to realize and understand is that it really isn’t empty at all. We may not be able to see it, but that seeming void is filled with God’s love and calling to us, as well as with our response to God’s call. We fill the void with our longing to know and understand God; through the love and devotion we show to our faith and traditions; through the choices we make; through the words we speak and the work of our hands. It’s the reason why we are here tonight: To respond and, like Adam, to say, hineini—here I am.
May our prayers at this season of change and renewal be a source of inspiration for us all. May our deeds reflect God’s love and holiness, and may the coming year be filled with sweetness, health, and joy.
L’shanah tova tikatevu—may we all be inscribed in the Book of Life for a happy New Year.
© 2023 by Boaz D. Heilman
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