The Courage to Pivot
Rabbi Sarah Shulman, Yom Kippur 2025
A police officer and a rabbi walk into a bar. While this may sound like the start of a joke, it’s actually not. It’s my life; but not how I had once imagined it.
Just before we went through a major leadership transition here at HEA last year, my husband made the biggest career change in his life, leaving a position in special education to serve vulnerable populations on the streets of Denver in a police uniform. And so, as you can imagine, much has changed for both of us ever since: the work, the hours, and yes, even the guns. After swearing that I would never allow a firearm into my house, we now by necessity own several for my husband’s work, kept safely away from our children. And when I wake up at 2am, I not only worry about our children’s safety and that of the Jewish people, but also who Nate might run into on their worst of days.
Amidst the shifting schedules, the stories of mitigating crisis, and new craziness there are also new doors and new prides that have been opened for both of us. I am grateful for his service to this city and that of all our officers and first responders, including those on duty this very day right outside our doors. And most of all, I am beyond grateful to serve this special HEA community.
Through the many changes we have undergone as a family, I have had to let go of how I thought my life would be. For example, I had always dreamed I would have a third child. And now that just doesn’t seem to be in the cards. For forever I always pictured our family with three little kids running around, just as many of you have pictured your life in a particular way just because.
We have all imagined things about our future such as how we would be partnered or agile, in a particular home or job, close with a particular friend or relative, or some other projection of a previous version of ourselves. Until we were awakened by change knocking at our door. Just as it did for me; just as it did for our ancestors.
For all of us, life seems at times to be on a set course, until things shift – both in ways we choose and in ways beyond our control – bringing waves of disappointment and blessing. I wonder how you might have imagined yourself 10, 20, or 30 years ago, and what might be different today?
According to neuroscientists, our brains predict the future repeatedly based on our current experiences in a proposal of what is known as our “predictive brain.” Neuroscientists continue to study and uncover how the hippocampus and networks of neurons work together to create associations, inferences, and predictive coding that literally map out our future before it happens. So naturally when life takes an unexpected turn, our brains and all the rest of us must stop and chart a new course.
And we do, we pivot, though it often isn’t easy to release ourselves from the chain of our own expectations. Over the last year I’ve spoken with so many of you who are somewhere in the pivoting process – beginning relationships and life anew after a divorce; adjusting to being a caregiver when a family member’s health declines; finding new routines as daily life changes radically; or to filling a gaping hole after a loved one’s death. It’s hard to let go of one trajectory and begin another.
And that’s precisely why we need this day so badly, literally to turn– the act of teshuvah – to have the courage to pivot. If you thought this day was just about beating your chest and then moving on, I’m here to tell you that this is far more real: this is about precisely the change you are struggling with right now and preparing yourself to move forward with the support of Jewish practice and people.
We are on a journey of change together mirrored and normalized by our biblical ancestors:
And there are so many others. The Torah and the wider Jewish canon after all, is the story of the adaptations of our people to change through a covenant of love and learning. It’s our story.
One that unfolds by way of three pillars that form the architecture of a Jewish theory of change: recognition, ritual, and renewal. And so, as we sit here with a few hours before the gates of prayer close tonight– let’s walk a Jewish journey together through recognizing, ritualizing, and renewing to reclaim the path forward in our lives.
The first pillar is RECOGNITION:
Moses ascends Mt. Nebo at the end of his life where with God’s assistance, he comes to accept the following truths as we must:
Like Moses, we are called at this time of the year by cries of the shofar to awaken to what has changed and what is a-changing in our lives. We recognize that life is peppered with beginnings and endings, lost opportunities and in tow anticipatory grief. Today we give ourselves the gift of being unstuck from the past by naming the endings we face including all their messy, frayed parts.
For me this year, I’ve done work to recognize that while I may have 27 of my embryos in the freezer at Stanford hospital, it still may not be possible for me to enlarge my family. I may have thought my life would be a certain way, but it’s not. By naming that I could attend to the emotions that arise around this change. I’ve discovered, for example, that beneath the sadness was shame – how could I not bring another Jewish child (or 27) into the world when I had the opportunity and so many do not? But also, gratitude for the blessings I do have in my life with two healthy kids, family and friends, meaningful work, and a life of abundance.
I’ve had to put it all out there in view for myself as if on the mountain with Moses: the expectations, conflicted feelings, and potential for maturation, all of it, with courage.
Perhaps you can relate as you shed old realities and strive to adopt new ones for yourself and your loved ones. Because, like crabs on the beach, how can we grow without recognizing that our old exterior no longer fits us?
Pillar #2 is RITUAL – to transition from the past by honoring what’s been lost and what’s been found along the way. Today’s Torah reading is essentially a prescription for how ritual can be important and healing not just for Aaron or his immediate family but for an entire people. The sacral vestments, the scape goats, the aromatic incense – all of it, a means of sanctification and transformation.
But we don’t need to be the High Priest to benefit from the transformative power of ritual in our lives; we are a nation of priests today through our words and actions.
For there are many ways that Jewish rituals can help us to attend to shifts in our lives: tossing crumbs into the water at Tashlich, saying the prayers of Yizkor, lighting a havdallah candle, playing an important song, taking a dip in the mikvah, tapping our hearts to actualize change, or gathering community.
For example, this year we honored the bar mitzvah date of a congregant who lived but a few days. His father came up to read the haftarah as his son would have if he had survived and his mom came up for an aliyah to the Torah, allowing space for their family to celebrate his memory and mourn his loss within the loving embrace of our community. It was a powerful and pertinent ritual experience for all of us present that day.
Another way we ritualize loss as descendants of Aaron, is through the decluttering process, as so many of you have experienced physically or spiritually. Deciding what to give away and what to keep from a loved one’s home or our own is challenging but also helpful; allowing us to cherish memories while finding some closure and release. Sorting through the sweaters and watches, the tchotchkes, books, and photos, we come to discover a layer of gratitude below for the people who owned these treasures and the profound ways they have shaped us forever. I suppose, in this way, packing can be as much a Jewish ritual as prayer.
I wonder how ritual might bring you to a place of acceptance of the changes in your life?
The third and final pillar of change is RENEWAL – opening our hearts to what’s been remapped and recovered after a change, we discover, like Miriam, that we have brought the perfect instrument along to transition this moment from mourning into dancing. In this way, I want to remind us that Shana Tova means both a good year, and a good change. Today you can change the rest of your life. It is never too late.
Recently I met and befriended a man who changed his life entirely after spending 50 years behind bars for murder. Mr. O (as I’ll call him) was in the wrong place at the wrong time as a young man when a drug deal went awry here in his hometown of Denver. Like many of you, he grew up with siblings on the other side of town. Only while you went off to college or began your career, he went to prison, sentenced to two life sentences plus five years for murder.
But after his first few decades behind bars, Mr. O changed course entirely to become the person he is today: someone who everyone wants to sit beside at his nursing home in Colorado Springs because he is warm, funny, and kind. It’s still all there beneath the surface, he told me – the anger, regret, wounds of his childhood, and dark days of incarceration. When he goes outside to catch a ride to the doctor, he still, out of habit, puts his hands out like this to be cuffed, before he catches himself and realizes, I’m free.
I’m on a different trajectory now.
Mr. O has taught me that we are all capable of pivoting our lives in dramatic ways even when so much is stacked against us, if we make the commitment to do so and allow others in to help.
That is precisely the thrust of the Unetanetokef prayer that we will chant in Musaf today, which acknowledges all that’s beyond our control –who will live and who will die, who will be at peace and who will be troubled. But, the prayer continues, “teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah have the power to transform our destiny.” The Talmud teaches that these three things: repentance, prayer, and righteous acts of giving will indeed cancel the harsh decree (JTalmud Ta’anit 65b, BTalmud RH 16b). In other words, we are not victims of our own circumstances, though far too many of us feel this way.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and other wise sages have taught that if you want to change the world, first you must change yourself. That is the meaning of teshuvah. Mr. O got ahold of his life and he decided, I don’t need to keep going down this path. I’m tired and I want to be different. I can be loving and loved; I can find joy and trust even with all I’ve been through. I can be renewed.
Teshuvah asks a hard question of us – how can I change myself and my actions? But perhaps an even harder question is, how can I not?
We can’t always control what happens to us. Illness and injuries come and go, along with jobs and relationships. But we can control how we respond – with courage or fear, with hope or despair, with grace or vexation, with acceptance or rejection. What will we do with our pain? And will we use our pain to sensitize ourselves to the pain of others?
That is the essential message of the prophet Isaiah today: that we must use this fast to empathize with the hunger of others. He rails: “No, this is the fast I desire…It is to share your bread with the hungry and to take the poor into your home; when you see the naked to clothe them, and do not ignore your own flesh…Then when you call Adonai will answer; when you cry, God will say Hineni, here I am.”
In this way, it is not surprising at all that the first thing we are told to do after Yom Kippur is to roll up our sleeves and build a sukkah outside our homes, and to invite the most vulnerable people we know inside to celebrate in a rickety, temporary shack. How do we renew ourselves according to Jewish tradition? We roll up our sleeves and be of service to our community.
A few months ago, my coach told me, “Sarah, your third child is the congregation.” Wow, I thought, holding onto her words, that is both painful and beautiful at the same time. This next chapter is what I and all of us make of it for those we love and serve.
For here is the truth of Yom Kippur: there is life after disappointment, change, and loss. There is healing after disease and purpose after retirement. There are healthy new relationships even after the most painful divorce or loss.
There are new ways every day to help our kids, our communities, and ourselves. But only, as Rabbi Ed Feinstein teaches, “when we let go of the shame, acknowledge what’s before us, forgive ourselves, and reach out for help.” Today may we have the courage to recognize that we are the architects of our own renewal; and the creativity to ritualize and begin the work right here, right now.
To end in prayer –
God, help us to recognize who and what we did not become. Support us in honoring and grieving our unfulfilled dreams. May we experience how out of loss comes grief and out of grief blossoms transformation. Guide us in shedding the parts of our lives that no longer serve us or our loved ones to make room for embracing who we are becoming and the holy work that is ours to do in this world.
As we head into this New Year, may each of us have the courage and capacity to reattune ourselves to what matters now. God, may we be called to where we are most needed, to You, and to the beauty of our future selves. May we celebrate our ever-evolving work in Your image. And let us say: Amen.
G’mar Chatima Tova
