The Final Frontier

December 28, 2007
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

Isaac Bashevis Singer tells the story of Shlemiel who lived in Chelm, the city filled with fools. No one from Chelm had ever seen Warsaw, but a traveling salesman had told Shlemiel of all its wonders: paved streets, stone buildings, pickle makers, and bagel bakers. All at once, Shlemiel felt the urgent need to leave his wife and children to visit Warsaw. Now Shlemiel was poor and there was no railway, so all he needed was a bag of cheese, a loaf of bread and a jug of water. He set forth and walked north until the sun was setting. He found a haystack, sat to eat his meal, and cozied himself to go to sleep. Suddenly he worried, "What if I wake in the morning and forget which direction I need to walk to reach Warsaw?" So he took off his boots and set the toes in the direction of Warsaw. With that, he went to sleep. But the farmer who owned the haystack happened to see all this and thought he would play a practical joke on this foolish little man. So he crept up and turned Shlemiel's boots around.

When Shlemiel awoke, he donned his boots and headed in the direction the toes were pointing. Toward the end of the day he reached the city. The sun was setting but he could see that the place he had reached looked very much like Chelm. The houses were ramshackle wooden huts with shutters in every state of disrepair. The streets were dirt and mud. He even found a street that looked just like his street. And he wondered, "How is this possible? I am two days' journey from Chelm and here is Chelm!" Then, all at once, it came to him that there was a second Chelm between Chelm and Warsaw. He had come from Chelm One and now he was in Chelm Two. Just as he was thinking this, he was greeted by a man who looked just like Gronam Ox passing by, "Shalom, Shlemiel." But how could this Gronam Ox from Chelm Two know his name? He looked around and saw Molly Shmegegi hurrying home and Itzik the Buzzard playing checkers with Old Paltiel Shlemazel. Wonder of wonders, he thought, the people here are all exact copies of people in Chelm One! He smiled. If so, there must be a Shlemiel on his street. So he set off to meet Shlemiel Two.

But when he got home, his wife only scolded him, saying, "Where have you been? Do you think it is fun to desert your family? Your children were looking for you everywhere!" He tried to explain to Mrs. Shlemiel that he had never been to her city before. Then he realized that, since he had set off from Chelm One to visit Warsaw, his double must have also set off at the same time. So he shrugged his shoulders and sat down at the dinner table to eat the dinner prepared for the Shlemiel family by Mrs. Shlemiel Two. In the end, he stayed in Chelm Two because it was just as comfortable as living in Chelm One and, anyway, everyone knew him and he knew everyone else.

Now you know that Chelm stories are amusing but they always have their deeper side, too. It turns out that the world is a lot like Chelm. So it is written in this week's portion: "A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph" (Ex. 1:8). You went to sleep one night and the next morning, you arose and found that the world had changed. Everything around you looked exactly like it looked when you went to sleep, but now you were in Chelm Two and not in Chelm One. You used to be revered, now you are despised. Before, you were the invited guests of Pharaoh, honored and pampered. Now, you were slaves to Pharaoh, feared and persecuted. The world had turned topsy-turvy, upside down, inside out, and yet the streets were the same streets, the people were the same people, and the dinner on this night's table was like the dinner on last night's table.

In a couple of days, you will enter a new year. Today, it is 2007 and when you wake a few days from now, it will be 2008. Nothing around you will change. The sun will come up by day and the moon by night. But you will feel a year has passed. You will know that 2008 is not 2007. You will be living in a new time. Maybe in 2008 you will reach new heights, mark important new events, get a promotion, win the lottery, inherit a fortune from a long-lost relative who has been gold mining in Outer Mongolia. Or maybe next year will be a year of disasters and misfortunes. Either way, you will mark it as a different year. Every year something changes. A new king arises who does not remember what you did for the old king. Life is on the move.

Welcome to the Final Frontier! These are the voyages of the human individual. Our lifelong mission is to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no individual has gone before. This year when you are making your New Year's resolutions, pretend that you have left Chelm One and traveled all the way to Chelm Two. This year, pretend that a new king arose who does not remember last year. This year, find your way to a new you. Reclaim your lifelong mission. Stop standing in a rut, stop walking the same way. stop thinking that every day is the same as the day before. Make a difference in your life by forcing a difference in your life. The wonderful thing about the Final Frontier is that it is never final!

If Shlemiel had never made it to Chelm Two, he would never have learned to appreciate his life in Chelm One. If the Hebrews had not been made into slaves, there would have been no need of Moses and the story of the Jewish people would have ended with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob & Joseph. If we never suffered, we would never triumph over suffering. The worst thing that can happen -- whether it is personal or happens to a city, a state, or a country -- always calls on us to rise to greater heights. Every year that passes faces us with new challenges and new prospects. We can choose to pass them by, we can choose to sit out the changes, we can choose to stay in the old Chelm, we can choose not to go where no one has gone before, we can choose to stay firmly embedded in the everyday mundane common ordinary, or we can see every new sunrise as a chance to change ourselves and change the world around us. The marvelous thing about the Final Frontier is that it is never final.

And if life is a way of teaching us a lesson, then there is one more thing that I would like to adduce right now. The greatest of all human tragedies here on earth is the greatest of all opportunities. And, if this is so on earth, then it must be so in the universe beyond. There is no need to fear the Final Frontier, only to face it squarely, trusting that the God who has given us the adventure of life will give us the adventure beyond life, too. We have only to get ourselves up, put on our boots, and travel in any direction that our toes point us. The Book of Exodus which we begin this week and the Judaism that we have been living for thousands of years reaffirm that the awesome thing about the Final Frontier is that it is never final. And let us say: Amen.