Every year, the finals of the International Bible Contest are held in Jerusalem. While not as glamorous, or as enriching as America’s Got Talent, American Idol, or Dancing with the Stars, or the National Spelling Bee, in some circles it is considered to be quite prestigious. In the months leading up to the finals, national contests are held and only the best of the best make it to Jerusalem. I know we have folks here on this Erev Yom Kippur who “know their Bible” so I thought I’d begin tonight with some preliminary questions. Please do not shout out the answers or raise your hands, but if after hearing the questions you think you have what it takes to win, drop me a note and I will submit your name.
1) Why do we spend forty years wandering the desert after the Exodus?
2) Why do we need the period of the judges before we can have our first king – Saul?
3) Why could Saul’s reign not be successful or David’s kingdom remain whole after the death of Solomon?
While the International Bible contest is real, these are not actual questions and you cannot qualify by answering them. In fact, though, these questions lead to a deep truth about Jewish survival and finding a path to a successful Yom Kippur.
Let’s review the answers.
1) We spent forty years in the desert because a people enslaved for 400 plus years could not quickly transform into a people ready to be free. It took those years in the desert to recover from the trauma of oppression and allow a new generation to move forward.
2) After all those years in the desert as a loose confederation of tribes, we needed the period of the judges to allow us to move slowly to a more united people, much like the United States first had to have the Articles of Confederation and only then, the Constitution.
3) Why did the Kingdom need to split apart? Because evidently the reality of living under a new governmental system was a burden we were not fully ready to accept.
The answers contain both the reason I picked the questions and their connection to our personal and communal Yom Kippur work. Each of these stories represent a major change in our historical mythos and the transition surrounding the change, successful or not. They reinforce that when we make changes we need to understand and prepare for the often-bumpy road that we call transition.
In 2000, my first High Holy Days at Temple Beth Zion in Buffalo we had just concluded the N’ila service and was leaving the bema. An older man, was escorting two women toward the exit. The kindly motioned for me to step in front of them. The man then said, “That’s not how Rabbi Fink (who by the way had retired in 1956) conducted High Holy Day services!” One of the women jumped in and agreed with him. I stopped and smiling I turned around and said: “Rabbi Fink was a progressive thinker and leader in the Reform movement who always kept up with, and sometimes led changes in Reform practice and ritual.” The other woman replied: “You know he’s right about Rabbi Fink. Maybe he would have done things differently today.” Without missing a beat, the man jumped in and simply said: “Nah”. Forty-four years and three rabbis later, this gentleman had never adapted to the change in services. Decades later he still had not transitioned from the past and thus rejected possibility the changes could be positive
For years, “change management” has been a part of business culture and practice. We know that every change presents new challenges, small or large. Change management practices tend to focus on the practical aspects of making change but often ignore the emotional toll it takes on the people impacted by the change.
Historian and business consultant Dr. William Bridges altered our understanding of change and transition. Following the death of his wife, he saw that when change happened, a period of time, a transition, was needed to adapt to the change. As he writes: “…transition occurs in the course of every attempt at change. Transition is the state that change puts people into. The change is external (the different policy, practice, or structure that the leader is trying to bring about), while transition is internal (a psychological reorientation that people have to go through before the change can work).” At this time of year, as we examine our behavior and evaluate the positive changes we need to make, understanding transition need to come to the fore.
Bridges then outlines the three processes of transition: Saying Goodbye or endings; The Neutral Zone (explorations); and Moving Forward (new beginnings.)
Think about the behavior you would like to leave behind and the behavior you hope to move to and as I speak, think how the three processes of transition will challenge and support your change.
Saying goodbye to a behavior starts with knowing you want or need to change. Some may seem easy but in reality, challenge us. I am going to use a relatively benign example. Your job is to apply it to the behavioral changes you have chosen during this season of repentance.
Seriously, how hard is it to not answer an email when it arrives. You feel the vibration or hear the sound, or see the icon bounce, there is no need to read it or look at it. You know you should be focused on your task at hand, your family, your friends, but to actually stop, to say goodbye, to leave behind the quick glance takes a great deal of effort, thought and commitment. Why? In part because it is what you expect of others when they receive your email. In part because it has become society’s expectation of you. Be honest now, in part because you want to feel that important.
Once you have made the commitment to not to continuously check your email and you have actually stopped, now comes the difficult part, exploring the neutral zone.
To quote Bridges: “Even after people have let go of their old ways, they find themselves unable to start anew… The neutral zone (explorations) is uncomfortable, so people are driven to get out of it. Some people try to rush ahead into some (often any) new situation, while others try to back-pedal and retreat into the past. Successful transition, however, requires… time in the neutral zone.” He goes on: “It’s like Moses in the wilderness: it was there, not in the Promised land, that Moses was given the Ten Commandment; and it was there, and not in the Promised Land, that his people were transformed from slaves to a strong and free people.”
Isn’t easy to just look at your email one, two, or maybe just 3 extra times? Or maybe, even though you’ve committed to just check your email “when you rise up and when you lie down”, you quickly discover that you really do need to check your email once more time “while you walkest by the way.” Until we begin the change, we cannot predict if we will slide back into the behavior or slide into zealotry. Each change will take more or less time in the neutral zone. Without the appropriate time in the neutral zone at best the change fails, at worst it becomes oppressive.
Finally, we can begin to move forward toward new beginnings, and even more positive growth. But wait for it, yes, moving forward into the new beginning, we realize our new behavior leads us to another change and process of transition. As Bridges cites the need for wandering through Sinai before entering the Promised Land, once there, we changed from nomads to settled agrarian and urban people. First the judges and then the prophets were needed to push us to return and grow along a path of goodness and righteousness. Similarly, the cycle continues throughout our lives. Just as each year we find ourselves at these days of awe, challenged to change for the better. Challenged to successfully transition. Moving from our own Sinai, through our own desert, through our own promised land.
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