Sermon – Kol Nidre 5787
And…God…said, “No.”
From the depths of our souls, we pour out our deepest hopes and dreams. It takes courage to come before God expressing our innermost desires. As we enter the sanctuary, we bring our prayers and perhaps some of us are not sure if God is listening. We’re here because the time of year whispers to us, “Go.” When we arrive, we vocalize the words inscribed on the pages of our machzor; we express the supplications of our hearts. Sharing these words comes from a place of vulnerability. We cannot possibly know what the future will hold.
I recall the years of pain my mother felt when she was sick. Though the cancer was ravaging her body, and the pain she felt was profound, each time she went to the doctor she hoped for a good result. The doctor had no control of what the scans might say, but she prayed for good news or another treatment if the one she was on had stopped working. She wanted to reduce the pain; her doctors could manage that. She had one prayer, that she asked for repeatedly. She wanted more time. More time to be with her family, more time to watch her young granddaughters grow up. She wanted more hugs, more laughs, more joy. But God said, “No.”
Many of us have faced situations in which we have beseeched God for something we desire most, only for it to not come to fruition the way we want it to. Moses reminds us in the book of Deuteronomy that his deepest desire was to step foot in the Promised Land. He led the people through the wilderness and reminded the Israelites during the journey, “I pleaded with Adonai saying…let me, please cross over and see the good land on the other side of the Jordan.” One might think that such a request would touch God’s heart, and God could not say no. But such anthropomorphic attributes don’t always work the way we mere mortals think they should. God responded to Moses, “rav lach-Enough! Never speak to me of this matter again.” Moses had proven himself; he led the Israelites through profound challenges. He had legs to stand on, but he never mentioned it to God. The book of Deuteronomy is a retelling of the journey. We might wonder why Moses shares this with the people. He is reminding them that there are times we will be disappointed, that the answer to our prayers might be no. A Midrash[1] tells us that Moses saw that God would not budge, Moses then drew a circle, stood in it and he would not move until God annulled the decree. He dressed in sackcloth and ashes and asked God 515 times[2] to enter the land. The repeated requests would not change God’s mind. God reminded him that when the Israelites had sinned and built the Golden Calf, Moses wanted to save the people. While Moses eased God’s wrath, God reminded him that God made two oaths, one that Moses should not enter the land, and the other to not destroy the people, Israel. They cannot both be repealed, if you want to see the land, the people of Israel will be destroyed. Moses turned to God and said, “Let Moses and thousands like him be destroyed, but do not let one person in Israel be destroyed.”[3] Through all this God heard that seeing the land was important to him, so God let Moses climb Mt. Nebo and behold a full panoramic picture of the land.
What might Moses have been feeling in that moment? He might have shed a tear knowing he still could not step foot in the Promised Land. He had to change course; he had to think differently when God said no. Seeing the land would have to suffice. Was Moses soul still broken? Perhaps, but true healing comes when we embrace the brokenness, the disappointment, and accept our reality.
In her acclaimed book, When We See You Again, Rachel Goldberg-Polin pours out her soul and reminds us of her 330-day fight to keep her son Hersh alive. She writes, “In general, we human beings, we love our people completely, and we will do anything for them. Anything. Thankfully, ‘anything’ isn’t usually necessary. Unfortunately, even ‘everything’ doesn’t always work…all those prayers we said and say are heard, I believe that, just not always where and when and how we ask for them to be.” But the key aspect of her message is in what she writes next, “Sometimes the answer is no. It is an answer. We might not like it. I didn’t like the answer to the prayers I poured out for Hersh to come back to me alive.”[4]
It is there, in that space of pain or disappointment, that we have a choice to make. What do we do when God says no, when we don’t like the answer? Wallowing in our disappointment can lead to tremendous pain or depression. It can break our souls beyond repair. No one would blame us if that was our choice. Countless individuals cannot escape the darkness of the harsh decrees that befall them. Can we choose a different path? If the answer to that question is yes, then we should try to put one foot in front of the other and walk in a lonely place where it seems no one has ever walked before. We carry the wounds with us on our souls as we forge forward.
If there is one thing we hope for, it is that we never have any pain; we never suffer. While our heart hopes that to be true, our heads know that suffering will come. The natural rhythms of life remind us we will encounter periods of suffering in our lives. We often wonder why a person falls ill. Why do we have to miss an important moment of our lives because of illness or injury? Why didn’t we get the job we longed for? What happens in the moments following suffering defines who we are.
The Talmud, in tractate Brachot[5], invites us to think about this same question. Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba became ill and his teacher, Rabbi Yochanan came to visit him and said, “Is your suffering dear to you? Rabbi Hiyya responded neither the suffering nor its reward. Rabbi Yochanan said to him, give me your hand. Rabbi Hiyya gave Rabbi Yochanan his hand and was healed. The scene repeats itself with Rabbi Yochanan falling ill and Rabbi Hanina visiting him. Rabbi Hanina asks the same question, is your suffering dear to you? And Rabbi Yochanan shares the same answer, neither the suffering nor its reward. Rabbi Hanina then offered his hand and brought healing to Rabbi Yochanan.
As I share with you this story, you might be struck by the question each rabbi asks his friend, “Is your suffering dear to you?” What kind of question is that? I could not imagine walking into the hospital room and asking any of you such a question. Of course, the suffering would not be dear to us. Rabbi Yochanan understands Jewish tradition which teaches just a little earlier in the Talmud a reflection on Isaiah 53:10 which says, “The one in whom God delights, God oppresses with illness.” The Talmud teaches us that this verse means we must knowingly accept our suffering with love and if so, what is the reward? The answer is in the second part of the verse which says, “That the individual might see their children, and their days would be lengthened.” If you’re as uncomfortable in your seat as I am sharing this, you’re not alone. Suffering to lengthen my days, no thank you. Suffering as a sign of God’s love, I don’t think so.[6] If we limit our understanding of lengthening our days to the promise of time, then perhaps the limits of our mind would lead us to anger. If, however, we can think about lengthening as finding purpose in our learning from our suffering, then perhaps our anger at our tradition will be quelled and we can begin to reflect on what we might do now that we have suffered. If instead, because we know what it is like to feel such profound pain, can we be more loving, can we become more patient, can we have insights about the world we didn’t have before? If the answer to those questions is yes, then our lives will walk a different path, a more meaningful and compassionate path.
Writer Arthur Brooks reflects on this course of suffering in an opinion piece for The Free Press,[7] he references Bruce Feiler who observed that every 12 to 18 months we experience a major change in our lives. Big changes, life quakes, as Feiler calls them, happen three to five times in a person’s life. Feiler talks about the real suffering a person experiences during these changes and quakes. The negative feelings tend to overshadow our emotions in those moments. But Feiler found that 90% of the time, people looked back on the challenge and suffering and saw the transition as a success. Brooks points out the paradox, “We hate negative change and resist it, but we need it to find the meaning in life we crave.” Brooks suggests one tool to alleviate our suffering. Many people, he explains have a gratitude journal, or a list of joyful events and past blessings. He says he would not do this because it only serves to contrast between the joyful times then and the crummy moment now. Instead, he keeps a journal of failure and disappointment. When something is bothering him, he opens an encrypted file on his phone or laptop and writes about it in a few words. Under what he has written, he leaves two blank lines, and a note to come back to it one month later, and write on the first line, and on the second line, the month after that. Brooks has learned that when you come back to the frustrating moments, they have often been resolved, or even some blessing may have come from it. Then he says, after several months of entries, you can look back and see the pain and the learning. What comes from these reflections are moments of growth, resilience, and perhaps a newly found sense of purpose.
While Brooks offers one approach, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov teaches us that we should get in the habit of singing; it will give us new life and fill us with joy.[8] Did Sagui Dekel-Chen know this teaching when he was in the depths of the tunnels in Gaza?[9] Sagui Dekel-Chen lived on Kibbutz Nir Oz with his family. On October 7, when terrorists invaded his kibbutz, he fought back in defense. He was shot, wounded, and then taken hostage. He spent 498 days in captivity. On that morning, his pregnant wife Avital, and young daughters, Bar and Gili were in the safe room of their home. As part of the Kibbutz emergency team, Sagui armed himself to fight the terrorists. At one point during the battle, he headed home and was taken captive. How did Sagui make it through his painful captivity? He sang music in his head. There were 44 songs he knew well, Israeli ones from Shlomo Artzi, classic rock from Bruce Springsteen, and pop from Adele. He imagined romantic dates with Avital and singing his daughters to sleep every night. He didn’t know his family was still alive until days before his release and he wondered what his daughter’s name was. While in captivity he did something more than singing songs in his head; he wrote his own songs.
Upon his release, he began to look up Israeli singers who could help him bring those songs to life. Last month, more than 3,000 people gathered at Kibbutz Nir Oz for a concert of his music, he called the night “Captivity in Lyrics”. He told everyone he was not a singer, not all the songs were sad, and that they should expect to laugh and dance. With a band of eight musicians and three backup singers including several famous names in the Israeli music scene, Sagui Dekel-Chen brought his songs to life. The lyrics were displayed on a giant screen behind the stage along with photos of his family from before and after October 7th. While in the tunnels, he started to imagine his wife in labor and hear the cries of a newborn. He wrote a song entitled “Lo yodea et sh’meich”[10], I don’t know your name. It sounds like a lullaby. The song begins with the chimes of a mobile and with a sweet voice Sagui sings, “I have not yet sung you a lullaby. I have not yet hugged you tight. I have not taken you for walk in the flowery fields. I haven’t given you a kiss at night when you were sleeping. I still don’t know your name.” His song expresses the pain and the longing, but also the promise and the hope. At the concert, Sagui shared that he thought of his new baby as a kind of deposit waiting to be redeemed upon his release. He asked audience members if they had held Shahar Mazal before he did and thanked them for being there when he couldn’t.
There is an album to accompany Sagui’s performance and the final song on the album, one of the final songs he sang that night, is called Hashir bishvili, A song for me. In that song he considered the possibility of not returning home or returning home to an empty house. While he convinced himself in the tunnels that his family was ok and waiting for him, he began to think shortly before his release about where he might bury his loved ones and what songs might be sung at the funeral. This moment gave everyone the opportunity to think about Yarden Bibas who lived that reality as he buried his wife Shiri and young sons, Ariel and Kfir who were murdered by Hamas in captivity.
For 498 days Sagui Dekel-Chen was in the depths of the tunnels. He felt the pain and the sorrow. He survived through song, and he turned his suffering into a collection of teachings that might help others navigate our own way through crisis, pain, and sorrow. When we are in the depths of our suffering, and we call out to God in prayer, and God answers no, perhaps in those moments, we might recall any story from our tradition about how we can turn our pain and suffering into something. Sagui taught us to hope. My mother, when she was looking for more time and couldn’t get it, she vowed to make the time she had meaningful and create the most amazing memories for her family. She lengthened her days by deepening the meaning.
How did Rachel Goldberg-Polin do it? She says, “We ran and chased and begged and pleaded and dealt and paid in every way you can conjure and imagine and prayed and worked and cried and suffered, we suffered in the most sickening ways…we proved that the engine of love can entirely fuel and propel us…to keep going…we forced ourselves to have hope.”[11] She teaches us that the recipe for hope is internal, it is mustered from within. It isn’t an option, it is a mitzvah, God commands us to hope. Goldberg-Polin writes, “Now, my prayer, my pursuit and quest, more than any other is still Hope.”[12] She does this by carrying Hersh’s mission and purpose in life forward. Hersh’s purpose is now her purpose.
Suffering changes us. When God says, no, we say to God, I am still going to hope. I am still going to be here God. I am going to find a different prayer, a different response. Say no God, ok, I am going to emerge stronger and better. I am going to find meaning and purpose. I am going to grow.
Eloheinu veilohei avoteinu v’imoteinu, God and God of our ancestors, when the answer to our prayer is no, empower us to take ownership of our lives.
Even though our suffering and its reward are unwelcomed, teach us to make meaning out of our suffering. Guide us in growth and reflection, may the hope that lives within be the flower that blooms from the dark soil. Kein yehi ratzon.
Rabbi Rick Kellner
[1] Otzar Midrashim, Drash on Petirat Moshe #5 https://www.sefaria.org/Otzar_Midrashim%2C_Midrashim_on_Moses_Our_Master%2C_Drash_on_Petirat_Moshe.1?lang=bi&lookup=%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%92%D7%94&with=Lexicon&lang2=en
[2] The number 515 is equivalent to the gematria of the Hebrew word ואתחנן
[3] Midrash Tanchuma Vaetchanan 6, https://www.sefaria.org/Midrash_Tanchuma%2C_Vaetchanan.6.1?lang=bi
[4] When We See You Again, by Rachel Godlberg-Polin, p. 215, 218
[5] Talmud Brachot 5b
[6] Talmud Brachot 5a
[7] Don’t Waste Your Suffering, by Arthur Brooks, The Free Press, April 6, 2026, https://www.thefp.com/p/arthur-brooks-dont-waste-your-suffering?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
[8] The Empty Chair, by Reb Nachman of Breslov p. 104
[9] This story is told in the article this article from Times of Israel on August 11, 2026 https://www.timesofisrael.com/former-hostage-sagui-dekel-chen-returns-home-to-perform-songs-he-composed-in-hamas-captivity/
[10] Theissong was played at the conclusion of the sermon, https://open.spotify.com/track/5hEKP232hddtAlV18sfqjX?si=f5f3db3994074ad8
[11] Goldberg-Polin, p. 215-216
[12] Goldberg-Polin, p. 217