This is the sermon I delivered at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island, for the first day of Rosh Hashanah 5786.
Menachem Mendl of Kotzk, also known as the Kotzker Rebbe, was a prominent chasidic leader of the early 19th century. There is some enigma around him because, although he was very highly regarded as a great scholar and spiritual teacher, he essentially gave up his role as the leader of a distinguished chassidic community when he was in his early fifties. He lived in seclusion, away from the community he had led, for the last twenty years of his life.
We don’t know a lot about why the Kotzker Rebbe chose to isolate himself. There are stories that, even before his self-imposed exile, he would spend Shabbat afternoons locked in his room and would refuse to see anybody, even while his students were singing Shabbat songs and sharing words of Torah. There is a story that one of his students once had the temerity to knock on his door; the Rebbe emerged from his room shouting in a loud voice, “You are all wrong!”
We have collections of the Kotzker’s sayings and teachings, and there are some that seem to hint at the crisis he faced and the reasons for his decision to leave his community. They create a picture of a man who was troubled by the way his followers revered him. The Kotzker knew that he was fallible and that there were others who possessed fine and discerning minds, yet he, “the rebbe,” was considered to be the final word on everything – the virtual link between heaven and earth. That was deeply unsettling to him.
We can also see in his sayings the extremely high spiritual demands he placed upon himself and upon his students. For the Kotzker, devotion to God and Torah was all consuming. He wanted his every breath and moment to be devoted to prayer and study. To do anything less, it seemed to him, was a betrayal that would make him a hypocrite.
That was what he hated most of all – hypocrisy. Menachem Mendl of Kotzk wanted to be fully himself and he would admit no compromises. This fixed idea of being deeply and authentically himself is expressed in one of the most famous sayings attributed to him:
“If I am I, because I am I, and you are you, because you are you, then I am I, and you are you. But, if I am I, because you are you, and you are you, because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you.”
Enigmatic, right? Students of the Kotzker Rebbe have puzzled over this saying for centuries and it appears to hold multiple meanings.
Let me read it to you again:
“If I am I, because I am I, and you are you, because you are you, then I am I, and you are you. But, if I am I, because you are you, and you are you, because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you.”
People love this teaching, I think, because it says something powerful about identity. I can only be myself if my identity is not tangled up in the identity of anyone else. My identity cannot be contingent or dependent upon anyone else. I have to be my own person and not expect anyone else to inform me or define for me what I should be, or must be.
And, the teaching also says that what is true for me is also true for you and for everyone else. You cannot truly be who you are if you are waiting upon me or someone else to confirm or validate your existence.
I would like to ask you to consider how this applies to your life. When have you felt like you were most authentically being yourself? When did you choose not to allow your identity to be hijacked by the expectations, judgements or examples of another person or people? When in your life have you best proclaimed, “I am myself and need no one else to inform me of who I am!”
These may all seem like lofty and cloud-minded questions and concerns. They may seem like questions that have no practical value to the way you live your life. But you should know that there are people for whom these questions have real and immediate importance and real-life consequences. For some people, making the choice just to be themselves can even be a matter of life and death.
Most of us grew up in a time when it was not considered socially permissible for gay men and lesbians to live publicly and honestly as the people they are or were. It can still be difficult and painful today to be gay in a family or community where homosexuality is shunned. But, in a time when some people’s sexual identity was literally classified as a “sociopathic personality disturbance” by the medical establishment, in a time when a person’s sex life could literally be criminalized, the level of misery for people who could not choose to be themselves publicly was intense.
As I said, there are still hardships in our society for queer people, particularly young people. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was often fatal. Although there are no statistics to verify it, the suicide rate among gays and lesbians in that era is generally believed to have been very high.
And you probably know that there is a cruel debate raging in our society right now in which some people are still being told that they are not who they think they are, and that they cannot be allowed to express the identity that they know is within them. In some states, laws have been passed and enforced to prevent people from living the truth of their own identity.
Twenty-seven states have banned gender-affirming care for minors – which almost always means hormonal treatments that temporarily and reversibly pause the onset of puberty. These states have effectively told parents that no matter how certain their children are of their gender identity, and no matter how much the parents want gender-affirming care for their children, they are forbidden to seek care that would allow their children to live their lives with the gender identity within them.
Other states have laws and regulations forbidding teachers to even call students by the names they have chosen to affirm their gender identity. Florida, Indiana and Kentucky, have rules that require teachers to call students only by the names on their birth certificates. Imagine being a six-year-old child known by all of your family and friends as Stephanie, but having a first grade teacher who is required by law to call you Steven. How would that make you feel about going to school each day?
There are statistics on the suicide rate among transgender people in America today, and it is absolutely frightening. Research shows that 82% of transgender people have considered killing themselves. Forty percent have attempted suicide, with suicidal thoughts and attempts highest among transgender youth.
Yet there is still massive amounts of misinformation in our society about transgender people and the care they require. A lot of that misinformation says that transgender people are a new phenomenon, that being transgender is a fad, or that it is the product of ideological indoctrination. None of this is true. Being transgender is a medically documented and understood phenomenon. It has existed, literally, for thousands of years.
Jewish tradition has recognized gender diversity since the time of the early rabbis. The Talmud and other early rabbinic texts from as early as the sixth century CE describe legal categories for a person described as androgynos (a person with both male and female sexual characteristics), tumtum (a person who has sexual characteristics that cannot be assigned to either male or female), ayelonit (a person who was assigned female at birth but later developed male characteristics), and saris (a person who was assigned male at birth but later failed to develop masculine characteristics).
The ancient rabbis did not have a concept of an internal gender identity. That idea did not exist in the ancient world – even though everyone then knew what gender they were, just as people do today. The rabbis’ categories are about external sexual characteristics, not an internal identity. Yet, they absolutely understood that gender and sex are not a simple binary determined at birth. The rabbis approached the issue with a desire to treat human beings according to the realities of their experience, and not to try to force their preconceived notions onto others.
What rabbinic Judaism did fifteen hundred years ago is what our society should be doing now – recognizing that people are different, that simplistic understandings of human diversity are almost always wrong, and that all human beings should be allowed to be who they are – and not be beholden to somebody else’s idea of who they should be.
I think that the crisis faced by Menachem Mendl of Kotzk had something in common with the experience of people today who are told that they are not what they know themselves to be. The Kotzker's crisis, at least in part, was a product of his extreme discomfort with not being able to be the person he knew himself to be. He could not reconcile himself to being the great and infallible “Rebbe” that other people needed him to be. He knew that he could never be himself if he accepted that role.
But, there is also an important difference. Menachem Mendl of Kotzk could not tolerate being a hypocrite. For transgender people today, not being able to live their lives as they know themselves does not just provoke a feeling of hypocrisy, it creates a total alienation of the self. For many, youth in particular, it provokes a constant state of believing that there is something intrinsically “wrong” or “bad” about them. Some transgender people describe the experience of repeatedly being identified as the wrong gender as a constant scream in their head saying, “That is not me.”
I said earlier that the famous saying attributed to Menachem Mendl of Kotzk can be understood in multiple ways. Here it is again:
“If I am I, because I am I, and you are you, because you are you, then I am I, and you are you. But, if I am I, because you are you, and you are you, because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you.”
There is another way to hear these words that, paradoxically, is almost opposite in meaning from what I have discussed so far. Maybe the Kotzker meant to say that none of us is really who we think we are. Maybe his intention – or part of his intention – was to remind us that we all have identities that are necessarily shaped by the people around us who teach us, inspire us, challenge us, or influence us. If that is the case, then “I am I” only because “you are you” and that when I think that “I am only I,” I am actually mistaken.
“I am I,” in part, “because you are you.” I cannot live in isolation from the impact that you have on my life. And you cannot live in isolation from the impact that other people have on your life. Therefore, in some way, it is a true statement to say: “I am not I, and you are not you.” We are all in the process of being people who are made up of ourselves along with all the other people who shape us, inspire us, and influence us.
Think about the people who have had the biggest impact on your life. Could you be who you are today without their influence? Think about the people who have guided you, shaped you, taught you – either for the better or for the worse – aren’t you who you are, in part, because of them? When have you been in the state of: “I am I because you are you”?
This alternative reading of the Kotzker Rebbe can be true, I think, at the same time that the first reading is true, even though they appear to be opposites. The paradox is that both interpretations may be necessary.
We should strive courageously in life to be ourselves. But there is also a courage necessary to allow others to be themselves, too, and to see how we all need each other and are shaped by each other. Without that courage, we will trap ourselves in the myth that other people are supposed to be nothing more than versions of ourselves – and that anyone who fails to be like us is wrong and invalid. We will live isolated from the richness life offers when we authentically connect with others as they truly are.
What applies to an individual also applies to society. If our society cannot accept people for who they are, how they think, and what they have to say – but tries to force people to conform to a single mindset, a single perspective, a single identity – we will be a society in which no one is safe. In such a society, everyone eventually will be told: You can’t be who you are. You may not live as the person you think you are.
Unfortunately, we Jews have seen such societies. We should understand how destructive it is when people are not allowed to live as themselves, when being yourself, speaking for yourself, becomes a crime.
“If I am I, because I am I, and you are you, because you are you, then I am I, and you are you. But, if I am I, because you are you, and you are you, because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you.”
On this Rosh Hashanah, let me wish for you that these Ten Days of Awe be a time in which you rediscover yourself, have the courage to be who you most deeply are, and love yourself for it. May it also be a time in which you grow in courage to allow others to be themselves and for you to delight in the ways that they are a part of your life. May this world be a world filled with people who are connected to each other, each one helping others to be who they are, and who they might become.
L’shanah tovah tikateivu. May you be inscribed for a good year.
Menachem Mendl of Kotzk, also known as the Kotzker Rebbe, was a prominent chasidic leader of the early 19th century. There is some enigma around him because, although he was very highly regarded as a great scholar and spiritual teacher, he essentially gave up his role as the leader of a distinguished chassidic community when he was in his early fifties. He lived in seclusion, away from the community he had led, for the last twenty years of his life.
We don’t know a lot about why the Kotzker Rebbe chose to isolate himself. There are stories that, even before his self-imposed exile, he would spend Shabbat afternoons locked in his room and would refuse to see anybody, even while his students were singing Shabbat songs and sharing words of Torah. There is a story that one of his students once had the temerity to knock on his door; the Rebbe emerged from his room shouting in a loud voice, “You are all wrong!”
We have collections of the Kotzker’s sayings and teachings, and there are some that seem to hint at the crisis he faced and the reasons for his decision to leave his community. They create a picture of a man who was troubled by the way his followers revered him. The Kotzker knew that he was fallible and that there were others who possessed fine and discerning minds, yet he, “the rebbe,” was considered to be the final word on everything – the virtual link between heaven and earth. That was deeply unsettling to him.
We can also see in his sayings the extremely high spiritual demands he placed upon himself and upon his students. For the Kotzker, devotion to God and Torah was all consuming. He wanted his every breath and moment to be devoted to prayer and study. To do anything less, it seemed to him, was a betrayal that would make him a hypocrite.
That was what he hated most of all – hypocrisy. Menachem Mendl of Kotzk wanted to be fully himself and he would admit no compromises. This fixed idea of being deeply and authentically himself is expressed in one of the most famous sayings attributed to him:
“If I am I, because I am I, and you are you, because you are you, then I am I, and you are you. But, if I am I, because you are you, and you are you, because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you.”
Enigmatic, right? Students of the Kotzker Rebbe have puzzled over this saying for centuries and it appears to hold multiple meanings.
Let me read it to you again:
“If I am I, because I am I, and you are you, because you are you, then I am I, and you are you. But, if I am I, because you are you, and you are you, because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you.”
People love this teaching, I think, because it says something powerful about identity. I can only be myself if my identity is not tangled up in the identity of anyone else. My identity cannot be contingent or dependent upon anyone else. I have to be my own person and not expect anyone else to inform me or define for me what I should be, or must be.
And, the teaching also says that what is true for me is also true for you and for everyone else. You cannot truly be who you are if you are waiting upon me or someone else to confirm or validate your existence.
I would like to ask you to consider how this applies to your life. When have you felt like you were most authentically being yourself? When did you choose not to allow your identity to be hijacked by the expectations, judgements or examples of another person or people? When in your life have you best proclaimed, “I am myself and need no one else to inform me of who I am!”
These may all seem like lofty and cloud-minded questions and concerns. They may seem like questions that have no practical value to the way you live your life. But you should know that there are people for whom these questions have real and immediate importance and real-life consequences. For some people, making the choice just to be themselves can even be a matter of life and death.
Most of us grew up in a time when it was not considered socially permissible for gay men and lesbians to live publicly and honestly as the people they are or were. It can still be difficult and painful today to be gay in a family or community where homosexuality is shunned. But, in a time when some people’s sexual identity was literally classified as a “sociopathic personality disturbance” by the medical establishment, in a time when a person’s sex life could literally be criminalized, the level of misery for people who could not choose to be themselves publicly was intense.
As I said, there are still hardships in our society for queer people, particularly young people. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was often fatal. Although there are no statistics to verify it, the suicide rate among gays and lesbians in that era is generally believed to have been very high.
And you probably know that there is a cruel debate raging in our society right now in which some people are still being told that they are not who they think they are, and that they cannot be allowed to express the identity that they know is within them. In some states, laws have been passed and enforced to prevent people from living the truth of their own identity.
Twenty-seven states have banned gender-affirming care for minors – which almost always means hormonal treatments that temporarily and reversibly pause the onset of puberty. These states have effectively told parents that no matter how certain their children are of their gender identity, and no matter how much the parents want gender-affirming care for their children, they are forbidden to seek care that would allow their children to live their lives with the gender identity within them.
Other states have laws and regulations forbidding teachers to even call students by the names they have chosen to affirm their gender identity. Florida, Indiana and Kentucky, have rules that require teachers to call students only by the names on their birth certificates. Imagine being a six-year-old child known by all of your family and friends as Stephanie, but having a first grade teacher who is required by law to call you Steven. How would that make you feel about going to school each day?
There are statistics on the suicide rate among transgender people in America today, and it is absolutely frightening. Research shows that 82% of transgender people have considered killing themselves. Forty percent have attempted suicide, with suicidal thoughts and attempts highest among transgender youth.
Yet there is still massive amounts of misinformation in our society about transgender people and the care they require. A lot of that misinformation says that transgender people are a new phenomenon, that being transgender is a fad, or that it is the product of ideological indoctrination. None of this is true. Being transgender is a medically documented and understood phenomenon. It has existed, literally, for thousands of years.
Jewish tradition has recognized gender diversity since the time of the early rabbis. The Talmud and other early rabbinic texts from as early as the sixth century CE describe legal categories for a person described as androgynos (a person with both male and female sexual characteristics), tumtum (a person who has sexual characteristics that cannot be assigned to either male or female), ayelonit (a person who was assigned female at birth but later developed male characteristics), and saris (a person who was assigned male at birth but later failed to develop masculine characteristics).
The ancient rabbis did not have a concept of an internal gender identity. That idea did not exist in the ancient world – even though everyone then knew what gender they were, just as people do today. The rabbis’ categories are about external sexual characteristics, not an internal identity. Yet, they absolutely understood that gender and sex are not a simple binary determined at birth. The rabbis approached the issue with a desire to treat human beings according to the realities of their experience, and not to try to force their preconceived notions onto others.
What rabbinic Judaism did fifteen hundred years ago is what our society should be doing now – recognizing that people are different, that simplistic understandings of human diversity are almost always wrong, and that all human beings should be allowed to be who they are – and not be beholden to somebody else’s idea of who they should be.
I think that the crisis faced by Menachem Mendl of Kotzk had something in common with the experience of people today who are told that they are not what they know themselves to be. The Kotzker's crisis, at least in part, was a product of his extreme discomfort with not being able to be the person he knew himself to be. He could not reconcile himself to being the great and infallible “Rebbe” that other people needed him to be. He knew that he could never be himself if he accepted that role.
But, there is also an important difference. Menachem Mendl of Kotzk could not tolerate being a hypocrite. For transgender people today, not being able to live their lives as they know themselves does not just provoke a feeling of hypocrisy, it creates a total alienation of the self. For many, youth in particular, it provokes a constant state of believing that there is something intrinsically “wrong” or “bad” about them. Some transgender people describe the experience of repeatedly being identified as the wrong gender as a constant scream in their head saying, “That is not me.”
I said earlier that the famous saying attributed to Menachem Mendl of Kotzk can be understood in multiple ways. Here it is again:
“If I am I, because I am I, and you are you, because you are you, then I am I, and you are you. But, if I am I, because you are you, and you are you, because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you.”
There is another way to hear these words that, paradoxically, is almost opposite in meaning from what I have discussed so far. Maybe the Kotzker meant to say that none of us is really who we think we are. Maybe his intention – or part of his intention – was to remind us that we all have identities that are necessarily shaped by the people around us who teach us, inspire us, challenge us, or influence us. If that is the case, then “I am I” only because “you are you” and that when I think that “I am only I,” I am actually mistaken.
“I am I,” in part, “because you are you.” I cannot live in isolation from the impact that you have on my life. And you cannot live in isolation from the impact that other people have on your life. Therefore, in some way, it is a true statement to say: “I am not I, and you are not you.” We are all in the process of being people who are made up of ourselves along with all the other people who shape us, inspire us, and influence us.
Think about the people who have had the biggest impact on your life. Could you be who you are today without their influence? Think about the people who have guided you, shaped you, taught you – either for the better or for the worse – aren’t you who you are, in part, because of them? When have you been in the state of: “I am I because you are you”?
This alternative reading of the Kotzker Rebbe can be true, I think, at the same time that the first reading is true, even though they appear to be opposites. The paradox is that both interpretations may be necessary.
We should strive courageously in life to be ourselves. But there is also a courage necessary to allow others to be themselves, too, and to see how we all need each other and are shaped by each other. Without that courage, we will trap ourselves in the myth that other people are supposed to be nothing more than versions of ourselves – and that anyone who fails to be like us is wrong and invalid. We will live isolated from the richness life offers when we authentically connect with others as they truly are.
What applies to an individual also applies to society. If our society cannot accept people for who they are, how they think, and what they have to say – but tries to force people to conform to a single mindset, a single perspective, a single identity – we will be a society in which no one is safe. In such a society, everyone eventually will be told: You can’t be who you are. You may not live as the person you think you are.
Unfortunately, we Jews have seen such societies. We should understand how destructive it is when people are not allowed to live as themselves, when being yourself, speaking for yourself, becomes a crime.
“If I am I, because I am I, and you are you, because you are you, then I am I, and you are you. But, if I am I, because you are you, and you are you, because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you.”
On this Rosh Hashanah, let me wish for you that these Ten Days of Awe be a time in which you rediscover yourself, have the courage to be who you most deeply are, and love yourself for it. May it also be a time in which you grow in courage to allow others to be themselves and for you to delight in the ways that they are a part of your life. May this world be a world filled with people who are connected to each other, each one helping others to be who they are, and who they might become.
L’shanah tovah tikateivu. May you be inscribed for a good year.
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