Ayzeh hu Gibor – the Pirke Avot, the last section of the Talmud asks- Who is a hero? Growing up outside of Los Angeles, I was always intrigued when my parents would make the journey to their old neighborhood to meet their friends the Einsiedlers. It was a long drive for they had moved out to the distant suburbs so my father could take a teaching position at a community college in a city now called Rancho Cucamonga. But when I entered that house of European intellectuals that seemed so out place only a few miles from Hollywood, with its old worldly musty book smell permeating the darkened rooms, I did not complain. It is not because I looked forward to the heavy European Jewish cooking, parts of which I would discretely hide in my napkin, nor the long discussions about genealogy at the time of which I was no fan. No, it was because David and Rose would greet me so warmly and then in a pre-Xbox age, take me over to look at their collection of comic books. While they and my parents talked away, I could immerse myself not only in the early works of Charles Shultz and Peanuts, but in the action heroes, Superman, Batman, and the Justice League.

`This past year, Mr. Einsiedler, died, outliving Rose by almost a decade. But I will be forever indebted to both of them, for they gave me not only my first Hebrew Dictionary – a precious Bar Mitzvah present that unlike so many other gifts is still used to this day, but also my first and only Superman book. For all I know, it may now be worth something. While over time my fascination with the world of superheroes waned, a recent exhibit at the Skirball Jewish Museum in Los Angeles reminded attendees not only of the huge popularity of comic book heroes in the nineteen thirties and forties, which continues to this day on the Big screen, but as Michael Chabon pointed out in "The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay", of the particularly Jewish role in bringing this American popular art form into being. In his book "UP UP and OY Vey", Simcha Weinstein noted that many Jews entered the comic book industry because they were excluded by agencies and papers from "legitimate" illustration work. Comic books were, however, a new endeavor and Jews, just as they did in cinema, took a risk and ended up dominating this new industry. Two of them, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, developed a hero who was introduced to America in 1938 at the same time that Kristallnacht - the night of broken glass - took place in Germany. Like their Jewish colleagues, who after them created Batman and Spiderman among so many others, they, at that time of challenge, wanted to create a powerful character who would "protect the innocent and conquer evil", encouraging the rest of us to draw on our own hidden strength to truly create a world of good. Eizeh hu Gibor- they wanted to create a hero to inspire us all and so created Superman.

To some, engaging in fantastical longing for a heroic figure who comes to your rescue is a profound reflection of a people’s powerlessness. Certainly the Jewish myth of the Golem, the gigantic creature made of mud and stone said to have been created by Rabbi Yehuda Loeb, the Maharal of Prague, in the Sixteenth century, is reflective of this perspective. The Golem, according to the legend, came to the rescue of the Jews of Prague when they were at their weakest, fighting off anti-Semitic mobs, until he himself became drunk with power and his maker, the Rabbi, at the request of the Holy Roman emperor who now promised to protect the Jews, had to destroy him. To others – like the ancient Greeks – heroes were often the sons of gods (demigods) who represented a bridge between heaven and earth. In either case the hero is magical, almost untouchable, and in some way possessing an Achilles heel, fatally flawed.

That American Jews in the 30s and 40s believed that we needed to be inspired by heroes, whether real or imaginary, especially when they were not sure which direction America would go in countering hatred in the world, is understandable. Part of what they were drawing on as they created their comic book characters was the Jewish tradition of celebrating leaders from Samson and Deborah to King David and Rabbi Akiva who were able, through charismatic dynamism and intelligent leadership, to heroically help our people face difficult challenges. As we today struggle to face challenges from global warming to oppression in nearly every corner of the earth, wondering whether this generation is up to the great tasks that life has placed before us, I agree that we need heroic examples to remind us of the true majesty of the human spirit. Deep inside we know that as individuals and a society we can achieve so much if we but put our minds and hearts to it- whether discovering as one hero Jonas Salk did that polio can be cured or as another - Eleanor Roosevelt when she found her voice learned that she could help so many people who were in need, or General Omar Bradley who inspired farm boys and kids from Brooklyn and the Bronx, people like my father, to believe that they could defeat the power and fury of those who lived under the tragically demagogic illusion that they were superior to everyone on earth and so they did, helping to defeat the Nazis.

But where today do we find such inspiration to help us become Giborim- greater from within? This past summer I just happened to be back in southern California during Michael Jackson’s funeral. While fond of some of his music, I found the spectacular celebration of his life reflective of what Chris Hedges refers to as the moral nihilism – essential ethical emptiness of contemporary American culture. Southern California literally came to a halt for the funeral, while across the country the news stations, papers, and magazines, that could have been focusing on the economic downturn, the desperate need to repair our health care system, the urgency of global warming, instead feasted on everything about this man who was clearly talented, but also so troubled, morally tainted, and self destructive. We stand guilty of having become a culture caught up in celebrity worship, and this celebrity culture, Neil Gabler reflects, "ultimately represents a hostile takeover of religion…". This kind of celebrity worship surely seems like a contemporary expression of idolatry. How ironic, I thought as I took in the feting of Mr. Jackson, so many in our society have put aside religion because they are uncomfortable with the ancient myths only to replace religion that calls upon you to see the holy in life, with the empty worship of the myth of celebrity, which asks you to focus on the narrowly popular. What is wrong with America today is not just the economy, not just the decline of the stock and real estate markets, but also the absence of values, of focus on community and commitment to family. We desperately need to rethink what it means to look up to somebody, and to strive to live with a sense of purpose.

We need new heroes today, or at least to redefine to whom we should look up as we seek personal inspiration. Eizeh hu Gibor? From a biblical and rabbinic perspective the hero is someone who draws sustenance from their values and inner strength to perform acts of blessing. From the tradition’s perspective, the hero does not achieve perfection – for he/she is human. The pirke avot states a gibor, a great one, understands the need to conquer his/her desires and then go forth and act in the world. Yes Giborim - heroes like David and Queen Esther - had their flaws but they overcame them and were able to help improve people’s lives. Unfortunately today our culture, in a self destructive way, seems to only appreciate extremes –we want to look up to those who are either seemingly totally without blemish and therefore not real or those who set no limits on themselves only to ultimately self destruct.

Interestingly, the Maharal, whose 600th birthday will be celebrated this year, understood that human beings are the reflection of the Divine and that God is waiting for each of us to let the work of creation unfold from within ourselves. The Maharal lived in Prague during times of difficulty but despite having to face challenges, this supposed inventor of the Gollum taught that when we make the most we can of our lives we (according to Benzion Bosker) carry the purpose existence towards fulfillment. The Divine in each of us when accessed can help us to solve the problems of the world just as we solve the problems of our own lives. To Loeb there is nobility to the human spirit. And God, who does not complete creation but waits for us to bring tikun – repair - to it, is waiting for you to discover the miraculous in your life despite the disappointments you have experienced, the frustrations of not being able to control everything, to yet take those steps forward to begin completing the work of your creation. Eizeh hu gibor? Who can be heroic? From this perspective Judaism posits that you can – that heroic potential exists within each of us. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, these great days which are such spiritual gifts to our people, are a call to spiritual and personal action that we and not God, as the super hero of super heroes, take back our life’s potential and begin expressing it – not so we can be on the front page of the paper and achieve celebrity, but so that we in our own little way can be champion of blessing and change for the good in the community around us. Yes we have to work on finding balance between our yetzer ha tov and yezer ha ra – but in rebalancing our lives, we renew our capacity to be God’s partners and let the wonder of the self flow forward so we can follow in the Heroic footsteps of a Channah Senesh, the poet warrior who parachuted behind Nazi lines so as to try to warn Hungarian Jewry of the Nazis nefarious intentions, or Andrew Goodman and Michael Shwerner, who as freedom riders gave their lives, these young Jewish men, to the cause of civil rights here in America.

We would do well this day, to revalue what is heroic and attainable. As many of you know, I have a fear of flying. In fact before this last youth trip to Israel l went so far as to call a young man whose wedding I did to get some counseling before getting on the plane. While watching Sixty Minutes one day, I was reminded of what true heroism is and of the need to have trust in the wonder of our fellow human beings. On the show they were interviewing Captain Sully and the flight crew from the US Airways flight that successfully crash-landed on the Hudson River. Captain Sully has the appearance of being just an average man with normal hopes and dreams. He said that when he realized that the flight was in trouble, he thought to himself that this was not supposed to be his life path. He believed that after thirty years of flying he would never crash. In just a few seconds however, he decided what had to be done. "Did you pray?" the interviewer asked. "I think that there were enough people in the back of the plane praying for me," he replied in a gentle but direct way. Each member of that crew, from the copilot to the flight attendants who did their job, even though they thought that they were about to die, acted heroically. There was no golem there to save them, no superhero to lift up the plane. Instead the heroic came out of them as they drew on their own strength of character and the training they had mastered to prepare for such an event and they acted, working to save everyone on board, disregarding their own lives even as water was filling up the plane.

The captain, who was the face of the event to the media, received hundreds of letters from people expressing gratitude for his actions. "I just did what I was supposed to do’" he explained. "Is that really heroic?" he asked. Some of the letters, which were read on the program, I feel contained a proper response to this inquiry. One man whose brother died in the twin towers on 9/11 thanked Captain Sully for not making his parents go through the pain of losing two children. Another was written by a Jewish man which, the Captain’s wife said, moved them more than any other. It stated, "I am a holocaust survivor, and your actions saved my child. You know Captain, to save one life, Judaism considers it as if you have saved an entire world. Thank you, Captain, for saving my world!"

Eizeh hu gibor? Let us reconsider what it means to be heroic. Whom should we idolize – whom our children celebrate? I have to confess it took me a while to realize, as I sat in the Einsiedler’s home, that the true heroes in the room were not between the cover of the comic books. Instead, those two personable and warm little European Jews, who had managed to survive the Holocaust and build lives of meaning, were indeed the real heroes. Rose especially had to deal with so much when she, along with a group of high school girls, was gathered in the town square in their village in Poland. They watched as their parents and siblings were loaded into trucks to be taken, unbeknownst by them, to the death camps. Like so many, she survived just by chance because at the last moment she ran after them, and in stopping her, a Nazi soldier hit her in the head with the butt of his rifle knocking her out. Rose awoke a few hours later to find everyone around her dead, left behind with them because the Nazis had assumed she was dead as well. Picking herself up, she ran and hid in the fields near her parents’ house, till a farmer, a righteous gentile, took her in for a bit. By chance, when she fled to the next town, because she was blonde, she was able to get convince a clerk to replace her lost papers stating that she was a Polish Catholic. Continuing this ruse, she journeyed to Warsaw, seeking work in a factory, and met other hidden Jews there. When an SS officer came looking for a housekeeper, at the encouragement of her friends, she took the job, risking discovery and her life so she might get scraps of food from their table to share with those Jewish factory workers who were also passing themselves off as Christians. Incredibly, Rose survived, but lived with nightmares for the rest of her life. And yet, after the war, she built a new life, had children, and with her husband shared a love of Torah, the Hebrew language, and the Jewish people, with me.

The shofar is calling us this holiday, all to redemption, asking us to reset the value button of our lives. We can reset how we value ourselves and change our ways, learning to be good. We can renew our sense of meaning by making time for Shabbat and prayer. And we can be more aware of the amazing dignity with which God endows our human spirit, helping us to do what we can to renew the work of creation. Eizeh hu Gibor? One who directs the passion of their life! See the truly heroic around you, and understand that it lies in you as well, waiting to be accessed if we but conquer our base desires and begin to connect to our true sense of purpose as partners with kidusha, with holiness, in the every day.

So may we do this year. Shanah Tovah!