Podcasts religion From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life Yom Kippur Sermon: Show Up. Step Up. Clean Up. with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

Yom Kippur Sermon: Show Up. Step Up. Clean Up. with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

Published: Oct. 4, 2022, 11:13 p.m.

This summer I studied with my 94-year-old father-in-love a classic text that I had encountered before, but seeing it at the age of 61, I saw something I had never seen before, which now seems obvious. We were studying Robert Frost\u2019s poem about being at the crossroads which famously concludes:

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I shall be telling this with a sigh

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Somewhere ages and ages hence:

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Two roads diverged in a wood, and I\u2014

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I took the one less traveled by,

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And that has made all the difference.

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What I picked up this summer is the narrator\u2019s lingering uncertainty, wistfulness, regret, about whether the decision at the crossroads was the right decision. The title jumped out at me this summer: The Road Not Taken.  The sigh jumped out at me: I shall be telling this with a sigh. Maybe I messed up. Maybe I should have taken the road not taken.