“Can I speak to the Architect?” Erev Rosh Hashanah 5786

Sermon delivered by student rabbi, Jamie Gottlieb

“Can I speak to the Architect?”

This is the question that is asked over and over again by country music artist Kacey Musgraves in her song “The Architect.” 

“The Architect,” which won the 2025 Grammy for Best Country Song, was written in March of 2023, as Musgraves was working on her new album “Deeper Well.” 

Musgraves thought the album was finished, but then a shooting took place at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. 

This tragedy happened not far from the studio where Musgraves was working on her album. 

Her song “The Architect” was then written as Musgraves grappled with this news.  

In an interview with “American Songwriter,” Musgraves describes how this song was “born out of a real conversation” she had with her co-songwriters 

about the “beauty and the terror of being a human.”

For Musgraves, writing this song helped her give voice to feelings and questions that were stirring inside of her, 

questions that she had for God. 

We can see her conversation with God outlined in the lyrics. 

Musgraves opens, expressing awe and recognizing beauty, writing: 

Even something as small as an apple

It's simple and somehow complex

Sweet and divine, the perfect design

Can I speak to the architect?

Yet in the chorus, Musgraves transforms this meditation from a simple song into words of grieving prayer.

She processes 

through existential questioning, 

her anger, sadness, and fear. 

Kacey Musgraves, through her anguish, asks, 

Was it thought out at all, or just paint on a wall?

Is there anything that you regret?

I don't understand, are there blueprints or plans?

Can I speak to the architect?

This year, we have witnessed too many tragedies similar to the one that affected Kacey Musgraves, and perhaps we have been grappling with similar questions. 

We may be sitting here even now, holding those questions and emotions inside of us. 

But from Kacey Musgraves, we learn that we can speak to the divine Architect, 

and that there is value in our expression, even if we aren’t sure that anyone is listening. 

Even if one doesn’t believe in God, there is research published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin by Dr. Brad Bushman of Ohio State University that suggests that prayer is beneficial because it can “change the way people view the world and the events that happen to them.” 

Researchers found that prayer helped people regulate their emotions and even had the potential to lead to greater compassion. 

Over these High Holy days, we will spend more time praying than at any other time of year. 

And on this day of Rosh Hashanah, which we call hayom harat olam, the day the world came into being, 

Our tradition teaches us that we find ourselves uniquely close to the presence of the divine Architect - the one who designed, constructed, and created the world in which we live. 

And that architect is waiting for us to engage in sacred discussion, so now is the time for our active participation. 

It is time for us to speak our truth in prayer and ask the questions that ring in the back of our mind. 

Because when we do that, we stand to become the ones who are liberated, transformed, and renewed. 

One way that we can participate in this sacred conversation is through the words of our liturgy. 

We will spend the coming days reciting endless words of praise, petition, apology, and thanksgiving drawn from a vast Jewish liturgical tradition. 

These words in our prayer book are meant to help us meet the moment we are in. 

Each year, many of the words we use to engage in this divine conversation remain the same. 

Year after year, we return to these familiar touchpoints: Avinu Malkeinu, Unetaneh Tokef, the Vidui, and more. Our tradition allows us to find comfort in repetition and familiarity. 

The words we repeat and the melodies we sing connect us to memories from our past, and people who are no longer here. 

They can also help us give voice to things that we don't quite know how to express. 

The words remain steady when our lives are anything but. They anchor us to tradition and one another. They allow us to join together even when the world seems fragmented and broken. 

There is holiness in that sameness. 

The words that have been passed down to us are essential. 

Our tradition calls this keva. 

Keva is the scripted version of the conversation, the fixed prayer, the structure that repeats day after day, week after week, and year after year. 

And yet, we also know that the words on the page don't always resonate with us. 

Sometimes, just the keva alone isn't enough. 

Our liturgy encompasses a lot, but it can't account for every human experience or feeling that we all have. 

These past couple of years have been extraordinarily difficult to be not only a Jew but a person in the world. 

And honestly, there have been many times recently when we may have felt angry at God, when the words in our prayer book simply haven't been enough to contain our feelings. 

We may have thought about giving up on prayer altogether and withdrawing from the conversation. 

But what if we could find an alternative pathway - another way to engage in the conversation, a way for each of us to speak to the Architect that allows us to more authentically express what is on our hearts and minds. 

Rabbi Bonita Taylor recognizes this need and speaks to it in her article, “The Power of Custom‐Made Prayer.” 

She argues that we as human beings need prayer because “our human soul yearns to express what is most profoundly true for us in a given moment.”

And that it is through unscripted, custom-made prayers that we have the opportunity to capture what our prewritten liturgy cannot always. 

Our tradition gives us models for this kind of raw, unscripted conversation with God.

Tomorrow morning, we’ll read the story of Chana, who speaks directly to the Divine. 

Chana couldn't have children. 

She was bitter, sad, and angry, and yet she  מְדַבֶּ֣רֶת עַל־לִבָּ֔הּ. 

She spoke what was on her heart. 

She went to the Temple not with prescribed words, but with a heart so full of anguish that it overflowed in silent, desperate prayer. 

Chana's prayer was so authentic, so completely unguarded, that Eli the priest even thought she was drunk. 

She responds to him saying,

 לֹ֣א אֲדֹנִ֔י, 

“no my lord”,

 אִשָּׁ֤ה קְשַׁת־ר֙וּחַ֙, 

“I am a woman of hardened spirit”,

 אָנֹ֔כִי וְיַ֥יִן וְשֵׁכָ֖ר לֹ֣א שָׁתִ֑יתִי, 

“I have drunk no wine or other strong drink”, 

but rather וָאֶשְׁפֹּ֥ךְ אֶת־נַפְשִׁ֖י לִפְנֵ֥י יְהֹוָֽה׃, 

“I have poured out my soul before Adonai.” 

Chana held nothing back. 

She didn't edit herself or worry about proper form. 

She simply emptied herself before God with the kind of honesty and authenticity that has the power to transform the one who prays.

Rabbi Michael Gold writes that “prayer is not something we do to God, but something we do to ourselves.” 

He says, “Prayer connects us to the spiritual dimension of life. And through that spiritual connection, we can change ourselves.” 

In other words, whether we're speaking to the Architect, through traditional prayers or through the words unique to our hearts, 

it is the very act of connection and communication that has the potential to transform us.

I came to understand this concretely this past summer, when I worked at a hospital as a Chaplain Intern. 

Every day, I would enter patient rooms, and together we would sit and talk. 

Patients and their families would share with me their hopes, their dreams, their fears, and sometimes even their laughter. 

At the end of each visit, I would ask most patients if they would like to pray.

I would then ask if they would like me to give them a prayer or if they would like to lead us in prayer themselves.

Usually, it was me, the chaplain, who would end up offering a prayer on behalf of someone else. 

Towards the end of the summer, however, I was with a patient whose details I’ve changed here for privacy, 

who was mourning the loss of her sibling while being hospitalized herself. 

Mid-prayer, I noticed the patient squirming, and so I stopped myself and asked, “Is there anything you'd like to say to God right now?”

And the answer was yes. 

I watched as she spoke from her hospital bed 

through tears 

to both God and her sibling. 

Like Chana pouring out her soul in the Temple, this patient held nothing back as she spoke directly to that divine Architect about her pain, her love, her confusion, and her hope. 

At the end of the visit, she thanked me for giving her the space to express what was deeply true for her in that moment. 

In the midst of an impossible situation, 

through prayer,

through divine conversation, 

through expression, 

she was able to unburden herself even just a little bit, 

to change, to find a moment of peace, and to give voice to all that was going on inside her. 

Today, we are uniquely close to the presence of that divine Architect. 

Over these High Holy days, we will spend more time praying than at any other time of year. 

This is the time for us to have a heart-to-heart with God, ourselves, or the universe. 

Through both beautifully scripted words and those of our own creation, we will endeavor to give voice to what is stirring inside us. 

Because even if we don't trust that God is listening. 

Even if we know that prayer doesn't guarantee the outcomes we desperately want, 

we can also hold that there is still value in expressing one's truth, 

and that when we speak it, 

we open ourselves up to the possibility of renewal and change.