Rosh HaShanah: Transformation

Sermon by Rabbi Jennifer Hartman
2015/5776

This summer I had the opportunity to hike in the Dolomites, a beautiful region of the Alps located in northern Italy.  I was amazed to learn from one of our guides, that two hundred and eighty million years ago, this mountain range was completely under water.  The white, rock-like material that comprises these mountains is actually sea coral.  It was incredible to think about how much change has taken place since that time.  The continents moved, the water receded, and the mountaintops are now as high as 11,000 feet above sea level.  Rather than scuba diving down we were climbing up, rather breathlessly at times, to see the stunning views.  Canvassing this mountain range, hiking up farther and farther until we were above the tree line, seeing places where streams had slowly eroded the limestone and the way the rocks had settled into place, I could not help but think about the broader issue of how change occurs in the natural world… and in us.

One thing I realized, as I spent five days surrounded by the serenity and the beauty of this vast mountain range is that nature, when left alone, evolves very slowly.  As we hiked, higher and higher, day after day, pushing ourselves to take one more step, willing our lungs to fully take in the thinning air, wondering why uber was not there to quickly take us home, I realized that we – humans - also change slowly - both our minds and our bodies.  It takes a lot of time and patience for us to change our mindset, our thought process, the lens through which we see the world.  And it certainly takes a lot of time and patience for us to lose weight, to build strength, to gain endurance. I learned this as each morning I woke up and thought to myself, there is no way that I can do this again, and each evening as my calves and my knees and my feet ached I thought I cannot believe what I was able to accomplish today.  It was not until the last day when my muscles and joints hurt a little bit less that I knew I could conquer one more peak, that I appreciated that the reward would be incredible.  It took perseverance to reach this understanding.  If I had given up just a day earlier I never would have realized the full reward.

The transformation that took place to the dolomite mountain range and to me while hiking there made me remember a wonderful TED talk I had heard about one man’s personal transformation. Today, this man is a   prolific author and inspirational speaker who travels to inner-city schools around the country helping students understand they have many paths from which to choose.  This man, Shaka Senghor, knows this because he spent 23 years in jail. 

Senghor was raised in Detroit.  He was an honor roll student with dreams of becoming a doctor when his parents divorced leaving him angry and confused.  In his teen years, he fell in with a rough crowd and at 17 he was shot multiple times.  No one was there to help him through this trauma and instead of confronting his fears and anxieties he became irrational and paranoid.  Fourteen months later, at 19, his life changed forever when he shot and killed a man.  Senghor was convicted of murder and entered prison bitter, enraged and hurt.  He blamed everyone else for his position in life.  In jail Senghor fell deeper and deeper into trouble.  He ran the black market, he sold drugs and he broke all the rules.  Eventually he was sent to solitary confinement for 7 and a half years.  It was during this time that he received a letter from his 8-year-old son.  His son began the letter by writing, in capital letters, MOM TOLD ME WHY YOU ARE IN PRISON - MURDER.  His son went on to say, Dad, don’t kill, God is watching you.  In that moment Senghor learned that his son now knew what he had done and defined him by his action.

Senghor was transformed by this letter in a way he did not know possible.  It struck a chord in him that caused him to reexamine his life. He allowed the words of his son to touch his soul.  He did not become defensive but rather contemplated the message as he stared down at the letters.  He decided he would not allow them to define him.

He needed to take a step back and examine himself in order to bring about a transformation.  For Senghor this process was long, hard and included four key components – (1) mentors, (2) books, (3) familial support, and (4) writing.  Senghor had great mentors, including his son, who spoke to him honestly and candidly enabling him to see uncomfortable truths about his life.  He read inspiring books and poems by brilliant black scholars, philosophers and activists including Malcolm X.  His readings showed him he had other choices available to him and other, more fulfilling, paths to walk.  His family stood by his side while he was in jail, especially his father who was with him every step of the way.  This gave him confidence when stumbled and support when he felt discouraged.  Lastly, Senghor wrote, he kept a journal of all of his actions.  The process of writing down his experiences helped him to confront his choices and to realize his need to atone, to acknowledge that he had been hurt and had hurt others, to take the time to apologize even if he received no response in return.  This allowed Senghor to free himself of his harmful past deeds, to no longer be held hostage to his prior actions. In this way, when he was finally released from prison twenty years later, he was able to begin a new life as an author and speaker – a positive and productive member of society. Senghor was able to do what we are asked to do during the High Holidays, to see life with clear eyes and to begin, slowly, to change the parts of ourselves that are destructive and detrimental.  He began to see the potential blessing and burden in each moment and chose the blessings.  He learned that selecting good over evil, is a matter of life and death.       

So, you may be asking, what does a man who committed murder and a mountain range have in common?  They both teach us that to truly improve, to truly change, takes time.  Today, as we celebrate the beginning of the Jewish year 5776 we search our souls and cleanse our hearts of the trials of the previous year.  We have actions for which we need to atone, there are mistakes we still need to rectify.  We ask God to be lenient with us as we go through our process of teshuva, repentance. Yet, we know that to truly improve, to truly change, to truly transform, we must work beyond the ten days of atonement.  Beginning this work on Rosh Hashanah and ending it on Yom Kippur is akin to dieting between breakfast and lunch and thinking we will lose weight.   Change does not happen in a day.  It takes determination, commitment and resolve.  It takes openness, understanding and compassion.  It takes perseverance and persistence and lots of time to reach a beautiful place of blessing. 

This reality, that change takes time, is our greatest challenge.  Nothing else in our modern society takes time.  We expect responses to our emails within 5 minutes, we can watch whatever show we want whenever we want, and eat anything at anytime.  With our cell phones in our hands we are always accessible and can find information on anything with just a few clicks of a button.   It is no wonder we are frustrated when we do not understand a concept, conquer a challenge, or make a change instantaneously.  Any musician, scholar, linguist will tell you that becoming proficient in their field was partially talent and majority tuchas - sitting and studying for hours and hours on end.  Scientists have even gotten it down to a number.  It takes 10,000 hours or 416 and 2/3 days to become a master.  The greats in any field had to persevere through the tedium and boredom, the set-backs and failures, the frustrations and irritations.  They needed to push themselves to the end and be patient in order to succeed.   

When I think of the Dolomites I think of what majesty and beauty comes from slow and patient change.  They took millions of years, to become what they are today.  Senghor took time, years in prison that he spent working on himself, to turn his life around and become the motivational speaker and author he is today.  These days are not the time to complete the work, but they are a time, every year, for us to renew the work, to continue the work, to jump start the work on ourselves, the work that takes a lifetime to truly finish. 

Life is a journey with many peaks and valleys, at times we will try and try and try and still fail, at other times we will find great success.   The lesson for us to learn is to never give up. It takes time and it is hard to bring about change in our lives, but the reward is brilliant.  These days of awe help us to acknowledge our faults and failures, while still keeping the door open on change and improvement, embracing all that we have ahead of us.  If hiking in the Dolomites taught me one thing, it is that while change can be scary it can also bring about magnificent beauty.  Senghor’s story teaches all of us that even our worst deeds, our darkest moments, do not determine the final outcome of our lives.  Life can only be lived one moment at a time.  Our past does not have to determine our future.  We have a choice to make.  We get to decide what comes next. For this reason, the lessons of the High Holidays are only effective if we can carry them with us throughout the year.  Therefore, we pray that these days will bring about inspiration and give us strength to never give up on uncovering our true potential.   

Shanah Tova

Rosh HaShanah: Gratitude in Our DNA

Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2015/5776

I was in the nation’s capitol a few weeks ago. A hundred rabbis were having dinner in, of all places, the National Archives, which they had closed to the public. Now you understand how important rabbis are? They closed the National Archives so we could have dinner there. It was surreal to hear someone actually say the words: “Please don’t get any BBQ sauce on the Constitution.” 

After dessert and a speaker, we rabbis had the entire museum to ourselves to party with the founding fathers! There an old buddy, Rabbi Sidney from Chicago and I, found ourselves face to face with the Declaration of Independence – yes, the original!!

My eyes were quickly drawn to the words:  “We have a right, endowed by our Creator, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” and I thought about how very seriously we modern Americans take that inalienable right to pursue happiness. 

From there we entered an exhibit of the American history of immigration and inclusion. African Americans, European Jews, Asians, Latinos, the huddled masses who over the centuries have come to these borders grateful to be integrated into a growing thriving democratic society. 

I knew that logged somewhere in the hundreds of millions of records was my own mother’s arrival in this great nation.  She too was ready to seek happiness in her new home, thankful for the possibility of a new beginning, hopeful for the arrival of her parents. 

That, of course, was not to happen. They were trapped in a land where their most basic human rights ,and ultimately their lives, were to be taken from them. 

The Archives tell how Americans have expressed their gratitude over the centuries for the precious gift of living in a successful democracy by a dedication to responsibility, to an active participation in community. In political activism. In shaping our culture. 

It has not been lost on subsequent American Jewish generations that one’s right to vote in free elections is nothing short of a miracle to be thankful for. Just look at the countries these immigrants had fled. At the Archives and at the Holocaust Museum down the street, it is notably documented that Adolf Hitler ascended to power in the last German democratic election largely because of those who did not exercise their right to vote. 

As an election year approaches it is good to remind ourselves of free democratic elections. It has recently been noted that of our youngest voters in this nation, those aged 18-24, less than 20% find their way to the polls to vote in national elections. 

As I speak to you this morning, we see refugees in the millions fleeing horrible situations in search of a better life, and a world that is increasingly fearful of taking them in. Imagine in the year 2015, Hungarian transport trains destined for camps where the inmates are assigned numbers! There is nothing new, it seems, under the sun. The ongoing debate as to how we handle immigrants to this great land should send chills down the spine of anyone in this room who comes from a history of immigration. Excepting our Native American congregants, I believe that is every one of us!

One thing seemed very clear standing in the Capitol and seeing artifacts that chronicle the birth of our nation - Sensitivity to the plight of others has always begun with an appreciation of our own blessings. We simply cannot care about others if we have no gratitude for the goodness that is our legacy.

And yet how quick we are to forget to be thankful. The very character of a nation that provides us with the right of self-determination, the pursuit of happiness and success, and has allowed so many of us to succeed and thrive, may well have lulled us into a sense of sanguine acceptance.

This is nothing new. The final book of the Torah, Devarim, taught a lesson as relevant today as it was 3000 years ago when it first made the Israelite best seller list: When you come into a land already blossoming and fertile and bountiful, with everything prepared and ready for you, you might think you just deserve it. You may even come to believe it was all your doing. 

The biblical author, writing thousands of years ago was aware that even those of us with health, safety, loving friends and family, social intimacy, financial success and material wealth still might sense that there is something missing from their lives. What could it be? 

We have become like the child who is given the gift of a luscious orange from the fruit vendor, and when his mother instructs him: “now honey, what do you say to the nice man?” the child hands the orange back to the man and says: “oh yeah, peel it.” 

And thus the Torah repeatedly instructs us a simple mitzvah: Give thanks!

Gratitude is more than a religious imperative. It is a necessary way to make sense and order out of a confusing complex world. Gratitude may well be the antidote to the cynicism that is all around us and part of us. As our pessimism about a world in turmoil is lifted, new possibilities come into view. 

And if health is your concern, you should know that the cultivation of gratitude has been shown to enhance our physical well-being! 

The Declaration of Independence guarantees our right to pursue happiness, but it doesn’t come with instructions. I looked for footnotes on how to pursue happiness. There are no such footnotes! 

In Washington the author journalist Ari Shavit spoke to us said he always believed that “morality is in the DNA of the Jewish people.” Perhaps, I thought, but then so must gratitude be our DNA! After all, the biblical character Yehuda, from which we get our religion’s name comes from the verb l’hodot and means “grateful”.

You know, our Bar and Bat Mitzvah students write their speeches and they talk Torah and then they thank folks who made their big day possible. I remember years back one Bat Mitzvah girl wrote two pages on the subjects in her Torah portion and 14 pages of thank yous. At the time I was aghast and insisted that she reverse the order of her priorities. But she refused, and thinking back on it I think maybe she had it right. The theme of her speech was gratitude for the people who make up her life and have seen to her well-being. 

Gratitude is hard for some of us because it implies humility. Like the ancient Israelites, how quickly we forget that we could not have reached our lofty status without the help of others. One famous Jewish immigrant, portrayed in the Archives, Albert Einstein, notably said “I have to remind myself a thousand times a day of how much I depend on other people for my success.” 

Gratitude is the song human beings are supposed to sing. A song of humility and awe at what surrounds us. Remember the palpable chill in the crowd when President Obama broke into song at the memorial for the Charleston Nine? And the song? Amazing Grace of course. How sweet the sound. And how beautifully strange to hear the Commander in Chief sing the humble words “A wretch like me”. 

In listening to the first Republican debate several weeks back I was amazed by how each of the candidates, almost without exception, linked himself to his “humble” origins. I think they knew they were touching a national nerve, and wanted voters to know that they appreciated the opportunities this great nation affords people. That such gratitude was an essential part of being an American. 

There is much to be grateful for, even right here and now. A day devoted to prayer may not strike you as a gratitude opportunity, but look at it this way… Like the precious offering of new life given to the immigrant, this is a day given to us to begin anew! What other systems of thought or institutions grant you a “do over” in your life? 

I do think that the inclination to express gratitude is in our DNA. Every earthly being has their song. Coyotes howl at the moon. Rivers flow north to south. Flowers rise up to greet pollinating bees. Birds serenade one another. Children laugh and play spontaneously, smiling an average of 400 times a day! Our song is gratitude. It should be as natural as our breathing. 

This last spring I was invited as a scholar in residence to my old congregation, Beth Israel in West Hartford, CT. I was reunited with, among others, the temple custodians. One of them, a Jamaican gentleman named Bunny, greeted me at the door and it was like 17 years had passed in a day. I shared a reminiscence with Bunny from those many years ago. It was the end of a long day at Temple and as I opened the door to the parking lot I saw that it was pouring rain. “Damn it” I said rather un-rabbinically, and then there was a hand on my shoulder. I turned and it was Bunny the custodian who said words I have never forgotten: “Rabbi, the rain is a blessing.” 

At that moment I felt as though I should be setting up and taking down the chairs and Bunny the Custodian should be preaching on Rosh Hashanah. In typical fashion I had forgotten the integral part of being Jewish is to be grateful and to bless things, especially things that have somehow become ordinary or even burdensome to us. 

In that same congregation the domed ceiling was made up of over 7000 individual bricks. I had been told that over the hundred years of its existence about 6 of those bricks had come loose. On my not so good days at Beth Israel I would stare up at the ceiling and wonder which brick was going to come loose next. And if it was going to land on me! 

I recently learned, to my astonishment, that there is actually a condition known as Missing Tile Syndrome. When one sees the ceiling of tiles and only notices the ones that have become dislodged. When you look at the jigsaw puzzle and only see the pieces missing. 

Or the two shoe salespeople who are sent to an African country to scout out retail possibilities. One writes back, “Situation hopeless, no one here wears shoes!” The other writes: “Glorious business opportunity! They have no shoes!” 

Missing Tile Syndrome runs counter to Jewish thinking. We are supposed to look at our surroundings and engage in hakarat hatov – expressions of gratitude for what IS there… not despair at what is missing. We are supposed to look at each other and rather than note what is missing from their character, seek the good they possess. 

And the same goes for our own self-assessment. In ten days we will be called upon to recite all the sins, the flaws in our character. But why not take some time over the next several days to count the bricks that are still in the ceiling? Note the wonderful things about yourself. The gifts you bring to this world. The blessing you are to others. Be grateful for being you. Nobody else does it as well! And remember - all gratitude begins with the self. If you aren’t grateful for who you are, you’ll have a heck of a time being grateful for the presence of others in your life. 

There is so much going on in the world right now that yanks us to the pessimistic; so much that scares us into the defense mechanism of being cynical and dismissive. So many voices telling us to beware the other voice. And yet there are stories of Amazing Grace that must be a regular part of our life’s narrative. 

Standing in the archives in DC I was moved by the stunning portraits of men who came together in political consensus to shape American policy that would guide generations to come. And I immediately gravitated to thoughts of how divided and cynical we have become as a nation on so many issues. 

How do we move from this antagonism, mistrust, cynicism to a place of wonder and gratitude for what we do have, even in the face of rancor and bitter loss? 

We might start with those who have faced loss and still come out grateful for what they have. When a gunman took the lives of those 9 worshippers in Charleston the violence stunned the nation, but equally stunning was the victims’ families’ forgiveness of the shooter. A man who lost his mother that sad day said: “Love is always stronger than hate, so if we would just love, the way my mom loved, hate wouldn’t be anywhere close to where love is.” From a state of grief comes such a natural outpouring of gratitude for the gift of love that can conquer even tragedy! 

Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal wrote a story he related to a rabbi soon after the conclusion of the Second World War. “In the camp,” Wiesenthal said to Rabbi Silver, “there was one religious man who somehow managed to smuggle in a siddur. At first, I greatly admired the man for his courage—, but the next day I realized, to my horror, that this man was ‘renting out’ this siddur to people in exchange for food. People were giving him their last piece of bread for a few minutes with the prayer book. This man, who was very thin and emaciated when the whole thing started, was soon eating so much that he died before everyone else—his system couldn’t handle it.”  Wiesenthal continued his story to the rabbi: “If this is how religious Jews behave, I’m not going to have anything to do with a prayer book.” 

As he was about to turn and leave the rabbi touched him on the shoulder and gently said: “Simon, why do you look at the Jew who used his siddur to take food out of starving people’s mouths? Why don’t you look at the many Jews who gave up their last piece of bread in order to be able to use a siddur? 

As I flew out of Washington, over the tributes of gratitude to those who gave their lives for this country, over the majestic monuments to great leaders, over the seat of western democracy I gave thanks for a day of learning and inspiration and it felt mighty natural to do so. 

Prayer comes in many forms. The berakhot – the praises we utter to our Creator; the bakashot, the petitions, the requests, and we are pretty good at those. And then there are, and the hoda’ot – the thank you’s. The Talmud teaches that in the end of days, when the messiah has arrived, and every single thing is perfect, and we are all joined together, and one with God, with not a single thing wrong in a perfected universe, the only prayers left to say in our little siddurim will be those prayers of gratitude. The hoda’ot. Yes, even when all hopes and dreams are answered, we will still be required to sing songs of gratitude. 

Gratitude is in our DNA. We have only to let it flow.

Erev Rosh HaShanah: Sanctuary Service

Sermon by Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman
2015/5776

Written text of Rabbi Zimmerman's sermon is not available. Please enjoy the video of this Erev Rosh HaShanah Sanctuary Service.

Erev Rosh HaShanah: Life is a Journey

Sermon by Rabbi Jennifer Hartman
2015/5776

I want to begin by sharing with you a beloved passage by Rabbi Alvin Fine that has been reverberating in my mind as of late.  It is a poem that we often associate with death as we frequently use it to bring comfort to the bereaved, but which really has so much to teach us about life.  It reads:

Birth is a beginning

And death a destination.

And life is a journey taken stage by stage:

Until we see that victory lies

Not at some high place along the way,

But in having made the journey,

A sacred pilgrimage.

As you may know, I became engaged this past February.  It was a truly special evening, cold, of course because it was February in Minneapolis, and my fiancé HAD to pop the question outside…where it was 1 DEGREE!…but no doubt special  Once I said yes, and we were engaged, he then gave me another gift in the form of advice.  At his strong suggestion, we agreed not to speak about the wedding for two weeks.  For two weeks we did nothing but enjoy being engaged.  Wow was that hard…for me.  I wanted to make plans, explore options, and discuss ideas.  I wanted to decide when it would be and where it would be and who would be there.  But Mike was wise in his insistence that we hold off and not dive into the exciting but stressful details of a wedding celebration. He knew that there would be plenty of time to make plans. Mike understood that planning and anticipating the “big day” would consume our thoughts if we allowed it.  So we needed to set the precedent that we were going to enjoy being engaged and not spend the next year waiting for our wedding.  He understood that life is not about going from one life cycle to the next, but enjoying all of the moments in between - the moments we too often allow to slip by.  I needed this reminder.

We all live fast-paced lives.  We are fortunate to have Judaism to help us enjoy and savor every moment, not just the milestones. 

Jewish life actually commands us to find blessing every day.  It helps us to sanctify the days between getting engaged and getting married, between starting our education and graduating, between finishing one job and beginning another.  Judaism helps us adjust to becoming a spouse, a parent, a student.  Even tonight, Erev Rosh Hashanah, and the days that fall between now and Yom Kippur, help us with our transition from all that happened last year to all we anticipate in this coming year.  In fact, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the only Jewish holidays not linked to the remembrance of liberation or commemoration of catastrophe.  This is the time for the individual to concentrate on the meaning of his or her life.

As we stand together and contemplate the year past we consider the prospects we have ahead of us and what we need to do to achieve personal growth and fulfillment.   We recognize the time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to be one of reflection, of deliberation, of consideration.  We also consider it to be the holiest and most sacred time of year.  Where we often want our lives to speed up, to shorten the time between the peaks we anticipate, we want the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to slow down so that we can use them to improve ourselves.  If only we felt the same at other times in our lives.

There was recently a beautiful article in the New York Times entitled “The Myth of Quality Time”.  In the article, Frank Bruni reminds us that so often the most meaningful interactions between people do not occur at large celebrations or at big transitional moments.  They happen when we spend concentrated time with the people we love.  Bruni writes: “With a more expansive stretch of time with loved ones, there’s a better chance that I’ll be around at the precise, random moment when one of my nephews drops his guard and solicits my advice about something private.  Or when one of my nieces will need someone other than her parents to tell her that she’s smart and beautiful.  Or when one of my siblings will flash back on an incident from our childhood that makes us laugh uncontrollably, and suddenly the cozy, happy chain of our love is cinched that much tighter.” 

In my own life, my most vivid memories of my Grandmother come not from when she and my Grandfather would visit for Thanksgiving, which was always fun and exciting but hectic and short. My indelible memories of her, and the moments of our deepest connection came during the two weeks each year before Rosh Hashanah when my grandparents moved in with us in preparation for the holiday. During those two weeks my grandmother would be there day after day when I awoke in the morning and went to bed at night, and we became entwined in the daily routine, the typical, normal, uneventful activities that we take so much for granted but that fill the vast majority of our times. It is because of these weeks together that I know her morning routine, her favorite outfits to wear, he exercise habits.  When I think of my step-mom who died in 2002 I don’t immediately think about the beautiful Passover seder she prepared each year. I picture her at the kitchen stove making our usual Wednesday night pasta dinner. I remember the bag of treats she would make me and my siblings for long car rides. I think of her sitting with us while we did our homework.  I am sure that we can all recall special times such as these.

These two women understood the importance of the ordinary times.  Often though, we need reminders to slow down and cherish the journey rather than just the destination.  Judaism helps us by commanding us to “sanctify the ordinary” rather than wait for the “life changing moments”. We are to recite 100 blessings every day, no matter our mood or desires.  These blessings remind us to be grateful that we went to sleep at night and awoke in the morning, that our bodies work, that we are free people.  The 100 blessings remind us to be thankful there is an earth to walk on, water to drink, and a sky overhead.  We are to see the blessing in the food on our table, the clothes on our body and the roof over our head every day, not just when they are threatened.  Saying blessings, all the time, forces us to acknowledge all of the beauty along the uncertain and windy path of life. 

The essential act of the High Holiday season is Teshuvah.  Teshuvah means to turn toward mindfulness.  We know to be mindful during the High Holidays and the milestones of our lives.  We tell Bar and Bat Mitzvah students to read slowly and enjoy the service because it will be over before they know it.  We take lots of pictures at graduations because we never want to forget the special day and the feeling of the wonderful accomplishment.  We tell parents of infants to soak up their baby’s life because they will be grown and out of the house in the blink of an eye.  We remind wedding couples to be present in the moment because it passes by so fast.  What we forget is how important the moments in between are – the hug or kiss that you give as you are running out the door, the pat on the back after a good practice, the hand that reaches out when we fall.  So often, this is what we remember, what we hold on to, what solidifies memories in our head and relationships in our hearts.

My fiancé’s grandmother, a 92 year old holocaust survivor, loves to say the Shechechyanu.  It is her most favorite prayer – this prayer that thanks God for allowing us to be a part of precious moments.  Before meeting her I had begun thinking that maybe we have come to use this prayer a bit too often, substituting it for other prayers that would be more specific.  But, when I watch her face light up as she identifies a moment she is so grateful to be a part of, that we are all so honored to be a part of, I realize that we can never say this prayer enough, especially if it helps us to appreciate every-day joys.  She understands the need to be thankful for the seemingly mundane parts of life.  Our challenge now, as we go into the New Year, is to learn how to make our lives sacred from day to day rather than from event to event, to cherish the journey, rather than to wait for the destination, to enjoy the bumps rather than anticipate the outcome. For each of us this will look a bit different, but we will all have to make changes to live this value.  For:          

Birth is a beginning

And death a destination.

And life is a journey:

From defeat to defeat to defeat –

Until, looking backward or ahead,

We see that victory lies

Not at some high place along the way,

But in having made the journey, stage by stage,

A sacred pilgrimage.

Yom Kippur: For Shame

Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2014/5775

A few years ago a woman named Mary Bale was filmed on a security camera petting a stray cat, then picking it up and putting it in a trash bin. Within hours Mary Bale’s name and address were published on an internet forum. In practically no time at all she became an object of global, yes, global derision. Hundreds of hate pages popped up on Facebook calling for her imprisonment. One declared “Death to Mary Bale.” In response to all this an NYU Professor noted: “Social Media can be easily exploited for shaming. It is a good platform.” The judge who ultimately fined Ms. Bale, and prohibited her from henceforth owning any kind of pet whatsoever, took her international vilification into account in the sentencing.

My wife Barb just finished reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter for a book group. I recall my own journey through The Scarlet Letter in my undergraduate English studies some time ago. The horror of public shaming. The pillory. The accused adulteress Hester Prynne, forced to stand on a scaffold before a self-righteous jeering crowd with a red capital “A” sewn onto her dress. That story takes place 350 years ago.

Each generation has had its way of dealing with shame. And somehow each generation has also found a way of transferring their own shame onto someone or something else in a voyeuristic manner.

The ancient Jewish tradition of sacrificial guilt offerings ended thousands of years ago with the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem. We don’t do that anymore. Sometimes when Christian groups tour our sanctuary I invite them up to the bima, and they ascend cautiously. I comfort them not to worry, the Jewish people gave up human sacrifice decades ago.

The Torah, however, does relate a rather bizarre tradition associated with this holiday of Yom Kippur, in which the ancient Israelites would seize a hapless goat, called the Azazel and attach their sins in the form of ribbons onto its horns, drive it out into the wilderness and chase it over a cliff’s edge where it would die, and, presumably, their sins would die along with it.

We’re going to (we tried) try this at the tot service this morning and see what happens (it was a disaster!) Crying. Pacifiers falling out of mouths. (Don’t ask). Maybe not.

At any rate, this Azazel would come to be translated in future English Bible translations as the “scapegoat” – a word we are today all too familiar with.

I’d like to believe that societally we have done away with this weird vicarious atonement ritual. We are, after all, blessed with this magnificent Yom Kippur day, also called: Shabbat Shabbaton, a Sabbath to end all Sabbaths! Rather than dealing with some surrogate atonement offering, we offer up our very selves, forecasting our own death. For ten days we have sought to make amends with those whom we may have hurt. And now we come, as a repentant community, before God to address our shameful deeds and ways.

Shame, in Hebrew busha, is the most ancient of human emotions. In the first chapters of the Torah, Adam and Eve find themselves naked in the Garden. Read the story closely and you will see that even as they are aware of their nakedness they feel no shame. It is only when their eyes are opened to the knowledge of right and wrong that their nudity becomes a problem. And what do they do about it? The cover it up in the flimsiest way. A couple of fig leaves. Clearly humankind will require thousands of years more to develop a proper ritual for dealing with shame.

Note the first homicide in the Torah… before there were commandments, before there was ritual atonement, before there was a Yom Kippur and a way of dealing with shame… Cain slays his brother Abel and he’s marked for life! The story horrifies us for many reasons, not the least of which is the very real fear of never being forgiven for something we have done.

On Yom Kippur the fig leaves come off our most private of parts, and the mark is taken off the forehead. On this day we acknowledge the burden of knowing right from wrong, and pledge to mend our ways. It is only in acknowledging our shame that we are able to move on.

Imagine if there was no way out of our shameful circumstances. Today Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter is having a renaissance of sorts among teenagers who are studying it, and who totally get the notion of a well-publicized stigma that will not go away. The electronic pillory of internet shaming is all too real. This past year saw yet more completed suicides by young people who found images of themselves entered into cyberspace and seared into the consciousness of millions. Nobody gets marginalization like a shamed teenager. The Talmud teaches us that humiliation is worse than physical pain. It appears the scarlet A is alive and well.

Indeed, our vicarious atonement is at an all-time high. It is stunning to watch as people react to the viral on line spread of celebrity misdeeds. Hundreds of children and their parents lining up to return their Ray Rice Jerseys after the video of him slugging his girlfriend circulated on the web. The response to the news of running back Adrian Peterson’s violence to his child. The Jewish communal cringe at Donald Sterling’s unrepentant racist remarks causing him to “Foul Out” in a big way. The Beit Din, “The Court” of public opinion heard Sterling’s words, ruining his name and ending his tenure as owner of the Clippers Franchise. As though he now is branded with the mark of Cain, wherever he travels or when his name is spoken.

How easy it is for us to sit back smugly and observe other people’s lives thrown into the public arena as spectacles for our entertainment and our judgment.

As Jews we should know better than to be party to that kind of voyeurism and deflecting of our own shame that should have ended eons ago with Hester Prynne and the Azazel.

We have been gifted this holy day of repentance and forgiveness. For today our shame is not an indelible badge of dishonor, but rather a necessary element of our atonement process. Without shame we would never be driven to come clean. On this day we are given the Divine “out” by a God who understands human error and the potential for teshuva – for return and human growth.

Shame is powerful. It is real. But it was never meant to be a protracted experience. Yes it is supposed to hurt. Yes, we are to be consumed by it for a time, but ultimately each of us, and we’ve all been there, needs to work our way out of being shamed. This is the gift of Yom Kippur to humankind.

When we recite the viddui, the al cheit shechatanu l’faneicha – for the sins we have committed, note that we are required to do it as a group… in the first person plural. We do this for two reasons – first, lest we think the recited sin is not ours but someone else’s, we say it anyway, including ourselves just in case. And second, because we want those who just don’t get it to be included in our communal admission. Yes, in some cases we need to bring the light of atonement into someone else’s dark shame.

This summer we stood up for Israel’s right to defend herself against vicious rocket attacks. We were sickened at the wartime behavior of an enemy who would use children as human shields, and the abduction of innocent schoolboys. But when, the young Palestinian boy Mohammed Abu Khadeir was burned alive at the hands of vengeful Jews we all knew a terrible sin had been committed. Whether the individuals who perpetrated that crime understood their actions as sinful, or felt the slightest regret, we may never know. But this, we knew in our hearts, is something Jews don’t do. And thus the communal al cheit shechatanu l’fanecha.

On this day we don’t have to hold it inside any longer and after the gates close tonight our transgressions will no longer have to consume us.

True atonement comes when our shame moves us beyond the darkness toward actual change. If shame brings no change, then the shame is useless. And if changing our ways doesn’t bring about and end to the shaming, it is a personal disaster.

In Judaism our sins are neither original nor are they eternal. I think this may be connected with the Jewish tattoo taboo. People change. Why would you label yourself eternally on a momentary whim?

I have often marveled at the fact that right next to the only kosher restaurant in town, on Minnetonka Boulevard, there is a tattoo removal parlor. Like if you want that Knish, you’re gonna have to get that thing taken off.

Hester Prynne’s scarlet A sewn upon her dress was removable. The padlocked pillory of the stocks is at some point to be opened. But shaming that never goes away? Deeds for which we have atoned but threaten to live on for eternity? Honest self-assessment that becomes the judgment of thousands, maybe even millions of pairs of eyes that can never get enough of shining the lamp of shame on someone other than themselves?

I sometimes wonder if William Faulkner foresaw this period of human history when he said: “The past is never dead. It’s not even the past.”

This is not the Jewish way. Yom Kippur calls upon us to acknowledge that what is done is done. Yes, our actions of this last year, whether immortalized on line, or emblazoned on the cranial hard drives of our friends and loved ones, are out there. But contrary to the endless hell that the web seems to fix upon people who have erred and been called on it by “holier than thou” eyes in cyber space, Yom Kippur proposes a conclusion. The gates really will close this evening. There is, for all of us, a very real opportunity to start over.

In Judaism our sins are neither original nor are they eternal. The consequences of our behavior have always had the potential to be painful, but the atonement was never meant to be forever. We are meant to make mistakes, over and over perhaps, but to learn from them and to grow. My office overlooks our Early Childhood Center and in between appointments and preparations for events such as this I will occasionally go over to the window and watch the kids. The other day as I was watching them I was reminded of the story of the Chassidic Jew who once asked his rebbe this question: “Why bother praying for forgiveness on Yom Kippur, he said, when inevitably we know we will sin again?”

In response the rebbe asked him to look out the window behind him. He did so and saw that outside was a toddler learning to walk. "What do you see?" asked his rebbe. "Well, I see a child, standing and falling," replied the disciple. Day after day the Chassid returned to witness the same scene. But at the week's end, the child stood and didn't fall. And in that moment the observer saw in the child's eyes that unique expression of the achievement of having attained the impossible. "So it is with us," said the rebbe. "We may fail again and again, but in the end, a loving God gives us the opportunities we need to succeed." L’shana tova.

Yom Kippur: Mental Health

Sermon by Rabbi Jennifer Hartman
2014/5775

“Gooooooood morning, Vietnam! It’s 0600 hours. What does the ‘O’ stand for? O my God, it’s early!” – Adrian, Good Morning, Vietnam

“You’re not perfect, sport, and let me save you the suspense: this girl you’ve met, she’s not perfect either. But the question is whether or not you’re perfect for each other.” - Good Will Hunting

“You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you, you'll win, no matter what the outcome.” - Patch Adams

“Carpe Diem, seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary” - Dead Poets Society

When I learned that Robin Williams had died I was heartbroken. The world had lost a funny, brilliant and kind man who shared his talents and his resources with all of us. Upon hearing the news I must admit I thought it was a joke. TMZ was pulling a prank on social media. When I realized it was true, I thought it was from an accident, or maybe he died suddenly of a heart attack. I later learned that was not the case at all. Robin Williams died from a terrible illness that affects millions of Americans. It does not discriminate by age, gender, sexual orientation or economic status. He died from something that no one likes to talk about because of the social stigma associated with it. People avoid the subject, whisper about those who suffer from it, turn their backs and walk away. Robin Williams died from depression.

Even his life circumstances could not protect him. One sufferer described depression as: “having nothing to do with who you are, how much you earn, how popular or famous you are, unpopular or unknown you are, it just is. Like cancer is. Like asthma is. Like diabetes is. Some people get it, some people don’t. It is an illness and it must be viewed and treated as such.”

We must end the stigma. It is becoming so detrimental to our society that just the other day I heard a commercial on cities 97 asking the community to fight against the stigma. The ad was sponsored by the “Make it OK campaign”, a new effort being piloted right here in Minnesota to end the silence around mental illness. This is a step in the right direction but the mission is difficult. We live in a society that tells us to be happy all of the time. All we have to do is log on to facebook to witness this point of view. The self-selecting “shares” of our friends and family reinforces the idea that everyone else is enjoying an enviable vacation, job promotion, engagement, or anniversary with a doting spouse. It is natural to only want to share what is extraordinary and exciting in our lives, but it gives the perception of perfection rather than the reality that our lives are wonderfully messy and complicated. It is no wonder that individuals and families feel they need to keep their depression a secret. The message is they are the only ones who are struggling.

The media, magazine covers, and news stories convey the message that only the poor, the homeless, the unsuccessful struggle with their mental health. Only the perfect can compete in our society. Everyone else fails. All one has to do is look at fashion or teen magazines to see that pop-culture sells an impossible ideal. A person must be perfectly thin, perfectly tall, and perfectly muscular. 

So many of our high schoolers, and now those in middle and grade school feel they must play an instrument perfectly and speak a foreign language perfectly and get perfect grades in order to be accepted to an elite university. If they don’t do all of this then the rest of their life is doomed to failure. Depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, anorexia – these do not fit into the unrealistic stereotypes of what makes a person thrive and happy. Yet, everywhere we look there are remarkable people who do not fit this mold. All the accomplished people I know have struggled. These are not always the stories published, the anecdotes told, but they always exist and frequently form the basis for success. Yet, somehow, we think that facing turmoil is the exception rather than the rule. We forget that Steve Jobs never graduated from college that Jim Carey suffered from depression, that Ashley Judd overcame an eating disorder, and that as a teenager, Wynona Ryder suffered from panic attacks.

Let us seize this day and say to each other it is enough – enough of asking people to hide, enough of asking them to keep secrets, enough of our loved ones bearing this burden alone. It is time for us to end the stigma of depression that is ingrained in our culture. It is time for us to stop making unwarranted assumptions about those who struggle with their mental health. We must stop assigning blame, we must stop underestimating others abilities. We must do this for the rising number of teens who attempt suicide every year. We must do this for our parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends whom we love so much.

Our tradition can help us change the conversation for in it we find great leaders who suffered from depression. King Solomon, known for his wisdom and justice, was one of these leaders. The rabbis teach that:

One day Solomon asked his most trusted minister to find a ring that upon looking at it would make a happy man sad and a sad man happy. Spring passed and then summer and the trusted minister had no idea where he could find the ring. Finally, he decided to take a walk in one of the poorest quarters of Jerusalem. He passed by a merchant who had begun to set out the day's wares on a shabby carpet. "Have you by any chance heard of a special ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?" He watched the elderly man take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When the minister read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile.

The Minister returned to King Solomon. "Well, my friend, have you found the ring?"

The minister held up a small gold ring and declared, "Here it is, your majesty!" The jeweler had written three Hebrew letters on the gold band: Gimel, Zayin, Yud, which begin the words "Gam zeh ya'avor - This too shall pass."

You see, even the king needed a reminder that he could overcome his depressive episode and that through the good times and the hard times, when he was successful and when he stumbled, he was a valuable and worthy leader. If God did not deem depression to be an inhibitor of King Solomon’s leadership abilities, who are we to judge?

Our tradition is full of strong, powerful, extraordinary leaders who face personal challenges. Judaism does not ask us to be perfect or hide ourselves. In fact, it does quite the opposite. It asks us to confront ourselves. It understands that individuals have many struggles in life, and that this only adds to their character. In a few weeks we will read from the Torah portion Vayetzeh where Jacob wrestles. No one is quite sure with whom Jacob wrestles. The text is ambiguous. There are many explanations. One explanation that resonates with me is that Jacob wrestles with himself, with his past self, with his demons, with the actions he has taken that haunt him. He is forced to uncover all of his secrets. The ones he has kept from others and the ones he has kept from himself. In the end his struggle brings him blessing. Jacob confronts his fears and wins. For this he is given the name Israel and an entire nation is named after him. Not only is he given a blessing, he becomes a blessing, but this comes at a cost. Jacob leaves this encounter with a limp he has forever. It is his reminder that through our struggle and our pain we can encourage ourselves and each other to lead more fulfilling, more engaging and more meaningful lives.

Not one of us will make it through life unscathed. We will have to confront challenges. They may be financial or relational, they may be academic or health related; some will endure abuse or addiction. Confronting these alone only makes the burden that much heavier. Hiding our struggles leaves us depleted of energy and hinders our ability to recover. When we acknowledge our hardships we find others who can help us, support us, and understand what we are facing. We can work together to create spaces where it is safe to discuss our feelings, to uncover our vulnerabilities, to reveal our complex selves. We are able to allow one another to be the imperfect wonderful human beings we are. Only when we talk and discuss, educate and examine, will we be able to end the stigma associated with depression.

This is possible for us to accomplish. We have been able to de-stigmatize other issues in our community. Remember when one could not be openly gay in Minneapolis? Remember when cancer was spoken about in a hushed voice, with people seemingly afraid they might catch it if they talked too loud? Remember when people thought you could contract HIV from sharing silverware? 

Through conversation and education we were able to reverse these notions. Today there are support groups for those fighting cancer and their caretakers, gay marriage is legal in our state and we understand and are able to treat and prevent HIV. Depression is also an illness and we must acknowledge this in order to help our community, our children. When we confront mental illness as we confront cancer and diabetes and heart disease, we affirm that all people are valuable. By ending this harmful stigma we make our community live its Jewish values of betzelem eloheim – everyone is created in God’s image!

A defining text on Yom Kippur is from the Torah portion Nitzavim. God sets before the people life and death: “This day, I call upon the heaven and the earth as witnesses: I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. You shall choose life, so that you and your offspring will live.” As long as we whisper we tell others that depression is a curse and we are inhibiting their ability to live. We must end this detrimental behavior. We must choose life, for ourselves, and future generations by fighting the battle that will bring healing. We must speak frankly, openly and honestly. Only in this way can we help end the stigma that causes so much shame. Only in this way will everyone have the support to fight this illness. Only in this way can we be sure that everyone is given the opportunity to be a blessing in life. For, as Robin Williams character said in Hook, “To live, to live would be an awfully big adventure.”

Erev Yom Kippur: The Beauty and Power of Friendships

Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2014/5775

This summer I fulfilled a life-long ambition to see one of the Beatles live in the flesh. Yes, I was at the Paul McCartney concert and though he was a good distance away and made visible to us in the stands only by virtue of the jumbo tron video screen, I thought he was totally fab.

Paul’s set list was pretty predictable, even though he has penned hundreds of popular songs, 60 of which were #1 hits. But his inclusion of the song Eleanor Rigby I thought was interesting. Almost as though he felt that his message from way back in 1966: “all the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they all belong?” was still an eternal message, befitting a 72 year old man who has lost a wife to cancer and been through a very public divorce and now married to a Jewish woman.

I have a confession to make on this erev Yom Kippur. I am an introvert. I play an extrovert on TV, or on the rabbi job. Sometimes better than others. I have, over the years, often worn that introvert distinction as a badge of honor thinking that, on some level, it was cool to keep to myself. Well into middle age, I don’t look at it that way anymore. I now think of my introversion as something of a liability.

Clearly it is easier for extroverts to make friends. And as many a researcher will report, friendships are good for you. Friendships help you live longer. People who have studied happiness, comparing happy people with unhappy people find that the only external factor distinguishing the two groups was the presence, or the lack thereof, of rich and satisfying social relationships.

When I deliver eulogies at funerals, I always get choked up when I get to the part about the friends of the deceased. No matter what kind of wealth the deceased amassed, or how many countries they visited or how well known they were, the friends they made along the way seem to stand out as a true value.

And conversely, there have been those whom I have met along the way of my rabbinical career who, sadly enough, arrive at their last days with profound regret at all the time they spent alone, apart, for one reason or another, from their loved ones or old friends. Acting as though someday they’d set it all straight, and then that day never comes.

Acquiring friends has a long and rich tradition within Judaism. When the first two Jews, Abraham and Sarah, leave Haran to begin their trek out into the world to bring the blessings of Judaism with them it says, “and they took with them all the people they had gathered in Haran.” The Hebrew translates better to the souls they “made” in Haran. Now, we know that human beings don’t create other human beings; so the rabbis understood this to mean that Abraham and Sarah had taken them in, like family, to be with them, to nurture their spirits. We know about Abraham and Sarah that their tent-home was always open to strangers passing by. That they would welcome anybody in, bath their feet and give them food and drink. Obviously, forging friendships was very important to Abraham and Sarah. Somehow they understood that to build a great religion like Judaism was going to require the cement of friendships.

Judaism has connected learning with friendship. The Talmud says: Acquire a teacher, and you have a friend for life!

We know that friendship helps people make better judgments. A major part of a deep friendship is in thinking through problems together: what job is best for us to take? What life goals should we follow? How should we deal with difficult people? Whom to marry? Friendship allows us to see our own life but with a second set of eyes, a sympathetic other standing beside us.

One beautiful element of friendship is that friends usually bring out better versions of each other. We let our guard down among our close friends. If you’re hanging around with a friend, smarter and funnier thoughts tend to come burbling out.

Individual creativity has long been celebrated, but it has been reported recently that the best decisions are not made by a person sitting alone in an office or at home, but by a group of friends around a table. The material they produce is richer, more human, more creative. Groups of three, four, or five perform better on complex problem solving than the best of an equivalent number of individuals.

Ancient writers dating way back to Aristotle have praised friendship, describing it as the preeminent human institution. They will tell you that in this life you can manage without marriage, or even do without justice or honor, but friendship is indispensable to life. Lovers face each other, it is said, but friends stand side-by-side, facing the world, sharing values and insights, often working together toward something of great value.

People behave better if they know their friends are observing. Friendship is based, in part, on common tastes and interests, but it is also based on mutual admiration and reciprocity. People tend to want to live up to their friends’ high regard. People don’t work at having close friendships in any hope of selfish gain, but simply for the pleasure itself of feeling known and respected.

While much of this may seem very obvious, you should know that friendship is not in great shape in America today. They’ve run the numbers. In 1985, people tended to have about three really close friends. By 2004, according to research, people were reporting they had only two close confidants. Over the next ten years the number of people who say they have no close confidants at all has tripled.

It seems that folks have a harder time these days building friendships across class lines. As society becomes more unequal and segmented, we tend to retreat into our camps. Most of the people we know come from our same socioeconomic world. Middle-aged people have particular problems nurturing friendships and building new ones because they are so busy with work and kids. 

The problem may be that we've lost sight of the real benefit of friendships. That the "what's in it for me" impulse in today's world has got us looking out for number one so significantly that other people don’t seem as important an element for our individual success. How ironic then that the best thing you can do for yourself is to forge a new friendship or refresh an old one.

So how do we go about this? One of the best ways for us to formulate, or as it was said in the Abraham and Sarah story “acquire” friends is to seek out a challenge, or a difficulty that needs to be worked out by a group. Instead of one person looking out for their own self, imagine a group of buddies engaging in something that benefits some other people entirely. Nothing inspires friendship like selflessness and cooperation in moments of difficulty.

This certainly is a good reason for belonging to a Temple community like ours. But it really only works if you have an eye on a bigger prize. Today people flock to conferences, ideas festivals, even vacation cruises that are really more about building friendships than anything else, even if people don’t admit it explicitly. There is a part of us that makes up excuses to find ourselves doing something with others. Book groups, minyans, sports teams.

One of my favorite stories concerns two boyhood friends, Eliphelet and Gidyon. They lived near each other and grew up together. Eventually they left their homes to find a place for themselves in the big world and each one did very well. But now they lived far apart from one another. And in those days before email and telephone it was hard to keep up friendships.

But Gidyon went traveling and found himself in the country where his friend Eliphelet lived and he thought, how great would it be to see his old buddy. But when he came to the gate of the city he was arrested by the police who thought he was a spy. He was brought immediately to trial and sentenced to death. As he waited there in prison he was very sad about his family whom he would never see again. Who would take care of them, he thought.

When the time came for his execution, Gidyon fell to his knees before the king and begged: Gracious king, I am innocent of any wrongdoing and yet I have been sentenced to this cruel punishment. I ask only one favor and that is that I be allowed one week – seven days - to return to my own country to say goodbye to my wife and children and to see that they will be alright. I give you my word as an honest Jew who has never broken a promise that I will return on time.

The king thought about it and asked: but who will guarantee that you will not try to escape?

Just then a man pushed his way out of the crowd and said: “Your highness, I will be his guarantee.” Of course that man was Gidyon’s boyhood friend Eliphelet who told the king: “You can imprison me, and if Gidyon doesn’t come back when he said he would, you can put me to death.

The king was astonished at this display of loyalty and friendship and allowed Gidyon to be freed to go back to his home. The people of the kingdom were amazed by this. They could not believe that the doomed man would ever possibly come back. They laughed at Eliphelet for volunteering to take his place.

Gidyon returned home, took care of his business, but told nobody of what fate awaited him in the distant country.

When those seven days had come and gone the city was ready for the execution and the entire kingdom came to see what would come of this strange event. It was nearly night time on the seventh day and no one expected Gidyon to return. Eliphelet was taken out of prison and placed beneath the gallows.

Suddenly they heard a loud cry – wait! I am here. Do not harm my dear friend. I am here to take his place. And Gidyon rushed through the crowd toward the king and the executioner. The people of the kingdom burst out in cheers and applause and then it grew quiet. The king was clearly touched by the loyalty of these two friends, and he spoke, saying: “Because of the true and devoted friendship of Eliphelet and Gidyon, I will pardon the crime of the stranger. But I do this on one condition. That they do me the favor of letting me be their friend as well.

I imagine many of us have friends that are separated from us by miles, and whom we would love to see more than we can. Just the other day I received an email from an old high school chum whom I never see and hardly ever speak to. I felt a strange sensation of wanting to hang out with him that surprised this introvert. I wrote back – do you have a minute to talk? He did. I called him and I was stunned by the warmth and good feeling I experienced in hearing his voice. In talking about the music we love in common. The places we used to hang out.

I said, you know, I’m coming east this winter and we should have a beer. And he gave me an out – he said, sure, if you make it to town give me a call. Somehow we both sadly knew that the chances of that happening were not good. That it might not be in the stars and he wanted me to know that he understood. He got it.

But you know, it doesn’t have to be in the stars. We are the architects of our lives. Our tradition tells us to dwell in community. Science tells us that companions are good for our health. Psychology teaches that better decisions are made in groups.

Judaism teaches that a good friend is a tower of strength: to find one is to find a treasure. In your search for a richer, more positive and healthy new year, may you rediscover the treasure to be found in renewing an old friendship, or simply rededicating yourself to enriching the ones you already have.

I’m going to give it a try. I hope you will too.

L’shana tova.

Erev Yom Kippur: Sanctuary Service

Sermon by Marcia Zimmerman
2014/5775

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Rosh HaShanah: A Day to Regroup

Sermon by Rabbi Jennifer Hartman
2014/5775

There is so much going on in the world today. Most of the events are terrifying. There is the threat of ISIS, the conflict in the Ukraine, anti-Semitism and racism. This summer planes fell out of the sky, we learned more about the ever warming planet and Israel engaged in operation project edge. Add to all of this our everyday fears and worries - balancing work and children, paying our rent or mortgage, saving for college and retirement. We are concerned about our kids’ birthday parties, our jobs, making our relationships work. Just thinking about all of this makes my anxiety rise. How is yours doing?

I hope that most of you have your cell phones with you today. I would like you to take them out and turn them on! Yes! I know this is the exact opposite of what you were asked to do when you walked into the Sanctuary this morning, but I would like for us to be in conversation with one another. On the wall behind me you will see a number. During my sermon I am going to ask all of you a few questions. I would love for you to text your responses to the number. For those of you streaming this service, please participate also! If the technology works the way it is supposed to, and we all know that this is a big if, your responses will appear, anonymously, on the wall behind me. In this way we will all be able to share our thoughts and feelings and hopefully learn a bit more about our community.

Here is my first question for all of you: I wonder, what did I miss? What is making your blood pressure rise? What is keeping you up at night? What event in our society is making you want to lock your door, close your blinds and shut out the world?

Are you getting more and more stressed as the issues come streaming in? I know that I am and the more stressed I become the less I am able to confront any one issue. I think that looking to the wisdom of Judaism may help us to center ourselves in a society that seems to be spinning out of control. When we turn off the noise, the competition, the 24 hour news cycle, the doubts about ourselves and our families that social media and pop culture put in our heads, we are able to focus on our priorities, our values, our beliefs. We are able to return to the core of who we are as individuals.

We are taught in Genesis - God created the world in six days. God rested, blessed and hallowed the seventh day as holy time thus creating tranquility, serenity and peace. The Talmud teaches that Shabbat was God’s precious and guarded treasure, which God gave to the Jewish people as a gift. God gave us a time to reconnect, renew and refocus after a week of toiling. God understood people need this time to be productive, creative, and generous during the week.

Another question: How do you relax? How do you unplug? - Share this with us?

At the end of June my grandmother died, 24 days shy of her 92nd Birthday. As I watched my family during the funeral and the days that followed I was amazed by what my grandparents created. My grandparents had four children, twelve grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. They built a large, tight knit and Jewishly committed family! Of my grandparents’ dozen grandchildren some of us went to day school and some to supplementary school, some of us went to Jewish overnight camp, some spent extended periods of time in Israel and some went for only a short period of time. However, all of us had Shabbat dinner every Friday night. All of us gathered around our respective tables to bless the candles and the wine and to say the Motzi. All of us missed social outings in order to be with our families, to talk to our parents, to refrain from fighting with our siblings and to play with our cousins. We all laughed a lot, ate too much and knew, without question that we were Jewish and that Judaism was completely connected to our family and both of these came before everything else. It is this connection and commitment that has lead to Jewish weddings and Jewish babies, to Rosh Hashanah services and Passover Seders, to great-grandchildren going to day school.

There is a famous quote by the Israeli author Ahad Ha’am that says: “More than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews.” The regulation of time through the laws of the Sabbath gave the Jews the chance to regroup in communities at the end of every week, and that regrouping sustained their Jewish identity. As the ancient historian Philo taught, Shabbat does not have us abstain from work in order to instill laziness within us. Shabbat is intended to allow us to have time to relax from continuous and unending work. Our bodies and our minds need regularly scheduled breaks from labor. Giving ourselves this time to rest allows us to collect our strength and reenter our daily routines with better concentration and effectiveness. This was so true for my family. Our shared Shabbat experience made us stronger and more able to confront adversity both individually and together.

What is your favorite memory of spending time with family or friends? Please share with us!

Every Friday night my grandmother stood in front of the large, bronze Shabbat candlesticks that her mother brought to America from Russia. She said the blessing and then she closed her eyes, rubbed her hands together, and prayed silently for a few moments. It did not matter how much chaos was taking place around her, she was able to shut out the world and be alone with her thoughts, with her ancestors and with God. I knew, from a young age, that I was never to interrupt this ritual. When she finished she went back to the business of feeding and taking care of her children and grandchildren. Yet, now that we all saw the candles were lit, we all felt a little calmer - the sacred time of Shabbat permeated our home.

As Abraham Joshua Heschel so eloquently states: “Six days a week the spirit works under strain, beset with worries, enmeshed in anxieties - on the seventh day we are given a respite from this”. It is a time for us to be together, to talk to one another, to linger around the table longer than we ever would during the week and to relax.

Growing up the Shabbat table was where we connected, nurtured our family relationships, and learn about the world. At the Shabbat dinner table my politically diverse family argued vehemently about the Middle East peace processes, presidential candidates and domestic policy. We rarely agreed but that did not keep us from having the conversations. At the Shabbat table we learned about our history, hearing stories about our great grandparents, aunts, and uncles, their lives in Sioux City, Iowa, Aberdeen, South Dakota and Trenton, New Jersey. At the Shabbat table we learned to be proud of our roots and our heritage. Our stories informed our sense of self. There we shared triumphs and joy – successful report cards, promotions at work, engagements – and sorrow and pain, moments of heartbreak, divorce, and the death of family or close friends. It was at this table, at which we were all expected to be, that we understood completely we were not alone and perseverance through the hard times was our ONLY option.

Do you have a Shabbat memory? What is your favorite one? Please share it with us!

When we allow it to, the traditions, teaching and rhythm of Judaism keep us grounded when we feel pulled in many directions. The Torah reminds us from who and where we come, teaching us that every family has trials, but it also has joyous moments. Judaism gives us hope when we think things will never improve. We see this strongly in the symbols of Rosh Hashanah- a round challah to show that things are ever changing and evolving; honey to remind us that life is sweet, pomegranates whose many seeds remind us of the power of mitzvot to bring healing to the brokenness in our world. The holiday of Passover takes us on the difficult journey of becoming a free people, and teaches that after very cold, very bitter winters, spring does indeed come. Judaism brings us home to our community and our family by demanding that we mourn and rejoice with others. We are to say Kaddish with a minimum of ten people and we are also commanded to rejoice with the bride and groom. Shabbat helps us to regroup and refocus, brings us together to reconnect and reaffirm. In this way it helps us to gain perspective because we can take a deep breath and sit with our thoughts rather than have to react immediately in our society that seems to never stops moving.

I am not originally from here. I no longer have my Grandmother to make me matzo ball soup or my aunts are not in Minneapolis to make challah, brisket and blond brownies. I no longer open the door to my childhood home to the smell of roasted chicken and potatoes. It is hard for me to prepare Shabbat dinner. It takes planning ahead. It means inviting friends before their calendars get booked. It means preparing meals ahead of time. It means eating dinner late. Too often all of the preparation and planning feels overwhelming. I get stuck in the notion that if I can't do it big then I should not do it at all. That is not the purpose of Shabbat.

Shabbat is not about being extravagant, it is about being together so that we are better able to face challenges. The world is less scary, change seems possible, the work feels lighter when we open our homes and fill our tables with loved ones and friends, with people new to the community and those we want to get to know. So, I challenge you this year - light Shabbat candles, light them more than once, and see where that leads you. Now, turn off your phones :)

Rosh HaShanah: Do Not Slay The Other Voice

Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2014/5775

Several years ago I attended a meeting of African American Ministers and Rabbis to discuss issues confronting our community. The minister whose church it was greeted the group saying: Can I hear a hallelujah? To which we all responded “hallelujah!” He then quickly side glanced at me and said “Rabbi I hope it’s alright that we said “hallelujah” to which I responded – no problem, it’s Hebrew. We invented that word a few thousand years ago.

People seem so interested in the Jewish point of view about things. They’re always checking stuff with us, watching what we do, curious about our reactions, and yes, holding us to account. You know, we make up less than one fifth of one percent of the world’s population. You wouldn’t think it would matter so much what we think!

Jews have always seen things differently. We tell the true story of the great clock tower in the city of Prague. The old Jewish ghetto there faced the rear of the tower so its inhabitants watched the clock run backwards. The elders of the community finally got smart, climbed up and put Hebrew letters where the numbers go so now the backwards clock made sense. We are an adaptive people.

Our most well-known thinkers have always been individuals who thought outside of the box. Albert Einstein developing the theory of relativity. Sigmund Freud’s discovery of the unconscious; the courageous pantheism of Baruch Spinoza; the rebellious Emma Goldman fighting for workers’ rights; the dream and vision of Theodore Herzl for the necessity of a Jewish homeland some fifty years before the Holocaust.

But if there is any one element of Jewish thinking that transcends generations it is that we have never been satisfied with only the surface meaning of anything. We are not a linear people; and we have never stopped the conversation with only one voice being heard. We are the people of one God, and 13 million theologies, 2 Jews, 3 opinions. We brought nuance into the world. We do not go long and shallow, we go short and deep.

This summer was a painful one for the Jewish people. Israel attacked viciously with Hamas rockets and terror tunnels burrowing under Jewish homes, Israelis running for cover as sirens wailed; the targeting of Hamas operatives and weapons launching locations resulting in the deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians. The combined anguish of losing Israeli soldiers and being tagged worldwide as murderers of innocents fell heavily on Israelis and Jews worldwide.

Even as the Syrian civil war death toll climbed into the hundreds of thousands, and the Islamic State slaughtered everyone in its path en route to the establishment of a brutal new Caliphate; and even as the world acknowledged that Hamas militants in Gaza were waging their war from schools, apartments and city centers, intentionally using civilian shields, the condemnatory eyes of the world turned most prominently to Israel. Anti-Semitic incidents broke out in Europe with cries for Jewish blood such as we have not heard since the Second World War. College campuses saw heated demonstrations. The International Presbyterian Church voted boycott/divestment/sanction initiatives against the state of Israel. The world turned Israeli selfdefense into a war crime; the UN investigated Israel, but curiously not Hamas.

What seemed strikingly familiar was the level of scrutiny the Jewish people still draws. Disproportionate to the extent of tragedies around the world, the critical eye was on Israel.

Why is this? I believe the very reason we are listened to, scrutinized, and held to a higher standard is because of the very hallowed Jewish traditions of negotiation, conciliation, compromise, and deliberation. We have always been a people internally and externally that seeks to listen to other voices and not squelch dissenting opinions.

Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, is made up of 120 seats representing Ultra-Orthodox religious parties, secular voices, the right wing Likkud, Israeli Arabs, centrists, and Labor, to name only a few. Some voices make more noise than others or wield more power, but this singular democracy in the Middle East demands that all voices have their say.

One of the greatest gifts of the Jewish people to the world, dating back to biblical times, was a system of justice for civilized nations. Courts of law, jury trials, fair and considered judiciaries to ensure just democratic societies.

The Torah states that among the first things to be established in the new land are the Arei miklat - cities for an accused killer to flee to until he has had his day in court to prevent exactly the kind of heated reaction that our animal instincts often lead us to do.

And thus one of the most disturbing moments this summer was the horrific revenge killing of the Palestinian youth. When the three Yeshiva students were abducted and slain and Israel’s enemies the world over danced in the streets with joy, no one seemed particularly surprised. But Jews doing such things? In a single deed, the complexities of justice, rationality and diplomacy were thrust aside. Revenge, Jewish tradition teaches us, never works. Revenge is the most surface and least nuanced of reactions. Brute emotional force with not an ounce of justice.

The events of this summer witnessed an ever growing division within the Jewish people. Our history demonstrates over and over that the greatest danger to the Jewish people comes not from without, but from within. When we stop listening to the diverse and multifaceted voices within our tradition and see only one side of an issue, or hang out only with people who share our world view we bring disaster upon ourselves.

The story of the binding of Isaac we read this morning features a much repeated phrase – vayelchu sh’neyhem yachdav – “and the two of them traveled on together”. This phrase is said so often we must gather that no great Jewish journey is done solo.

As Abraham lifts his knife to silence the other atop that lonely mountain, the angel calls out: stay your hand! Never – slay – the – other voice. L’chu sh’neychem yachdav. Walk together. Talk together. Dwell, argue, deliberate, but do it together.

Note that the greatest enemies of justice out there in our world today are quite literally “slayers of the other voice”. They do it viciously. They video tape it, put it on line and attempt to bully us with it. There is no law but theirs. There is no freedom. There is no democracy. There is no other voice.

Jews divided by hatred and anger is called sinat chinam. Literally “senseless hatred”. The problem is not our having strong ideas, or even disagreeing, but dismissing other people’s ideas as heresy. The downfall of the Jewish people has been linked time and again to our inability to see another Jew’s point of view.

With all the lessons and values the Jewish people have brought the world, perhaps the most important is the one of which we now must remind ourselves. We may have differing views on issues, but our lack of uniformity must never lead to a lack of unity.

The power and influence of our voice cannot hide the fact that there are only 13 million of us worldwide and we need to be forthright and intentional with our Jewish voices. But it has never been in our best interest to squelch opinions other than our own. The last thing a Jew should do is to slay the other Jewish voice. There is an ancient tale about the great sage Rabbi Akiva and his 12,000 pairs of students, (they studied in pairs so as always to be in the presence of another voice or potential dissenting opinion) All of them were taught Akiva’s most basic law: What is hateful to you, do not allow for your neighbor. Talmudic tradition tells the bizarre story of how the 12,000 pairs of students all learned this lesson, but in the heat of their debate over the law promptly forgot it, so that angry argument prevailed and they were consumed by a plague.

That’s an ancient rabbi story. Here’s a modern rabbi story. At this season rabbis all over the globe are attempting to bring messages of hope and peace to their congregations. In one case in New York a Rabbi cautioned her congregation not to harden their hearts to Palestinian deaths, and a board member posted on Facebook his resignation from the synagogue claiming the rabbi was spreading Hamas propaganda.

Conversely, my cousin’s rabbi in Montreal preached a sermon detailing how Israel had indeed lived up to the highest standards of Jewish ethics in wartime, and immediately heard from several members who were quitting because they felt there was no room to express their criticism of Israel. A Midwestern conservative rabbi was rejected from a position at a temple because he told the interviewing committee that he didn’t think there was just one Jewish point of view on Israel. Another rabbi’s board put a note in her contract indicating that she is forbidden to speak about Israel at all. A young colleague of ours locally preached about Israel this summer and was lambasted from all sides of the political spectrum with angry emails and threatened resignations. I told her I thought it was brave of her to address the subject, even though I didn’t entirely agree with her conclusion, but when you speak publicly such responses are hazards of the profession. But she said the lesson she learned was pure and simple. Never preach about Israel. I thought that was sad.

The danger of sinat chinam, internal fighting and division, is insidious and it is real – a civilization, a people, that loses its ability to speak to each other as sane adults, a community that rejects the Jewish gift of nuance, of subtlety and detail, and pulls itself into an a singular point of view that doesn’t allow for another is a threat to our national existence. The very thing that keeps Israel strong and the Jewish people vibrant is our willingness and readiness to engage with each other in a constructive manner.

The Jewish year is now officially 5775. That’s a symmetrical number – the first in 110 years. Its symmetry makes it much like a mirror, and mirrors cause us both to look at ourselves as well as to see things from a slightly different perspective. This is what keeps us human. Wrapped within the saddest of stories from this summer was perhaps the most beautiful lessons of our shared national experience. One of the first reported Israeli casualties this summer was that of a soldier Nissim Shawn Carmeli, a young man who made aliyah from the state of Texas to the State of Israel.

Nissim was what was called a lone soldier, meaning that he had no immediate relatives living in Israel. But Nissim (and that name means “miracle” turned out to be anything but lone soldier because by definition the Jewish people never leave each other alone. Some 20,000 Israelis attended this Nissim’s funeral. He gave his life for the Jewish state. But he was never alone.

I pray that this year will be more a more peaceful one than the last. Harmony and peace always begins with the act of listening to one another. Speaking passionately but allowing, in the great Jewish tradition, each voice to be heard. To heed the message of the angel atop mount Moriah at a critical juncture in ancient Jewish history.

Withhold your hand.

Do not slay the other voice.

Erev Rosh HaShanah: Sanctuary Service

Sermon by Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman
2014/5775

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There is no text for this sermon. Please enjoy this video of Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman on Erev Rosh HaShanah, 2014/5775.

Israel’s Future

Sermon by Rabbi Jennifer Hartman
2014/5775

A student recently asked me a difficult and thought provoking question. I want to share his question and my response with you. For the purpose of this sermon I will call the student Josh.

Dear Josh,

You recently asked me why, in the early part of the last century, as you put it, “the Jews kicked out another people in order to establish the State of Israel”. While I don’t agree with this description of events, this letter is not an attempt to convince you otherwise. There is no doubt that the establishment of the modern State of Israel has been a very, complicated, messy, and at times disappointing process. The history of how we came to have a country is one that often makes people on both sides of the conflict confused, angry and defensive. Shelves of books have been written on the subject, dissecting every angle. Each side feels they were fighting for the land that was rightfully theirs. In the end the Jewish people did what they felt necessary to regain their ancestral land. Whatever happened in the past, today there are two people who feel strongly that the land is theirs. If we focus too much on the question of who really belongs in the land, we will never attain peace. Today, we must focus on how these two people can live together. I must be honest, hearing your question invoked in me a visceral negative reaction. I felt Israel was betrayed by one of its own. Yet, when I took a step back, I realized that your question has within it an invaluable lesson.

I write to you today because you made me aware of a critical failure of mine. I took for granted that you would automatically love and support Israel by virtue of being Jewish. I now realize that this is not the case. I, none of us, can assume that future generations will defend and care for Israel. It has now been well established that many of your peers view Israel’s policies with skepticism. The 2014 Pew research study on the Jewish population in America shed light on this reality, when it indicated that just 23 percent of non-Orthodox Jews between the ages of 18 and 29 think the Israeli government is making a sincere effort toward peace. This compared to 44 percent in the 65+ range.

Josh, the generation of your grandparents and great-grandparents rejoiced in 1947 when they witnessed the passing of the United Nations partition plan to divide the Palestine Mandate into a Jewish state and an Arab state. Through the United Nations the world community legally gave part of the land to the Jewish people. Jews around the world could hardly believe that their dream had become a reality. There really was going to be a Jewish state. Your parent’s generation grew-up with the knowledge that wherever they went, they could feel safe as Jews in the world. They grew up secure in the knowledge that the horrors that happened in the Holocaust would not happen to them, because Israel would always protect all Jews. They beamed with pride when Israel won the ‘67 war and the Yom Kippur war. My generation was astounded by operation Solomon which brought over 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel. We were in awe that this small country of found a way to help all of these people, our people. We were proud when Israel took in the Russian Jews who were finally able to leave the former Soviet Union.

But, we also watched the first Intifada in the early 1990s, when Palestinians threw stones and Molotov cocktails at Israeli military and civilians. Ten years later came the 2nd intifada, where we saw buses and cafes blown up, murdering our Israeli brothers and sisters. We saw the horrific violence and terror that those opposed to peace and the existence of our people in our ancestral land were willing to commit against us. And while we have cheered the calm brought on by the security fence and amazing technology, we have also seen actions that some believe has made the dream of peace further away. As we Jews are accustomed to doing, we began to wonder, question, and debate: How could Israel make a lasting and mutually beneficial peace with its neighbors that would bring prosperity to all? What would, should and could both sides possibly give up making this a reality.

Josh, my generation has done you a disservice. We began to raise questions about Israel’s behavior before giving you the chance to fall in love with the country on your own. You see, my generation was the last generation to unequivocally support the need for a Jewish state. As teenagers and even adults we spent time with our grandparents who survived the holocaust. We listened to our parents whisper “Jewish” in public. We watched Shalom Sesame to feel that Judaism was part of pop-culture. We may not have felt it directly, but we understood that anti-Semitism was still out there...somewhere. We knew that Israel was a place not only where we could be safe, no matter what, but also a place where we did not have to explain eating matzo for a week every spring or missing school on Yom Kippur. Of course we were going to spend a summer in Israel. Our parents were not going to send us to France or Italy or Peru instead. This gave us the opportunity to develop our own relationship with the country.

That is how I came to see Israel as my home. My parents and grandparents were ardent Zionists. My grandparents even took my entire family to Israel when I was 9. But, it was not until I went on my own that I truly understood the power of the country. You see Josh, when I was a senior in high school I did an exchange program in Israel. I spent two weeks traveling the country with Israeli teenagers. I got to see it through their eyes. This is when I met one of my closest friends to this day, Yishai.

Yishai had just turned 18 when we met and he was proudly preparing for the army. He was excited to join the Israeli Defense Force and have the opportunity to defend his country. He loved the land – the beauty of the Golan Heights, the history of the Beit Shean valley where he lived, the beach of Tel Aviv, the religious center of Jerusalem. He loved the people – the Orthodox Jews and the Ethiopian Jews, the Russian Jews and the Sephardi Jews. He would speak about the traditions of each culture and when they clashed and when they complimented one another. I saw Israel through his eyes, and the eyes of my Israeli friends and I could not help fall in love with the land, the food, the culture and the people.

It is from that love that my friends and I became the first generation to question Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank. We asked them together with our Israeli friends. We asked them because we wanted Israel to be, as the prophet Isaiah described, a light unto the nations. I will never forget having conversations with Yishai as he took a break from patrolling the Lebanese border or from a west bank check-point. We talked through how the interactions he witnessed between Israeli-Arabs and Israeli-Jews and Palestinians both inspired and saddened him. We continued these conversations through many visits, exploring tunnels outside of Jerusalem, lying on the beach in Tel Aviv, walking the trails of the Galilee. We discussed Israel’s future – our hopes and fears.

Our conversations were as important as ever when he was called to serve during Operation Protective edge. We texted as he proudly took on his duty to serve the Jewish people, as he wondered about some of the governments decisions, as he worried about his wife home alone.

You see, it is from this devotion that my generation inquired about how Israel might treat the Palestinians and Arab Israelis better. We felt uncomfortable giving Israel a free pass to use force however she deemed necessary. We began to criticize the Israeli government while pushing for a two state solution. Israel, many of us felt, was not living up to the morals and values associated with a Jewish democratic state. Israel could do and be better, and our work was to make it a light unto the nations. We want Israel to live up to the values as written in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel which said: “The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisioned by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions.”

Josh, I owe you an apology. With you and your peers I think we started with questions rather than sharing our love of our land. You see Josh, we want you to love the Jewish state, but we also want you to know it. We do not want to paint you an idyllic picture because we know that you will discover that Israel is not perfect. We do not want you to be crushed when this happens. We want you to love Israel, warts and all. I now understand for that to take place we Jewish professionals, Jewish educators, parents, and grandparents need to give you historically accurate and nuanced answers to your hard questions. We are obligated to show you how Israel struggles to be a democratic and Jewish state, how competing values make it hard to protect its people and take care of the stranger. We must teach you the importance of Israel, not just to us but also to the world. Israel is where we are able to live our calendar, see our history, and walk in the footsteps of our ancestors. Israel is where the desert blooms, solar power prevails, water is conserved and the internet came to life. We want to ensure you know all this, but we must teach you while listening to you. It is essential that we hear your concerns. We need to discuss all of Israel’s actions with you. We have to ask you questions. If we don’t then you will get your information from other sources, and I am sure these will not include all that is good and wonderful about Israel.

Israel is the birthplace of our people. There we can trace our history, visit the graves of our ancestors, see where they first prayed, debated and dissected Jewish law. As we see our history come alive we learn about ourselves. I asked a few students who recently visited Israel why they chose to go. Their answers were moving. One shared: “visiting Israel has enhanced my understanding of Judaism and brought me closer to my roots”. Another said: “In Israel, I felt fully Jewish, I saw the community as my family, I felt I could truly be myself.”

Many adults spend much time defending Israel to non-Jews. Many attend AIPAC and J-Street events in order to support Israel. They donate to politicians in hopes they will influence pro-Israel legislation. All of these things help, but Josh, if we don’t get you and your friends to fall in love with our country then the support of today will not last until tomorrow. Life is complicated and messy. We crave easy answers, black and white scenarios, but the truth is that we live in the grey in between. It is not possible to always agree with something or someone you love. Just as our parents and siblings can annoy us like no other person, they are also the people who we love the deepest and depend on the most. No important relationship in our lives will be easy, simple, or infallibly happy. Often our most important moments of growth and insight come out of conflict. I understand that I must work to help you and your peers treasure Israel so that you will ask questions in order to improve Israel and so that you will defend the land of our people, the land of our history, and the land of Israel to anyone who wants to cause her harm. Only in this way can we ensure a bright and lasting future for the Jewish state.

Yom Kippur: Woe Is Not Us

Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2013/5774

A recent poll was taken asking which holidays Jews like best. It indicated that Hanukkah is far more popular with younger Jews than Yom Kippur. Really? I mean, come on kids, what’s not to like about the big Kippur? You got your fasting, staying in Temple all day, having to say you’re sorry for a billion things you messed up on? You like Hanukkah better? With the chocolate gelt, potato latkes, dreidl games and presents every night? Come on! Yom Kippur’s the bomb! I guess it could have been worse. They might have said Christmas…

OK, so Yom Kippur is kind of a bummer. But it is designed that way. And here’s the thing. The power of Yom Kippur relies on the fact that Jews are able to know the difference between a downer day and the other days of the year. To be Jewish is to master the art of distinguishing moments to dwell on our suffering and moments to focus on choosing life and living. As the biblical book of Ecclesiastes famously tells us: there is a time to laugh and a time to cry.

We Jews are a people of extremes. Chaim Weitzman, the first president of Israel, once said: The Jewish people are like everyone else, only more so. When we kvetch, nobody kvetches better. It has been asked, why are there so few Jewish alcoholics? Answer: Because it interferes with our suffering.

And when we party we really party. Mark and I recently played for an orthodox wedding that was totally wild. Jugglers, magicians and fire-eaters entertained the bride and groom. We did a 45 minute non-stop hora. The party got so crazy men and women almost started dancing together.

That same book of Ecclesiastes teaches us that although life is short and filled with frustration, we should eat drink and be merry, for what else is there? I always think of the Jewish couple in the restaurant who are overheard saying: “ach, the food here is terrible… and such small portions!”

We are a people constantly aware of the ups and downs of life. Consider the tale of Yankele the traveler who orders a pair of pants from the Jewish tailor. When he has to leave town the pants are not yet ready. Seven years later he returns and finally the tailor delivers. Yankele says: “God made the world in seven days, yet you take seven years to make a pair of pants.” “Ah yes, but look at the world,” says the tailor, “and look at my trousers!”

In my 25 years as a rabbi I have been asked many times: how do you go from those wonderful joyous moments to the sad ones and back again often right on the same day? My answer is typically Jewish. I answer with another question: I don’t know, how do you do it? We all do it… Take Yossel the carpenter who informed the funeral director: “my wife has died, and I wish to make arrangements for her burial.” “But how can that be?” asked the funeral director. “We buried your wife two years ago.” “Oh, that was my first wife,” said Yossel, “and now my second wife, too, has died.” “Pardon me,” said the funeral director, “I didn’t know you had remarried. Mazel tov!” I’m proud of the fact that although the Jewish people know suffering better than anyone on the planet, we’re still the funniest people on the planet. What’s that about? How could such a thing have happened? Theories abound. One is that humor is the way Jewish people take risks. Generally speaking we’re not your bungee jumpers or regular contestants on Jackass. And with certain notable examples we are pretty fiscally conservative.

Jewish humor has always been a risk taking humor, tempting fate. I know this first hand. Though it isn’t my day job, thanks God, I have tried my hand at stand up and have gotten myself into some trouble doing it often at totally inappropriate times... like on Yom Kippur the most solemn day of the year.

I feel like it is part of my own pathos, my own sense of sad family history, holocaust roots, Jewish neurosis guilt and anxiety that fuels my need to try some risky humor.

For example, speaking at the Tennebrae service at our large Roman Catholic neighbors down the street a few years ago I referred to it as the Basilica of St. Miriam. I was the only Jew in the room with two thousand Catholics celebrating the crucifixion, death and resurrection of their lord Jesus, (which for most of Christian history was blamed on us) and passing a giant life size cross over their heads distinctly in my direction. Talk about conspicuous. I got up to speak and said that I felt like a matzoh ball in a bowl of clam chowder.

There is something just so Jewishly appealing about goofing around with people who take themselves too seriously.

Yes, I’m the rabbi who used my dog Flora as a subject for a High holiday sermon. It’s the one sermon people remember. “rabbi I remember that sermon you gave about your dog.” And yes, I’m the rabbi who brought our former dog Sophie up onto the bima one Purim to show off how she would refuse to eat a dog treat if I said it was treif. She’d turn her head away with disdain. Then I’d say “kosher” and she’d gobble it up. She even knew how to play dead – Sophie! Hodroff! Now there was a yiddisha pup. canine a hora.

Why do we do things like that? I can only say from my own experience that the deeper the pain and sadness that lies within my heart the more titillating it is to risk it with some mischievous humor. I’m hardly the first one to figure that out. Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, the Marx Brothers, John Stewart, Jerry Seinfeld, Mort Sahl, Joan Rivers, Larry David, Don Rickles, Mel Brooks, Jackie Mason, Rodney Dangerfield. In 1975 it was estimated that more than two thirds of the working comics in the world were Jewish. The Jewish people are experts both in despair and unbridled joy. So we need to set specific times for appropriate solemnity so that we aren’t always wallowing in despair.

There is a lot of “woe” out there. You get a lot of street cred these days when you can prove you’ve overcome terrible circumstances to get where you are. This country likes to dwell on suffering 24/7. You watch American Idol and it is hard to determine what gets the votes, the talent or the sad story that proves the contestant overcame incredible hurdles to get there. Suffering is still very hip. People today try to score bonus points by revealing the suffering in their past. The contest shows on TV are not just about talent – they are often about who has suffered the most. Never mind my singing, let me tell you about my stint in rehab! Before I begin my number, can I just tell you that my great grandmother, the moment she came to the new world died the moment she set foot on Ellis Island.

Maybe the show should be called America’s Got Tsurus. It’s almost as though if you haven’t got a tragic story to tell your work isn’t relevant.

This is nothing new. Suffering has always been entertaining. Some of you are old enough to remember the television show Queen for a Day, in which the housewife with the most woeful story got crowned. Each contestant had to talk publicly about the recent financial and emotional hard times she had been through. Her need for medical care or a child with an illness, or a husband out of work. The harsher the story the higher the applause meter would read. The winner would be draped in a velvet robe, given a glittering jeweled crown to wear, placed on a velvet-upholstered throne, and handed a dozen longstemmed roses to hold as she wept, often uncontrollably, while her list of prizes was announced.

Times haven’t changed all that much. Candidates running for office trumpet their humble beginnings with far more passion than their track record as a public servant. From the days of honest Abe’s log cabin to Bill Clinton’s single parenting to Marco Rubio’s immigrant parents to Elizabeth Warren’s waiting tables at 13 years old to a host of health struggles, alcoholism and drug addictions.

It isn’t enough to have talent or been a suitable public servant. You have to have gone through hell!

One of biggest problems with being constantly confronted with suffering is that we become inured to it. Hardened. Insensitive. And we lose respect for suffering. As unpopular a notion as this might be to hear, suffering, like everything else in this world, has a purpose, and for many, the purpose is learning – achieving gratitude for the beauty of life, for when the pain ceases and we can breathe easily again.

But to use suffering as a badge of honor is not really the Jewish way, and thus we tell jokes about it. One that comes to mind is the Jewish woman who halts the city bus between stops and bangs on the door. “oy” she says, clutching her chest, “if you knew what I have you’d let me on the bus” so the driver lets her on. She moves back and sees a seat she wants and says to the person sitting there “oy, if you knew what I have, you’d let me have that seat.” Of course she gets the seat. She hits the buzzer to have the bus stop right in front of her apartment. “oy, if you knew what I have you’d let me off here at my home.” Fine, says the driver, and as she steps down he asks her – by the way, lady, what exactly is it that you have?” and she replies “chutzpah”.

There are plenty of sad days on the Jewish calendar. Yahrzeits are sad. Funerals of course are sad. But in our brand of faith, joy trumps sadness. It kind of has to. Tisha B’Av marks the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem and numerous other tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people. We sit on the floor as mourners and in dim light chant the book of Lamentations… Except when it falls on Shabbat no overt mourning is allowed. Even today, Shabbat lightens our Yom Kippur load.

The Talmud instructs us that when a funeral procession and a wedding procession meet at a crossroads, the funeral stops and waits for the wedding to pass. As the Torah portion we just heard says, when faced with blessing and curse we are to choose life. We are taught that one must opt for life and wholeness, before one can adequately confront death and brokenness.

The Latin word for suffering passionem is related to our English word passion, which obviously is related to the word compassion. The real opposite of suffering, then, is not joy, but apathy. Indifference. Suffering and relating to suffering ultimately should lead to our being more compassionate. But you can’t relate honestly to suffering when it is thrown in your face every moment. Suffering is very sacred and should be treated as such. The only way to do that is to celebrate and commemorate both extremes of living.

Wise sages in many different traditions including our own tell us that suffering brings clarity, illumination; for the Buddha, suffering was the first rule of life, and much of it comes from our own wrongheadedness — our cherishing of self. The world’s great religions will teach us that we have the cure for much of our suffering within us. I believe that a sense of humor is a huge part of that cure.

After the terrible Japanese Tsunami in 2011 the Dalai Lama visited a fishing village that had been decimated. Schools and homes were now reduced to rubble. Many had been killed. Thousands of Japanese turned out to welcome him, including a group of orphaned children. There was little he could do to comfort them considering the horrible losses they had endured. Still, he told them to change their hearts from sufferers to helpers and somehow find the strength to turn the bitterness into hope. He gave hugs and held hands. He smiled. And yes, he cried.

So why, with the uniquely significant Jewish history of suffering, have Jews emerged as such a funny people? My theory is a Kabbalistic one. Jewish Mysticism teaches that God’s reason for creation is that there be someone for God to have a relationship with us, and the primary reason for that relationship is to bestow goodness and happiness. Our job is to accept it. Humor is God’s blessing and it is instilled within us as an antidote to suffering. Why else would laughter feel so good? But the distinctiveness of this Yom Kippur day is the proof that we cannot live a life of constant woe. If we did, this holiday would mean nothing and true suffering have no meaning. It is precisely because we have this innate heart of joy that we are able to turn one full day a year over to serious introspection. But if all we dwell on is the darkness, we won’t know what to do when tragedy or loss strikes.

But there is and always will be suffering. A problem of Jewish theology has always been that if God is a just and perfect God who created this world, it ought to be perfect. But it isn’t. It’s a mess. The Jew has three options – to despair, to repair it, or to laugh at it. With over 2000 years plus of tsurus behind us option #1, despair is out of the question, so we opt for fixing and shticking. Joking, provoking and hoping. In this way we perform the ultimate duty of humankind – to accept God’s goodness in one of its most delicious forms – humor.

May you be inscribed for blessing on this Yom Kippur day for a year of life and laughter, of hoping and coping and being fully human. L’shana tova

Yom Kippur: The Choices We Make

Sermon by Rabbi Jennifer Hartman
2013/5774

I am directionally impaired. When I lived in New York City, without fail, every time, that I got out at a new subway stop I went in the wrong direction. Even when I tried to anticipate that my instinct was to go the wrong way, and go the other way, I still ended up going the wrong way. Imagine then, the sinking feeling of dread in my stomach when I first moved to Minneapolis and found myself driving north on 35W. I immediately called my father to tell him that there was no way I was ever going to find my way around this city. I was driving NORTH on 35W!!!

Now, most of you are probably thinking - Rabbi Gertman just get a GPS. I have one, and when I follow it, it is wonderful, but I have also learned that I am much better at listening to people than to machines! I often make a wrong turn, miss an exit, or just completely ignore my GPS. It is something I am working on. At times I also make the decision not to use my GPS. I think that I know where I am going, or I am to lazy to plug in all of the information, or I am too impatient to wait for the information to load. I make a choice and I live with the consequences. Often times the it is an unplanned detour. In this I have found reward and punishment. Finding a new way to go somewhere, learning that I actually know the city better than the GPS, discovering shortcuts are all positive outcomes of deciding not to garner help on directions. Being late for a meeting, missing a performance or leaving a friend to wait are all negative consequences of these poor decisions. And they are damaging, trust me I have experienced all of them!

We have so many choices to make in our lives. This is both a blessing and a curse. Personally, I was able to choose the college I wanted to attend, the country where I wanted to study abroad, the city I wanted to live in after graduation, the profession I wanted to pursue. When I was ordained I was able to take the job that was the best fit regardless of the location. In my personal life I can choose to date or not to date, I can choose whether or not to get married and if I want to have children. I can choose to be vegan or vegetarian, to eat only organic or only unprocessed foods that are not GMO. At the grocery store there are endless options for everything I want to buy from toothpaste to shampoo to nut mixes. We are very lucky to have all of these choices, but they could drive a person crazy. I think that often times the abundance of decisions we must make every day heightens our anxiety.

I am a bit of a perfectionist and I am fairly risk averse. I spend much time and energy analyzing my decisions, weighing the negatives and the positives, trying to foresee the outcome. I hate the thought of making the wrong choice. Yet, so often there is not a clear right choice. It is not possible for me to make a decision with the utmost certainty that it will have the best possible outcome. I am amazed by how I do not know what decisions to make for myself, but the “experts” have decided they do. In popular magazine articles, newspaper op-eds, television panels, and social media, we are bombarded with their opinions. These “experts” tell us exactly what we should do in almost any given situation. They also let us know that if we take an alternative path, we are going to ruin our lives. We are told to eat local, no eat organic, no eat only what you can find that is both local and organic. Get married young and have children right away, it is healthier for the mother and the baby. No, wait to have children; children with older parents are more successful. Fathers need to take more vacation, spend more time with their children. No, they need to work harder and make more money so that their wives can stay at home. Same sex marriages are going to ruin children. No, as long as there are two loving parents in a home it does not matter what their gender is. Two parents are better than one parent, but if a woman wants to have children and is unmarried she should have one on her own. This will make it impossible for her to ever get married. No, this will make her more respected; she had the courage to pursue her dreams.

The opinions on whether and how a woman should work are endless. Sheryl Sandberg, CFO of Facebook said that women need to sit at the table. Women must aspire to climb the corporate ladder and the men at the top are obligated to support and actively encourage them. In reaction, journalist Vanessa Garcia came out encouraging women not to lean in, but to stand up straight. She argues that leaning in is the same as giving in to the male controlled business culture. Then, Deborah Spar, the president of Barnard College in New York City told all women everywhere that the only women who ever had it all are fictional, found on TV and in movies. She reminds us that "Every woman, every person, at the top makes trade-offs".

However, we want the options without the trade-offs. We want to be able to have and do it all and we are so afraid that we will miss out that we become paralyzed by the plethora of choices. There is even a term for this - FOMO - fear of missing out. Most of us have it. It is the reason we check facebook every five minutes, and yes I do this also, to make sure the choice we did make did not cause us to miss out on the most fun, most exciting, most meaningful event of our lives. It has become such a problem that there is an abundance of articles on how to deal with this issue: 3 Strategies To Beat Your Fear Of Missing Out; 4 Ways To Combat Midlife FOMO; How To Handle FOMO At The Office. We need others to tell us how to relax and enjoy the choices we have made. Not only do we want a guarantee that what we are doing is right for our future, we also want to know that our actions are the best for right now. We want to know we are raising our children correctly, that we are treating our partners well, and that we are good at our jobs. We post incessantly on facebook so that we get the immediate gratification of knowing that what we are doing is worthwhile.

Of all the books and articles I have read my favorite is: “Why the woman who has it all Does Not Exist”. In it Deborah Spar reminds her readers: “Wonder Woman doesn't exist. She is fiction, and you are real. Building a life on fantasy is never a good thing. Just because we are told we can do it all, does not mean that we should”. In truth, we can’t do it all, we can’t have it all and we can’t be whatever we want. Sorry, our parents sold us a bill of goods on that one. I am talking about all of us here, not just woman. I am never going to be a cartographer or a great musician for that matter. I learned that when I tried to play cello. My bow would be going up when the notes were going down and it would be going down when the notes were going up. I made a choice and it was a bad choice. It was a decision that caused me to have to carry a large and heavy instrument to and from school on a regular basis, it caused my parents’ ears to suffer and it caused me quite a lot of frustration, but in the end I learned a great deal from my mistake. I learned that I am physically stronger and mentally more determined than I had thought. I learned that I could handle bad orchestra teachers and having to do something I hated. I also learned that I would not be pursuing a musical career. It was a bad decision but I learned more from it then if I had decided not to play an instrument at all.

Another bad decision that I think we can all relate to is one in the realm of dating. How many of us have dated the absolute wrong person. We have ignored all of the advice of the people around us because we were sure that we could make it work with this person. These can be the relationships from which we learn the most. We find our true selves, what we want from another person, and our resilience. They often lead us to find the right person.

We need to stop being afraid of the negatives, of the possibility that we might choose incorrectly, we might fail, we might close the wrong door, make an irreversible decision. Whatever decision we make, we will learn from its outcome. We will grow from its consequences. All we need to do is look to the Israelites to understand this. A trip that should have only taken them weeks took them 40 years. And no, it was not because Moses could not follow directions. It was because they had a lot to learn. They did not know how to be free. They did not know how to govern themselves. They had no understanding of how to interact as a community. They learned all of these lessons while wandering in the desert. They learned them in the midst of making very bad decisions. Remember the golden calf! The Israelites engaged in idol worship. They broke one of the Ten Commandments. Still they were forgiven.

We are still enslaved and we are still learning. We are enslaved by the fear of not being perfect. We have the time and the lessons of these High Holidays to try to move ourselves farther from Egypt and closer to the Promised Land. Isaiah asks us in this morning’s Haftorah portion: “is this the fast I desire... A day for you to starve your body? Is it bowing the head like a bulrush And lying in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call that a fast, A day when the Lord is favorable? No, this is the fast I desire: To untie the cords of the yoke. To let the oppressed go free; to break off every yoke.” The prophet Isaiah is telling us that starving ourselves and flogging ourselves does not fulfill the intention of the fast. These things are for show, they make us look like we are repenting, like we are changing, but they do nothing to transform us. This is not how we improve ourselves or our world. Rather, we show that we are taking the commandment seriously when we alter our actions so they help others and ourselves.

Isaiah wants us to free the captive. Each one of us is captive to something. For many of us the master is the plethora of choices we have to make and the unsolicited advice on how to make them. These have paralyzed us; they have wrought us incapable of moving forward. We are enslaved by the tyranny of seemingly relevant choices that all play on a fear we have. We are afraid of being different, not being liked, of not being attractive and of missing out. We worry that we will be unsuccessful, that we will fail. No decision is easy and there are no grantees that any decision is the correct one. One thing I can grantee is that we will all miss out on something we consider to be important and we will all fail at some point. That is the privilege and the burden of having many opportunities. It is the price for being a human being and it is what Yom Kippur is all about. Yom Kippur allows us to be human, flaws and all. It shows us that we can recover from our mistakes. Some of our mistakes are harmless and even beneficial. They teach us without hurting anyone or anything. Other mistakes require more work to mend. They require confronting loved ones we have offended or co-workers we have hurt. Even when we did not mean to cause pain or destruction, we are commanded to acknowledge the impact of our behavior in order to truly correct our actions.

Yom Kippur helps us to progress from a place of pain and foible to one of growth and maturity. All choices, good and bad, have the potential to move us forward. Hopefully this knowledge will free each of us to make the best decision possible with the information provided and then enjoy where it takes us. As we go into this New Year may we be renewed in our capacity to learn and grow. May we be able to step forward rather than stand paralyzed. As the former New York Yankee and oft quoted cultural philosopher Yogi Berra said: “When you come to a fork in the road --- take it”! It may just lead someplace wonderful!

Erev Yom Kippur: Sanctuary Service

Sermon by Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman
2013/5774

There is no text for this sermon. Please enjoy the video of Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman on Erev Yom Kippur, 2013/5774.

Erev Yom Kippur: The Highest Form of Giving

Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2013/5774

Tomorrow morning whether you are upstairs or downstairs you will hear a section of the Torah that comes from the book of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Torah – a book that acts as a virtual blueprint for a successful society.

The great Moses teaches the Israelites how they can remain prosperous and successful in their new land. Moses keeps repeating this theme of the equality of each and every individual that will come to live there. According to our Torah everybody has to get a fair shake. Atem nitzavim culchem lifney Adonai Eloheichem – you stand here, all of you today – my law affects everyone, from the woodchopper to the water drawer. In a society where God’s laws reign, justice reigns, and everybody deserves a chance. No exceptions.

There is a tale told of a time not long before the Holocaust and the Second World War, when the Jews of Eastern Europe still lived in small villages. One day, a young man told his fellows that he was leaving the village because he realized he was an atheist, he no longer believed in God. He decided he wanted to live among other atheists like himself. The townspeople were sorry to see him go, but they bid him farewell and told him his home would always be there waiting for him. A few years went by and lo and behold the townspeople were surprised to see that their friend had returned to them. The villagers asked him: “Why did you come back? Do you now believe in God?” To which he responded: “No, I still don’t believe in God, but I have learned something very important. It is better to live among those who believe in God than among those who don’t believe in God.”

That young man had lived in both societies and had seen the way they treat their most desperate citizens, the poorest and neediest amongst them. He decided it is better to be in a place where God’s rules are the way of the land.

Even way back then, Moses somehow knew that human societies, even at the peak of their social advancement, would always have poor people to take care of. Or, as Moses put it more concisely in the Torah: “poor folk will never cease to be in your land.” And further, Moses added: “you shall give, but your heart should not grieve when you give.”

With that last bit there, Moses was saying that not all giving is alike, and it should not be surprising that future generations of great Jewish thinkers would have a lot to say about the art of giving.

Perhaps the most well known treatise on giving is the ladder of tzedaka – the creation of another great Moshe, Moshe ben Maimon, or Maimonides. He constructed an eight-step ladder of giving and taught us that the person who gives, but gives grudgingly inhabits the lowest rung on that ladder. This goes all the way up to completely anonymous giving where neither giver nor receiver knows of each other’s identities.

But the eighth or highest form of giving on the ladder of tzedaka is something different altogether. This is when you either loan somebody something or enter into an actual partnership with the needy person or find him work. The classic: give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.

It is also interesting to not that the ancient Moses told the Israelites that the poor of your city should be helped before those of another city.” He was saying: Begin the work in your own backyard. Deal with the poverty and the injustice that is right there in your midst.

Temple Israel was built on this location with that kind of vision for its place in this community. Rather than having an ark that faces east toward Jerusalem which traditionally represented the dream of every diaspora Jew to arrive and pray there in that holy place, our original Emerson street doors open to the east as a welcoming gesture to all our sisters and brothers in the city.

Did you know that for three years in a row Minneapolis-St. Paul has been named the fittest metropolitan area in the U.S. The criteria for fitness included exercise, obesity and smoking rates; access to health care; and the availability of recreational facilities, farmers markets and walking trails. We scored big. And I’m guessing that the person doing the research did not make it to the state fair.

The Wall Street journal did an expose of Minneapolis this last July describing our fair city as studded with lakes, ponds and parks and enough culture to fill a long weekend of activities. Daring architecture, a vital art scene. What also has been mentioned recently about our neck of the woods is that in the decades to come, partially due to climate shifting, this may well be the optimal place to live in the entire US.

Even as there are plenty of reasons to rejoice in living here in the Twin Cities, there is trouble in paradise. The numbers of homeless people in our region is at an all time high. Our metro area has a greater discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots than almost any other city in the country. There is less affordable housing in the Twin Cities than almost any other metropolitan area in the US. Yes, our city is a sweet place to live, but not if you are struggling to pay the rent, or have to decide between paying your mortgage and buying food.

Temple Israel is one of 14 religious institutions that make up the Downtown Congregations to End Homelessness. A week from this Sunday, on September 22nd from 2 to 5pm, we are hosting, right here at temple, during Sukkot, an afternoon of education and action. The program is called Unite To End Homelessness and will begin with an interfaith service, with members of our local Muslim and Christian communities, a panel discussion on the state of homelessness in our community, stories by formerly homeless residents, and then an action fair will follow where we can let our voices be heard and find out what we can do to make a difference. I hope that many of you will find the time to come and celebrate Sukkot by remembering that there are literally hundreds of people in our community who face a winter ahead without a roof over their heads. Not even as fragile a booth as a Sukkah.

Having a home to live in is not a luxury. It is a right. A basic necessity without which one cannot function in a community. Yes, we are blessed to live in a beautiful city rich with natural wonders, trails, fresh water, art, music, restaurants and a host of other blessings. But our community is only as healthy as its poorest citizens.

We might ask ourselves, “What would Moses do?” We don’t have direct evidence of Moses dolling out funds or assistance to the poor. As a matter of fact you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere in the Torah where it specifically says you should give handouts to people. But we do see Moses acting in accordance with Maimonides’ highest form of tzedaka. Moses is preparing the people for a successful future by teaching them to be self-sufficient in a land of challenge. And when strangers come join their community, to welcome them in warmly and give them also a chance to succeed.

If I am for myself alone, said Rabbi Hillel, who am I?

Tonight we might feel very good about that, because so much of our giving at Temple falls on that eighth and highest rung of Maimonides’ ladder. Our volunteerism at Jefferson School over the years. Our involvement in Families Moving Forward and our shelter here in our classrooms. Our newly formed Temple Israel Committee to End Homelessness partners us with 13 other congregations, and most importantly partners us with those who have no place to call home.

Our position as an urban reform Jewish institution has always been that we are not here for ourselves alone, but that we are here to bless the community around us and help repair its damage.

There are many interesting Talmudic debates about the correct number of sounds to be blown from the shofar, what the shape of the shofar should be, whether it should be curved or straight, and whether the shofar should be made of a ram's horn or of an antelope's horn. But in the village of Chelm, the debate was about the proper side through which the shofar should be blown, whether from the narrow side or from the wide side. This seemingly trivial question was brought by two Chelmites before the rabbi of Chelm for resolution. The Rabbi immediately saw that beneath the apparently minor dispute lay an important issue of Jewish identity and character. And so the rabbi said; "Through what end you blow the shofar depends upon to what end you blow the shofar.” If you are blowing it just because tradition tells you to blow it, it doesn’t matter which end you use. But if you want to wake up a sleeping society to do right by its people, all its people, then you will want to make a big sound.

Rosh HaShanah: A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven

Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2013/5774

Let’s begin with a bit of musical call and response, shall we?
Sim: to everything…
Cong: Turn turn turn
Sim: there is a season…
Cong: turn turn turn
Together: And a time for every purpose under heaven.

Of course you know that song. Everyone knows Turn Turn Turn… the Pete Seeger song, written and then recorded in the early 1960’s, setting to music the words of the biblical author Kohelet, AKA, Ecclesiastes, informing us that there is a time for every experience, predictable in its season.

Though he was using an ancient text, Seeger was writing a timely anti war song, a petition for peace. Yes, there is a time to build up, a time to tear down, a time to be born, a time to die. But then the songwriter tacks on a coda at the end – a time for peace, I swear it’s not too late!

Such was his plea to us: Regardless of what we may believe heaven has decreed in the natural order of things, the times for war and for peace lie most certainly in our human hands. Created in the Divine Image, we are critical instruments of change.

As the War in Vietnam raged on, the controversial song caught fire with the record buying public. Turn Turn Turn was recorded by the Limelighters in 1962 and then further popularized by the folk rock group the Byrds in 1965, shooting up to number one on the pop charts! We sang it at our summer camps, retreats and rallies, Jewish and otherwise.

I think Turn Turn Turn could again become a controversial song. The ancient Biblical poet wrote about the seasonal changes with absolute certainty. We celebrate those changes on this awesome day. Hayom harat ha olam – today the world is born! A brand new year of reliable, God-given, seasonal changes. And yet we know the weather patterns are shifting in a most unnatural way.

The book of Ecclesiastes is also known for the words: There is nothing new under the sun, but there is most definitely something new under the sun. For the first time in recorded global history our species has altered the seasonal cycle, pushing up global temperatures beyond our capacity to handle the consequences.

Proven scientific data show polar ice caps melting, sea levels rising, and carbon emissions darkening huge sections of the earth’s surface. A third of all CO2 emissions are absorbed by our oceans which are reaching dangerous levels of acidity. Heat indexes are rising and storm patterns are shifting dramatically. 30% of the earth’s species are in danger of extinction. Tens of thousands of acres of forest continue to be lost. Barb and I hiked the Superior Trail of the north shore amidst old growth spruce and pine forests that will never be replaced that far south by new trees because of rising temperatures.

Climate change has not been addressed much from this pulpit, perhaps because it still strikes people, oddly enough, as a political question.

But I chose to speak about it today because I believe that climate change is a religious issue, and it is a Jewish issue, and will be the dominating concern of the 21st century.

In the book of Exodus God speaks to the Israelites saying: If you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, I will grant the rain for your land in its season. You shall gather in your new grain, your wine and oil. I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle -- and thus you shall eat your fill. Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. For Adonai’s anger will flare up against you, and God will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that your God is assigning to you.

These troubling words used to be part of our reform liturgy until they were removed because they smacked of ancient reward and punishment hocus pocus that our movement didn’t buy into.

Perhaps they should be reconsidered.

For centuries we prayed and depended that the dew would fall when it was supposed to, and that the rains would come precisely in their seasons. Could our ancestors have imagined the role we would someday play in altering creation to this extent?

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, one of the great religious Jewish minds of the 20th century observes that in the biblical creation story we read not one, but two narratives detailing the origin of the first human beings. He calls them Adam the first and Adam the second –(some modern readers look at that kind of thing and assume bad editing) but Rabbi Soloveitchik suggests that what is being described are two distinct aspects of human character alive in each of us.

In the Torah, Adam the first is created “in the image of God” betzelem Elohim - a creative and industrious being, accessing immeasurable resources for the realization of his goals. This is the inventor of the wheel, the discoverer of fire, the farmer and shepherd, the manufacturer of the toaster oven and the microchip! A creature who can envision and achieve space flight, build remarkable businesses, erect skyscrapers, and who can conceive of deep fried m and m’s on a stick and donut flavored beer.

Adam the first is given dominion over all the earth – to work it, use it, create new features, and to evolve his massive intelligence. “Subdue nature” is the biblical command to Adam the first – “take control!”

Rabbi Soleveitchik notes that Adam the second is created from the very dust of the earth, and life is breathed into him. The command to Adam the second is to cultivate the garden and protect it. We are of this earth.

Adam the first asks questions like: how does it work? How can I control and accumulate? How can I build a better widget? Adam the second asks - why does it function the way it does? And what is my role in preserving it?

In the coming weeks our Torah will chronicle the seven days of creation, then the great flood epic of rising sea levels and Noah’s efforts to save the earth’s creatures. And then to the story of Abraham and Sarah, when a Jewish voice first appears on the scene.

“Lech l’cha”, says God to Abram, go out there and change the world. And may all who associate themselves with you find themselves enriched by your presence. Abraham and Sarah were known as Ivrim – Hebrews – literally, people on the other side. Outliers. People who, upon finding themselves in the midst of a society gone meshuggeh, plant themselves firmly and objectively outside the madness and call for a sane response. This is what makes climate change a Jewish issue. We are an idol smashing people. We are a truth seeking people.

If the majority of the inhabitants of this great earth continue the quest for more power and industry and fortunes at the expense of the earth itself, then we must be the “other” voices – the Ivrim, who stand firmly, as Jews have in so many circumstances throughout history, and sound the shofar of vigilance and foresight.

Climate change needs to be a religious issue because the vast majority of the 7 billion inhabitants of this world hold religious views at the core of their being. If they see what’s happening as a natural fluctuation in the evolution of the planet we’re toast. Literally and figuratively.

But addressing climate change as a religious mandate may be the only way to trigger a huge shift of human consciousness over the coming decades.

Now I know, Jews are now roughly 0.2% of the world's population. If all the Jews in the world recycled our newspapers it would make little difference. Sure, Temple has solar panels which are largely symbolic. They fuel the eternal light and recharge our clergy cell phones. If every Jew in the world swapped out their existing car for a hybrid we might save 25 million barrels of oil a year – and that’s less than what OPEC extracts in one day.

Meager numbers notwithstanding, the Jewish people have always blessed the communities in which we have lived. We brought justice and higher moral consciousness into being. We initiated the judicial system while we were still a wandering nomadic people. We introduced monotheism to the world. The theory of relativity; the Polio vaccine. Radiation and chemotherapy, Potato kugel. Blue jeans! Laser technology and stainless steel! Israeli Drip agriculture that has helped to feed millions in arid nations. We championed human freedom, changing forever accepted norms of slavery.

And perhaps most poignant of all, the Jews gave the world the idea of a Sabbath! A day’s rest at the end of the work-week and a rest for the land every seven years. Anybody remember the Sabbath? Taking a day of rest was once almost universally observed. Today, people today who work seven days a week, even if they are paid millions of dollars to do so, are, in the Jewish biblical conception, slaves. A planet that is not allowed to rest is also enslaved.

The Jewish bible literally invented history. Prior to the advent of Judaism just about every ancient religion saw the world in cyclical terms, as a Great Wheel. No event was regarded as unique, every event had already been enacted, is being enacted, and will be enacted perpetually; the same individuals have appeared, appear now, and will appear at every turn of the circle. Judaism alone differed. According to the Jews’ way of viewing life, events move forward; they do not merely repeat themselves. We were the first people to break out of this “circle” ideology.

In a sense this innovative way of thinking meant the birth of adventure, surprise, uniqueness of the individual, vocation, free will, progress, hope and justice! This was the beginning of vigilance and responsiveness.

This is certainly not the time to let up. How interesting that people still sit back in silent acquiescence accepting the circle theory of existence. That what we are observing is the natural order. Chiming in with Ecclesiastes’ cynical “there is nothing new under the sun” – it’s all been done before attitude. Everything will right itself.

Continuing to pour more CO2 into the atmosphere likens us to the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh of Egypt, addicted to his own power, refusing to stop oppressing humans and suffering the consequences of plagues — which, by the way, if you remember, were mostly ecological disasters!

Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the renewal movement says that today the Pharaohs are giant corporations: big coal, big oil, and big natural gas. Maybe so, but they are also us, stuck in our ways. The only way to deal with a modern-day Pharaoh is for the people of Adam the second to cry out that their physical earth is being compromised and to recognize our intended roles of stewardship.

If we are only Adam the first, our self glorification and endless accumulation of resources will continue unabated. But if we can truly see ourselves as part of the biology of this planet and that the stewardship of said planet was breathed into us from the get-go, we stand a chance of a midcourse correction.

Elie Wiesel, another gift of the Jewish people to a world gone insane, reminds us, "Just as humanity cannot live without dreams, we cannot live without hope. If dreams reflect the past, hope summons the future."

At a certain point of frustration, Moses begs God to reveal himself or at least give him a business card so he’ll have more street cred with the Israelites. God says, well buddy you can’t see me but here’s what I am about: I am slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity transgression and sin – yet not remitting all punishment, but visiting the iniquity of parents upon children and children’s children, upon the third and fourth generations. These last words are particularly chilling and come to my mind when I hear or read denials of human culpability for the warming of our planet. Perhaps we don’t feel personally threatened by the shifting winds, but are we willing to stake the future of our children and our grandchildren on such a gamble?

My friends, with all due respect to Ecclesiastes, there is indeed something new under the sun, and it is of our doing. Long ago the Jewish people brought to this world an innovative notion that humans can and will alter the course of global history and we have been doing it ever since. We are ivrim, Jewish voices that cannot remain silent as our planet turns a dangerous corner. On this Rosh Hashana 5774 we arrive at a critical tipping point, where continuing to make the wrong decisions will be disastrous, but where waking up and changing our behavior will put us into partnership with a God who is slow to anger and quick to forgive. And there cannot be a one of us here who wishes the iniquities of our generation to be visited upon the children. To everything there is a season… turn turn turn. There are still seasons… turn turn turn, and there is a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to rend, a time to sew. A time to renew, a time to heal… Our time is now. I swear it’s not too late.

Rosh HaShanah: Living a Life of Meaning

Sermon by Rabbi Jennifer Hartman
2013/5774

Our son will get straight A’s and be the captain of the lacrosse team. While in high school he will design a web program to help teachers create their own computerized multiple choice tests and it will be such a success that the profits will cover the small gap between his tuition and the giant scholarship that he will be offered by his college of choice. He and his girlfriend will give swimming lessons to underprivileged children during the summer.

Our daughter has to take a pre-AP course now, in eighth grade, or she won't be setup to take AP classes later on. And without AP classes on her transcript, she is looking at a state school, maybe not even the main campus of a state school. She definitely cannot take time off from Model United Nations to join the film club because everyone knows that the film club is code for “slacker kid.” Once she is ready to apply for college we will have to hire a professional to polish her personal statement because everyone else does.

Are you anxious yet? I am anxious! The expectations these parents are putting on their children are overwhelming for both the parents and the children. Yes, these are real anecdotes drawn from the work of child psychologist Wendy Mogul. I have a feeling that many of the people in this room have dreamed the dream or felt the pressures described above. There is a belief that the only way we, or our children, will find success is through a degree from a prestigious college or university and a high powered profession. We think that the best predictor of adult achievement is high school and college degrees. And yet, we know well that too often academic and financial success do not give us a sense of meaning or purpose. This was recently reinforced for me when a friend returned from a life changing trip to Israel.

My friend took a ten day trip to Israel to see the work that the Jewish National Fund is engaged in, visit with friends and explore the reform movement. He had the opportunity to watch as hundreds of people, most of them in their 20s and many of them all alone, descended from an El Al plane to a sea of cheering and smiling faces. These people were making Aliyah and being welcomed to their new home. These were individuals truly living their ideals, their values, their dreams. As he traveled the country he was exposed to the ingenious inventions and designs that Israelis have created and the priorities of the Israeli people. He saw an indoor playground that was built by the Jewish National Fund for children in Sderot. Rocket fire from the Gaza strip makes it too dangerous for them to play outside. He had Shabbat dinner with friends outside of Tel Aviv. He sat at the table with multiple generations of one family. Great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins all came together to have a joyous and festive meal, to be together and a part of each other’s lives. This trip was truly a coming home experience for him.

This was not his first trip to Israel, he had been there many times before. Yet this time he was seeing things anew. Before his trip he had begun to feel unsettled, during his trip he began to articulate what had been gnawing at him. He wondered why so many of us choose to live far from our families. He felt that we have our values backwards. This was coming from an Ivy League educated young man with a lucrative job in New York City. By most accounts he was living the dream, but he began to question if he was living the right one. While his job was profitable and fun he did not feel that he was contributing to society, he did not feel that his work had a higher purpose, he did not feel he was making the world a better place in which to live. He realized that his soul was missing something.

There was recently an article in the New York Times entitled “The Busy Trap” by Tim Kreider. In it the author talks about how many of us proclaim that we are busy. We are proud of this, but we veil it as a complaint. The author writes: “Almost everyone I know is busy. They feel anxious and guilty when they aren’t either working or doing something to promote their work. The people who complain are almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.” We live to work when people in most of the western world, Israel included, work to live. We are busying ourselves with things that we think will make us successful or feel fulfilled when too often it does not.

Interestingly, Psychologist Daniel Golman writes that high school and college degrees are not the best predictors of one's success as an adult. Empathy, optimism, flexibility, a good sense of humor, the capacity to function as a team member, and a positive reaction to setbacks are what will best predict our future ability to succeed. These are also many of the same values that will ensure our souls feel fulfilled. Let us look at these attributes one by one.

Empathy. We are commanded as Jews to comfort the mourner and rejoice with the Bride and Groom. The bereaved cannot say the mourner's Kaddish without having ten people present. We, the community, must be there to feel their pain, to walk with them through their grief, to support them and care for them when they feel most alone. The sheva brachot, the seven blessings that are said at every Jewish wedding ceremony cannot be said without a minyan. Our tradition is structured so that the bride and groom do not rejoice alone. We are obligated to visit the sick and take care of the widow, and the orphan. What could better teach empathy than being with people during times of their deepest sorrow and greatest joy?

The capacity to function as a team member. To be able to work and share with others takes all that we learn with empathy as well as discipline and preparation. Our tradition teaches that we need to have savlanut (patience and tolerance), rachamim (compassion) and acharayot (a sense of responsibility). We need to be tolerant of both the things that are within our control to change and those that are not. We need to have compassion for the other people in our group, our business, our community. We need to treat them with dignity and respect, leaving space for their thoughts and ideas. We need to take responsibility for our actions and for other people.

The root of the word achrayut is achar which means “other”. We have a responsibility not only to do our part, but also to care for each other. When we live these values we root out entitlement and we extend ourselves beyond our own ego. Only in this way are we able to work cooperatively and productively with others.

Optimism. There is a rabbinic value - hakarat ha'tov - which means "recognizing the good." The idea is that there is already good in our life, but it is up to us to uncover it. This is why, when something apparently "good" happens to us, we offer the blessing, Gam zu l'tovah, which means, "And that is also for the good." And also if something "bad" happens to us, Gam zu l'tovah, "And that is also for the good." There is no more optimistic outlook than this, the Jewish belief that no matter what happens we have the ability to turn it into something positive. In every challenge is an opportunity to advance our lives.

A good sense of humor. There is a theory that the reason humor is such a part of Judaism is because we have suffered so much oppression that laughing is the only thing we can do to stay afloat. It is survival by levity. Sigmund Freud said that humor is a means of circumventing civilization’s obstacles by making our enemy small, inferior, despicable or comic. The holiday of Purim is a perfect example of this. We dress up and parade around to show how absurd our oppressor was. We even made his hat into a cookie that we joyfully eat. It is a skill to be able to take life’s disappointments and turn them into laughable moments of wry recognition and honest reflection. It is one not easily learned, but one that can help us put situations into perspective and better live with them.

Being flexible and having a positive reaction to setbacks. The story of the Jewish people is one of disastrous defeats and miraculous triumphs, one of change and reinvention, one of perseverance in the face of great odds. Knowing our story should give us all strength and a sense of determination. According to a recent article by Bruce Feiler, recognizing and understanding one's story, helps that person to feel grounded and at the same time a part of something bigger than themselves. The children who do the best are the ones who know their family’s story. They know the struggles their family overcame. They have heard about the hardship, the failed business, the sickness, the tumultuous relationships. They also know the success, the stories of travel and celebration. They see that through it all their family has remained together, they have figured out how to survive! In this way they have a strong “intergenerational self.” They know they belong to something bigger than themselves and this it will survive even in the face of hardships. They have an identity, rooted in their past, that guides them. The Jewish story can do that for each one of us.

You may be thinking, Rabbi Gertman, this is all well and good, but we still need to work and our children still need to go to college. You are correct, there is a reality and we cannot ignore it, but that is a message you are hearing everywhere. And it has come at the expense of teaching our children and reminding ourselves that we must also be menches, upstanding, respectful people. Having an MBA from Harvard is meaningless if we don't have the moral character to conduct our lives properly. We need to raise children who understand they are a part of a bigger story, who give back to the community, and who treat each person with dignity and respect. The Talmud tells us that parents must teach their children to swim. They must teach their children not only the proper stroke, not only the skills to move forward, but also the correct way to breath, the way to take in air. We know how to successfully move forward, but we do not know how to nourishes ourselves and nurture relationships as we do this. We need to take in the values that nourish our souls and incorporate them into our lives. As these are the ones what will sustain us and our children as we move forward. These are the tools that help us succeed in teams and relationships. This is how we learn to accept defeats with grace and dignity. It is the breath that gives us the courage to explore the world and determine who we are. It is the ability to climb the corporate ladder with integrity and virtue. Our world will not end if we have less Ivy League graduates, but we will have serious problems if we forget how to treat each other, if we stop seeing each other as created btzelem eloheim, as created in the image of God.

Therefore I hope and pray that as we enter the New Year we all ask ourselves: are we raising citizens of the world? Are we living a life of values and intention or are we filling our time with meaningless tasks in order to satiate an inner emptiness? The holidays bring us face to face with these questions. Let us hope that we have the strength, the courage, the wisdom and the will to emerge from these days with a renewed sense of our goals and our purpose in the world.

Erev Rosh HaShanah: Sanctuary Service

Sermon by Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman
2013/5774

There is no text for this sermon. Please enjoy the video of Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman on Erev Rosh HaShanah, 2013/5774.

Erev Rosh HaShanah: A Rabbi With No Voice

Sermon by Rabbi Jennifer Hartman
2013/5774

About three weeks ago I lost my ability to talk. The first tickles of discomfort began on a Wednesday and by Friday my voice was completely gone. It was less than three weeks before Rosh Hashanah. I needed my voice for the High Holidays. I made an emergency appointment with an ENT. I went in and they had me try to speak and make lots of funny sounds. They did a scope of my vocal cords and had me make more silly sounds. Finally they came to a conclusion. My vocal cords were red and inflamed, most likely the side effect of a cold. There was no infection, no real irregularity. So, what could I do, I asked? How could I fix this? Drink lots of liquids, get plenty of rest, gargle with salt water, try not to cough, and speak as little as possible. Umm, WHAT??? Hello, do you know what I do? I am a rabbi, I speak for a living. I have services tonight and tomorrow. “Not possible” they said. You are going to need to find someone to cover for you. They did not put me on complete vocal rest, but directed me to “say only what is important”.

Say only the words that are important. What an interesting concept to think about. Research says that children in professional homes hear 2,100 words an hour. An hour! That is a lot of talking. No wonder Judaism tells us many times and in many different ways that we need to be careful with what we say. We know that Judaism speaks against lashon hara, having an evil tongue. The Psalms teach us to guard our tongue from evil and our lips from speaking lies. Many Torah portions speak about oaths. We are told, in detail, how to make oaths in order to guarantee it is fulfilled. The Torah teaches that: “An oath must be phrased so as to indicate that swearing is intended; there is no punishment unless a Name or attribute of G-d is mentioned. It must be expressed orally and the speaker's intent must agree with what is said”. We are also forbidden to swear falsely or in vain. What you say, and the way in which you say it, is extremely important.

Of course! There is nothing new here. We have heard professionals tell us that when fighting one should never be accusatory, but instead use “I feel....” We have all been reprimanded for gossiping or idle chatter. And how many times were you told as a child: if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all? We know these lessons and can repeat them back, but as with all lessons it is never completely clear how deep they make it into our psyche. I knew all of these things, but still the idea of saying only what was important was new to me. What do I say? What do I avoid saying? Most importantly when are the times during the day when I really need to speak? I knew I had to avoid speaking at all other times.

It turns out that not only do I spend much of the day talking, I also enjoy speaking. I like hearing what people have to say and contributing to the conversation. I like asking questions in order to uncover other’s stories. I enjoy sharing my experiences. Yet, and this is difficult for a Rabbi to admit, not all of my words are spoken in the context of an enriching personal interaction. I also talk when I am bored, contribute when there is really nothing to add, make sarcastic comments and tell stories about others that are not mine to tell. From my experience I learned that email and texting is not the same as talking to someone. No matter how many emoticons you use, tone of voice does not come through in text, yet in many contexts we have come to treat these exchanges the same way as a voice conversation. We have trained ourselves to think that it is the same thing. In emails we express and explain the emotions that are behind our words. We know that the reader is guessing our expression and our mood, so we are not shy about being explicit.

In text on the other hand, maybe because it is on our phones, we think that the other person will understand our tone of voice, our intention. I do not usually have entire conversations over text. Mostly I use texting for logistics or checking in - what time are we meeting at the restaurant, are you getting snacks for the students, did everything go smoothly at the event? If a conversation needs to take place, then I pick up the phone. During the time that I could not speak almost all of my conversations were over text. Let me tell you, I got into trouble. I had more misunderstandings with people I care about and who know me well, then I had ever had before. It was such a relief when I was finally able to make phone calls!

But it is not just that texting can lead to miscommunication, it is also that hearing another's voice is intimate. I never thought about it before, but our voices are a part of who we are. It is a part of what defines us in the hearts and minds of others. I had not thought about missing the sound of one’s voice. It is not just the words that we say that are important, the voice that says them is also important, the tones and the expressions, the deep masculinity or the high pitched soprano voice. All of these things are part of what bind us to others. When I could speak again, those close to me told me how much they had missed hearing my voice.

I learned that much of what I say is unnecessary. My words are not always productive, helpful, or kind. Curt comments, complaints, biting remarks and jokes were all the first things that I stopped saying. They are not only unimportant; they are futile and sometimes painful. My days of restricted speech made me think much about my grandfather. He is a man of few words, but when he speaks, everyone listens. We know his words are meaningful and worth listening to. When my family gathers together, thirty or more of us, you can barely get a word in edgewise. However, when my grandfather begins to motion that he wants to contribute to the conversation, people start yelling, “shhh Grandpa is going to talk”. It is probably the only thing that can get all of us to settle down.

What if all of our words were so important to hear? What if all of us were able to avoid saying what is hurtful or sarcastic, what we know will have the proverbial effect of punching another in the stomach. One author writes a painful, but true statement about our use of words. “There exists, for everyone, a sentence - a series of words - that has the power to destroy us. Another sentence exists, another series of words that could heal us. If we are lucky we will get the second, but we can be certain of getting the first”[1]. The hardest part about this is that too often, the people who destroy us with words are the ones who we are closest to, the ones who know us the best and are supposed to love us. Sometimes when we speak we are not trying to enhance or enrich someone’s life, nor are we trying to resolve an argument or dispute, all we are trying to do is hurt the other person. These are the words that would be best left unsaid. Words are powerful. They help us to connect with people. They convey our state of mind and help us to uncover what others are thinking and feeling. They show our humanity and help us to recognize that in others. When we have a pleasant interaction with the barista at the coffee shop, when we say thank you to the cashier at the store, when we ask how another’s day is going we show that we care about them and that we are aware of the thoughts and feelings of others. Even when we use our words to have difficult or uncomfortable conversations, or when we use them to fight for something in which we believe, we are using them for good, to bring change to our world and better our society. We are using them to improve and strengthen our relationship. We are using them with positive intentions and heartfelt conviction.

I am a rabbi, I speak and use words for a living, and this experience has made me reevaluate how I use them. I had to do this for almost two weeks. I had to consider the benefit of my words versus the cost to my health before I spoke. I needed to weigh the relevance of any comment I was going to make to determine if it would be productive, helpful, useful. Would my speaking add to the conversation? Would it give new meaning or insight? Would it help solve a problem? Would it brighten someone’s day? Would it bring healing? If the answer was no to these questions then I would remain silent. After all, I could only say what I considered to be truly meaningful.

I hope that I will be able to carry these lessons into the New Year. I pray that I will choose my words wisely and continue to say only what will positively impact another’s life. May we all come to understand that “Words... are innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if we look after them we can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they are used improperly they are powerful enough to start wars. Words deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can bring change to people and the world.”[2] May we remember this as we head into the New Year.

[1] Philip K. Dick, VALIS 

[2] Tom Stoppard, The Real Thing: A Play