This summer, when Philadelphia welcomed the Dear Evan Hansen tour, I was struck by the enduring human question the musical poses: How can we feel understood? The show, about a lonely teen-aged boy with social anxiety who feels unnoticed puts it this way: “Have you ever felt like you could disappear? There’s a place where we don’t have to feel unknown,” Evan Hansen sings.

My sense is that Evan speaks not only for those who struggle with mental health, but for everyone. The plague of loneliness, the potential for invisibility, I am convinced: these bind us. The distance between us, amplified in the thick of the pandemic isolation has not magically lifted and candidly, was already with us all along. Struck by the ways many of us in the congregation and in the world are feeling separate, I feel compelled to explore what it is that widens or narrows the distance… And on this Kol Nidre, this night of promises, to rededicate ourselves to this place where we yearn for our souls to be known.

Our Torah tells the story of Hagar, a slave of low status and little agency. A surrogate for Abraham and Sarah, once pregnant Hagar is afflicted by them and flees to the wilderness. There, Hagar cries out to God, by the name: “God Who Sees / El Roi.” And that spot where Hagar stands is called: Beer Lachai Roi / A place of being seen. (Of course, it is not about technical sight but about perceiving another’s truth). Bound up in her name for God, El Roi, is both her desperate longing to be seen by God, and, her faith in God. This woman who is potentially overlooked, Hagar, discovers a God who sees, who does not overlook. When Hagar’s heart is cracked open, she understands not only who God is, but who we ought to be. For bound up in our lives is our longing to be seen, and our faith that it is possible…possible to share something of our essence…possible to realize our presence matters. It is Hagar, this marginalized non-Israelite woman, who teaches us, to seek out a space where we can be known.

Here, in our congregation, we, emulating God, witness each other’s truths. Here, knowing nothing, no one, ever stays the same, we nurture and challenge each other’s growth, as we stretch into new phases of our journeys—our journeys of spirituality, Torah learning, justice work, of participation in congregation life, of profound connections.
To know each other is godly, holy. To witness each other makes this our Beer Lachai Roi / a place of being seen.

This year, our RS Widows Connection Group published a book, called: Struggling Well…Thanks for Asking: Widows Sharing Their Stories to Help Comfort & Embrace Your Journey. I learn so much from the ways they witness each other as they stretch into new experiences. One author writes about feeling like a stranger in settings where she previously felt at home: “Newly bereaved, dining out with friends, I endured a mortifying discussion, by a trio of husbands, who debated how to split 4 credit cards 7 ways. I learned to bring cash.” Another author writes of isolation and hope: “I was lost. [Although] my children are wonderful and… my friends always include me, I felt like overnight, I went from a strong, competent woman to a shell of a person. I joined a widows group at the synagogue. How wonderful to be surrounded by women who understood how I felt without explanation…to find a group of compassionate, strong, understanding women who became my friends. These women gave me the strength to grieve, to take one day at a time, to undergo major surgery alone, to face my life.” Widowhood often invisible, in this bond, they are profoundly seen.

Hagar, from our Torah, teaches us to look out for the potentially overlooked. There can be a pressure in our society, to reveal only what fits into, a neat box of accepted norms. Fit well enough, and you are celebrated. Yet so many of us carry truths, that do not fit. Indeed I think the box contains only a few people. But, when left out of it, how easy it is to waste our energy ensuring, no one finds out we do not fit. Keeping those real parts of us secret, builds a wall, a closet, a barrier of fear that separates us one from another.

In our congregational striving to be that place where you don’t have to be unknown, where we do not overlook…We seek to explicitly see people, who might feel separated from community. That’s why our lobby welcome banner does not just say: all are welcome. Thanks to our DEI –our Diversity/Equity/Inclusion group, called EID, in Hebrew meaning witness, the banner reads:

Whether you are…

Black, brown, white, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, or multi-racial,
Queer, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning, or straight,
Three days old, 30 years old, 103 years old,
Single, married, with or without kids, divorced, widowed, or partnered,Living in Philadelphia, the suburbs, or elsewhere,
Struggling with addiction,
gainfully employed,
Disabled, able-bodied, or a person of differing abilities,
Neurodiverse or neurotypical,
New to Judaism or a lifelong member,
Seeking your path… You belong here at Rodeph Shalom,
Where equity, inclusion, and diversity are congregational values.

This collection, developing as we continue to learn, names the very identities and experiences of those who potentially feel left out, because of the stigma they already face in our society, or the challenge their circumstance already brings, that the distance of stigma, can just make all the more challenging. Anyone’s marginalized identity, can be treated as unseen.

I’ve experienced myself, and listened to many of you, about the distance fueled by stigma, the barriers to witness, we experience around: mental illness, gender expansiveness, infertility, body size, job loss, abortion, divorce. We draw closer to each other, when we witness one another’s truth. This wisdom lies right at the core of our tradition—It’s the very Torah.

The story is told of a preschool class – picture our Buerger Early Learning Center– that is on a tour of the sanctuary but runs out of time before they can learn about the bimah. On their way back to class, their teacher asks the preschoolers: When they return for part 2 of the sanctuary tour, what do they think they will see, when the doors of the ark open? A lively discussion among the children ensues. One student guesses: a big closet of candy. Another student – perhaps a budding cynic — wonders if the ark will be empty. Perhaps coming closest to the answer, the 3rd student guesses that when the rabbi opens the ark, there will be a big mirror. Yes! In Torah we see ourselves, and we see each other. At the center of our community, is the source that helps us all be known.

Jews who have become B’nai Mitzvah, will refer to the Torah portion they chanted as “my Torah portion.” Indeed, tradition teaches: we each have a letter of the Torah that is our own. One part of Torah precisely reflects you–in Sarah’s laughter, your laughter; in Rachel’s heartbreak, your heartbreak; in Moses’s humility, your humility; in Miriam’s wounds, your wounds; in Isaiah’s justice, your justice; your courage, your perseverance, your memories, your ancestors, your aspirations. Every letter of the Torah is indispensable; every soul of infinite value. As one missing letter from Torah, renders a scroll unfit, one missing soul, makes us incomplete as a community. We need each other for this story, this community, to be whole.

Earlier tonight the doors of the ark opened, and we lingered on the scrolls. Just after our High Holy Days, on Simchat Torah when we complete the reading of Torah and then start from Genesis once again, we will dance with the Sifrei Torah and unscroll them to see the text in its entirety, the mirror in its fullness… Cantor Hyman, ensuring we hold it up wearing special gloves, to protect the precious parchment, of these scrolls we inherit from past generations…Rabbi Freedman walking beside the scroll into a circle, and at each portion, teaching us what happens at that point in the scroll–at least a summary, in his 5-minute whole-Torah review–inspiring us to become more intimately aware of the stories of our scrolls, and the stories in our scrolls, each other’s letters and each other’s stories…for every one of your letters, your stories, is needed, cherished in our community.

On this holy day, it fills my soul to be present, with the fullness of our congregation. Still yet, our Torah is not complete for we are not complete. For decades population studies have revealed a great number of Jews and seekers who are curious or even passionate about Jewish life, yet absent from the Jewish community. Tomorrow morning we will read from Torah: “You stand here this day, Atem Nitzavim, all of you, in the presence of the Eternal your God, to enter into the covenant…and not with you alone do I make this covenant, but with each of you who stands here among us this day, and with each one who is not here among us this day.” Although some Jewish institutions lament the outward drift of affiliation the leaders of our Reform Movement suggest instead that we see our demographic reality for what it has the potential to be: a time of transition during which the next phase of sacred Jewish congregational living, unfolds. On the cusp of what is next for the Jewish community, it is time for our congregation to broaden our gaze, that we may more deeply understand those outside our walls… to reach out— to convene Philadelphia-wide conversations, about our lives and what matters to us most, that others may sense the community is a Beer Lachai Roi/a place where we are seen…Not so that we can welcome them into what we have created, but so that we can listen to their truths, learn new ways people can be in relationship with the Jewish community, that they can help shape a Jewish future for us all.

If Rodeph Shalom is the center of Jewish life in Philadelphia, we take on that mantle not as an award but as a responsibility–a responsibility to our congregation and also a responsibility to nothing less than the future of the Jewish People.

For on Yom Kippur, in the presence of the Eternal our God we enter into the covenant. And God makes this covenant not with us alone, but with each of us here today and each one who is not here today. We long to ensure the covenant embraces us all. When Hagar’s heart is cracked open, she understands not only who God is, but who we ought to be. It is this marginalized woman, who teaches the Jewish People the profound truth, about being known to one another. On this Kol Nidre, this night of promises, may we renew our dedication in our return to this place where we yearn for our souls to be known.

May we cherish this sacred community, this Beer Lachai Roi / A place of being seen.

A few years ago we took our Rodeph Shalom teens to Israel over winter break. One sunny Monday morning, as we were touring the Galilee, we saw people going about their day as normal – heading to school or the office, sitting in cafes, catching up with friends. As the day went on, our tour guide announced over the bus speakers, “Oh, by the way, everyone, Merry Christmas!” We all started laughing; we had no idea it was Christmas.

In Israel, Christmas is not a public, national holiday. For many of our teens, this was the first time in their lives that they were a part of the religious majority of a country. It was so striking, it was comedic. And at that moment, our students understood what it means to be a religious minority, a Jew, living in Christian majority America. 

On June 24 of this year, Roe v. Wade was overturned, creating a devastating reality to so many people in this country who no longer have the freedom of reproductive choice. The overturning of Roe was another nail in the coffin to the freedom of religion and the separation of church and state guaranteed by our Constitution. This is a warning sign of the dangerous rise of white Christian nationalism.

I want to be clear, I have no problem with Christianity. Some of my best friends are Christian; (really) like Bishop Dwayne Royster, who recently told me and a group of multi-faith leaders, “White Christian nationalism is not Christianity – It is idolatry!” 

White Christian nationalism is the belief that America is – and must remain – a Christian nation founded for its white Christian inhabitants, and that our laws and policies must reflect this premise. White Christian nationalists oppose equality for people of color, women, the LGBTQ community, and our Jewish community, along with other religious minorities. White Christian nationalism is anti-American and anti-democratic. 

Christians are free to practice their religion, just like us, just like any other religious community. White Christian nationalists seek to force those Christian beliefs on others.

This morning we read from Isaiah, “Do not hold back, lift up your voice like the shofar!” The shofar is loud. The shofar is unapologetic. The shofar isn’t a melodic instrument. The shofar is discordant and jarring. It’s time to lift up our voices like the shofar.

Because without the federal protections of Roe, 26 states are going to ban abortion. It’s already illegal in 12. Abortion bans impose significant hurdles to obtaining medical care, especially for the most vulnerable in our society – minorities, immigrants, the LGBTQ community, and low-income families.

The Torah tells us to protect the widow, the orphan, and the stranger – the most vulnerable in biblical society. Who are the vulnerable in our society today? How can we protect them? The first amendment is meant to protect the minority, the vulnerable, and white Christian nationalists are using it to protect the majority. This is not ok and it’s time to lift up our voice like the shofar!

This past year, the Supreme Court also ruled in favor of allowing prayer in school. What’s the big deal, you might ask? Buddhist prayer, Sikh prayer, any prayer is allowed – it’s equal, right? No! Allowing prayer in public school favors the majority religion and unfairly targets minority students. My wife grew up in Texas and was the only Jewish student at her public high school. She sat through school wide assemblies with students and teachers kneeling in Christian prayer. She was ostracized; she felt othered. Prayer does not belong in schools. It’s time to lift up our voice like the shofar!

Religious freedom is crucial to our Jewish community. The prophet Micah, in looking to the messianic age, writes:

And every person shall sit under their vine or fig tree with no one to disturb them.

And all people will walk, each in the names of their God,

And we will walk in the name of Adonai, our God.

We will walk in the name of our God, and everyone else can walk in the name of their God. We are free to practice our religion and others to practice theirs. When we impose religion on others, we are walking a dangerous path. 

Civil rights litigator Roberta Kaplan writes, “The historical record is unambiguous; it has never gone well for us in the past when the government has tried to assert domination by the majority faith.” From the Spanish Inquisition to present day Iran, living as a Jew, a religious minority, in a country that has sought to impose the majority religion, has had dire and deadly consequences. Mother Emmanuel, Tree of Life, Charlottesville, El Paso, Buffalo… all acts of domestic terror, fueled by white Christian nationalist thinking. 

White Christian nationalists want power at any cost. For over forty years, they have been undermining our democracy by systematically disenfranchising voters through gerrymandering and unnecessarily cumbersome voting restrictions. According to a recent poll, the 20 percent of white Americans who strongly embrace Christian nationalism – about 30 million adults – are more likely to believe that we make it “too easy to vote” in the U.S.

It’s time to lift up our voice like the shofar!

As Jews, and as Americans, let’s stand up for democracy. Stand up for the voice of the vulnerable. Ensure their voice is not silenced.

In our Vidui, our communal confessional, we just read:

Al cheit shechatanu l’fanecha…
Through my failure to take time to educate myself about complex social problems
Through my failure to do my part as an active citizen and make my voice heard
Through resigning myself to the way things are, rather than working for change
For these failures of judgment and will, God of forgiveness, forgive us, pardon us, lead us to atonement. 

Don’t just say the words. T’shuvah requires action. t’shuvah needs follow through; t’shuvah is a commitment to change. 

“Lift up your voice like the shofar!” Or, to quote Bishop Royster, “we need to tell a different story about faith in Pennsylvania!”

Here’s the story I want to tell. The story of a diverse religious group, representing all aspects of our society, dedicated to protecting the vulnerable. POWER Interfaith, a network of over 50 congregations in our state, is going on a “Get Out the Vote!” bus tour. We’re calling it the “Freedom Express.” This tour is about restoring faith in democracy, helping people imagine a Pennsylvania where we all thrive, and calling out the evils of white Christian nationalism.  The tour is kicking off at Independence Hall on Oct 18th at 10am, I’ll be there and I want to see all of you there as well.

“Do not hold back, lift up your voice like the shofar!”

We are also working with RAC-PA, the Pennsylvania branch of the Religious Action Center, our Reform movement’s social justice arm. With our partners at RAC, we’ve already tackled gerrymandering and fair districting after the 2020 census. Now, we are joining together once again to increase voter turnout. Congregations in Lancaster, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Erie, Altoona, and across the state are working together to engage voters. White Christian nationalists don’t want us to vote. They don’t want people of color to vote. They don’t want the LBGTQ community to vote. They don’t want immigrants to vote. 

We’re not going to stand for that. Because we know that every citizen deserves to have their voice heard. 

“Do not hold back, lift up your voice like the shofar!”

On your way out of the sanctuary today, you will see fellow congregants handing out postcards in the lobby. Take a pack of five postcards with five addresses for you to handwrite. Studies have shown that a handwritten postcard is much more likely to get the attention of a potential voter than a form letter or phone call. Write a compelling non-partisan message reminding fellow Pennsylvanians about the importance of voting. The cards even have a stamp already on them. (Thank you to our Berkman Mercaz Limud Bamidbar teens for your help last Sunday.) 

“Lift up your voice, like the shofar,” and empower others to lift up their voices. 

If you’re joining us online or we run out of postcards, we have another opportunity. Join congregants for a virtual phone banking event on Thursday, October 13th from 5:30pm to 8:00 p.m to call Pennsylvanians not registered to vote. You can find all the information to register on our website or in our weekly email. “Do not hold back, lift up your voice like the shofar!” implored Isaiah. Do not hold back – and encourage others to lift up their voices too. 

The work is hard and it’s going to take all of us. But I have hope. I truly believe if we each do our part, if we each use our voice, we can make a difference. Everytime I put on my tallis, I am reminded of the words of Rabbi Tarfon, “Lo alecha hamlacha ligmor… It is not up to you to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” I can’t do it alone, you can’t do it alone, but if each of us does our part, if each of us lifts our voice, we can do it.

It can be overwhelming and daunting. The prophet Jonah tried to run from his calling. But National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, reminds us in her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” that we need not run, if we bravely face the darkness together, we can find the light, we can find justice:

When day comes, we ask ourselves:
Where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.
We braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,
and the norms and notions of what “just is”
isn’t always justice.
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken, but simply
unfinished.

It is not up to you to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it. It’s time to tell a new story, a different faith narrative; to redefine what it means to be religious in this country; inclusive, loving, and protecting the most vulnerable among us.

Be loud. Speak out. “Do not hold back, lift up your voice like the shofar!”

When I handed down my decades-old ripped blue-jeans to my teen-aged daughter and I told her: they were so old that they used to be my fancy jeans, she asked, how that could be so–why would I have bought ripped blue-jeans, as my fancy jeans. “Well, honey, they were not ripped when I bought them… only recently did people start to purchase jeans, with holes already torn!

A congregant recently told me about her clothing mending business called Love My Schmatte. A part of the visible mending movement, there’s no subtle, same-colored stitching.  Stitching and patching are meant to attract attention.  

With an intent to discourage people from discarding clothing and producing textile pollution, visible mending demonstrates values-driven choices and makes mending and re-use a sustainable fashion look.  Visible mending is a walking example, of exposed imperfection and repair.

In these Ten Days of Repentance, repair/tshuvah in our relationship with God, can happen only after we have made things right in our relationships with other people. We begin with confession—(and of course, this is Judaism so we are not confessing to an intermediary). We confess to the people we have harmed so they know, we own our actions. On Yom Kippur we will cry out to God: We have stumbled and strayed; anachnu chatanu / we have done wrong.  In our soul-searching before we reach Yom Kippur, we turn to each other to say: I have done wrong. 

According to the Jewish thinker Maimonides, it is praiseworthy to confess, as publicly as we sinned. Harm an individual one-on-one? Confess to that individual privately.  Inflict harm on someone at a staff meeting in the presence of co-workers? Confess to that entire staff.  Cause harm in an institution, in a nation? Confess to all witnesses, perhaps, even to the world.  Maimonides’ teaching of Confession – so honest, so exposed – is the opposite of covering up, or of subtle, same-colored stitching. 

Expanding on Maimonides’ message about confession, in her book, On Repentance & Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg illustrates the power of a victim-centric approach—that is, a focus on the feelings, needs, and healing of the victim.  With Confession, by owning the harm, the wrong-doer lifts a portion of the burden, off the victim. She teaches: “Resistance to [confession] is a manipulative way of denying reality-which piles more harm on top of the original offense.”  

Of all the steps of tshuvah, I think Confession is the most counter-cultural.  In a society that favors cover-ups more than honesty, liability protection over accountability, and filtered presentation over reality… it’s no wonder that, truths that can rock the boat, are scarier than the actual holes in the boat.  When the first response to harm we have caused is: how can I make sure no one finds out, rather than: how can I make sure everyone who witnessed, knows my behavior was unacceptable, we are shaped by a culture of fear, rather than accountability.

Perhaps, confession is not only counter-cultural in our own time.  There is a story of a woman and a priest in the ancient days of the Tanakh/Hebrew Bible, that is traditionally read on Rosh Hashanah. This woman Hannah, deeply distressed in her infertility struggle, visits a Temple.  Overcome by despair, yet holding onto hope, she quietly prays to God.  Elie the priest, seeing Hannah’s lips move, but hearing no sound, accuses her of public drunkenness, and scolds her to sober up.  Hannah explains to Elie that in her anguish, she has been pouring her heart out to God. When Elie the priest realizes he was wrong, he responds: Then go in peace and may God grant you your prayers. Hannah accepts his blessings. Elie has extended himself with a kind word, but notice: he does not outright admit his offense or commit to doing better the next time he has the opportunity to give someone the benefit of the doubt. And in their unequal power balance, she does not call him out on that, but simply accepts that he has ceased to scold her, and that he offers kindness–his safe tshuvah. 

Could Hannah be thinking: “Well, is it me or did he just harshly judge and scold me, and then not acknowledge his unfair assumption?  Did that just happen? Or did I make it into something bigger in my mind than it actually was?”

Denying her the validation that confession brings, even with his kindness, he offers a quiet pay-off, in his blessing.  Hiding the truth of his wrongdoing, protecting himself from emotional exposure, and taking the safe route, the priest Elie lets himself off the hook.

A cautionary tale- to any of us tempted to avoid, facing hard truths about ourselves. What would it mean to learn from Elie’s shame, and in our shameful moments when we have harmed others, to embrace teshuvah with the first step of Confession, in a way that is less safe, less comfortable, less minimizing of the harm, more centering of the victim’s feelings…to face our fears about how harmful we can be, and about the consequences that can result? 

To take responsibility. To say: I have done wrong.

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg tells the story of how the Hollywood producer of the television show, Community demonstrated, and his victim confirmed, the power of confession.  After earlier vague apologies on his podcast, about being a bad boss, producer Dan Harman unequivocally and publicly confessed his sexual harassment of a woman in his writer’s room.  To that same podcast audience, Dan Harman later said of the sexual harassment: “I let myself keep doing it, and it’s not as if this person didn’t repeatedly communicate to me, that was I was [causing harm]. I just didn’t hear it, because it didn’t profit me to hear it.” He confessed, that following her rebuff, he treated her cruelly–did things he says he never would have done, had she been male.  After Harman’s public confession, the woman whom he had harassed, responded that she felt validated for her own experience and suffering.  After having endured the harassment, the loss of a potential mentor, the doubts about what happened, and about whether she really had talent, it gave her some relief; it helped. This producer rejected safe confession, and leaned into riskier truthful confession. He opened himself up to litigation and risked his reputation.  Focusing on the needs of the person he harmed, choosing her wellbeing over his own comfort, he did not attempt to hide his actions, or avoid consequences. With a reach as public as his reputation, the confession announced: he owned his wrongs; he set the record straight and held himself to account, offering a model for our own tshuvah, to be less safe and more honest. 

Amends and changed behavior are critical, and how powerful–hard, countercultural, but powerful– are those initial words: “I was wrong.”

The power of confession is real. This summer Marta Kauffman made a generous donation to Brandeis University, establishing an endowed professorship in its African and African American Studies Department.  The impact lies not only in the donation, but also in the public confession: Kauffman has been outspoken with her regrets, about the lack of diversity, both in front of and behind the camera, on her hit television show, Friends. Reflecting on the time following the murder of George Floyd, Kauffman speaks of more deeply understanding systemic racism and examining the ways she participated. She publicly says: “I knew I needed to course-correct. I’ve learned a lot…Admitting and accepting guilt is not easy.  It’s painful looking in the mirror. I’m embarrassed that I didn’t know better, 25 years ago.” With a reach as public as her reputation, the confession announced: she owned her wrongs, offering a model for our own tshuvah. Amends and changed behavior are critical, and how powerful–hard, countercultural, but powerful– are those initial words: “I was wrong.”

Or, we were wrong. In a speech commemorating the 40^th anniversary of the end of World War II, then German president Richard von Weizsacker, offered what was essentially a confession:  “Who could remain unsuspecting after the burning of the synagogues, the plundering, the deprivation of rights, the ceaseless violation of human dignity?  Whoever opened their eyes could not fail to notice that Jews were being deported.  But… there were many ways of shunning responsibility, keeping mum… All of us, whether guilty or not, are liable for it. … If we remember that disabled persons were put to death in the Third Reich, we will see care of people with mental illness as our own responsibility. If we remember how people persecuted on grounds of race, religion and politics and threatened with certain death, often stood before the closed borders of other countries, we shall not close the door today on those who are persecuted.”

Forgiveness of the Nazis, I do not believe is possible; but validating the experience of the Holocaust survivors—this means something.

Every human being, every institution, and every nation inflicts harm.  The question is, when we do, will we acknowledge with confession, bear responsibility, and engage in tshuvah?  This year, leaders of our national Reform Jewish Movement engaged in a painful process of reckoning, conducting independent investigations of past misconduct.  Sharing publicly their devastating reports, they confessed a history of abuse of power, (which I addressed earlier this year). In keeping with Maimonides’ standard, the Reform leaders’ confessions were as or more public than the sins, messaging to the entire impacted community that this behavior is a violation of our values and profoundly wrong. I do not believe the reports reveal a problem, particular to the Reform Movement; they reveal a truth of abuse of power in our society, our communities, Jewish and not, religious and not.   Amends and transformation are critical, and how powerful–hard, countercultural, but powerful– are those initial words: “We were wrong.”

Whether we have sinned publicly, or simply, privately failed a friend, in our institutions, our boardrooms, our kitchen tables, from justice work to our most intimate relationships…We all need to hold up a mirror, with scrutiny to ask: when was my behavior harmful, when was I a bystander to harmful behavior, in what ways do I benefit from harmful behavior, and how do I need to take responsibility. This sacred Jewish time compels us: to present not only our filtered selves, but our honest selves, to find the courage to expose the vulnerability of imperfection. All walking examples of brokenness, with soul-searching work, we can also be walking examples of repair. 

This morning in the Unetane Tokef we spoke these words to God: You urge us to return from our ways and live.  In these holy days, striving for repair and growth, we do the painstaking work, to return from our ways and live…That we may open the prayerbook on Yom Kippur and read:

God, You teach us the true purpose of confession:
to turn our hands into instruments of good.
Receive us, as You promised,
in the fullness of our heartfelt tshuvah.

My kids love to play pretend. Nora has a stuffed fox, named of course, Foxy. The other day, Nora declared “Today is Foxy’s birthday.” In fact, most days, it’s Foxy’s birthday. So there we were, making a birthday cake out of wooden blocks (as you do) and I pretended to take a big bite out of my piece when Nora suddenly stopped me and said, “Daddy, you can’t eat that! It’s not real.”

As children (and as adults), we play pretend, we make-believe, and to a certain degree, immerse ourselves in our fiction, even though, at the end of the day, we know it’s not ‘real’. We know we can’t actually eat the wooden block cake, but we suspend disbelief for a moment, and suddenly, that wooden block is a real piece of cake.

Well, in addition to Foxy’s birthday, today is the birthday of the world! On Rosh Hashanah we recite the piyyut, (the medieval poem) Hayom Harat Olam, which declares, “This is the day of the world’s birth. This day all creatures stand before You.” Tomorrow morning we will suspend disbelief for a moment and pretend that God created the earth 5,783 years ago on this exact day and that we stand in judgment before that omnipotent Creator. 

Today is the birthday of the world, but it’s not really. From the sages of the Talmud to the medieval commentators like Maimonides, Jews have not taken the Creation story as literal history. 

And yet, we re-read these stories every year. We recite the narratives that they might become our own. We pass them on through the generations. Philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein writes in a commentary in “The New American Haggadah”:

“Stories are easily dismissible as distractions, the make-believe we craved as children… But tonight we are asked to take this faculty of the mind, so beloved by children and novelists, extremely seriously. All the adults who have outgrown story time are to be tutored tonight, with the physical props meant to quicken our pretending, and the ways of the child to guide us. Like the Passover seder, tonight (and through this High Holy Day season) we are all asked to use our imaginations and play a little bit of make-believe.” 

According to the 2020 Pew Research Center’s study, about 40% of Jewish Americans describe themselves as atheist or agnostic; with their affiliation to Judaism focusing on cultural or ethical ties rather than a belief in God. And that number is even higher among Reform Jews.

And yet, all of us are here to immerse in the narrative that God created the heavens and earth. To imagine ourselves standing before God in judgment. Are we really judged by God? Did God really create the world? Is it real? Is it fake? Maybe that binary is not the most helpful way of looking at these ideas.

Jennifer Powell, a librarian in Tuscaloosa, AL recently shared on social media: “I have made it my mission to unteach children that ‘fiction is fake.’ Here are my new definitions I started teaching today: 

Nonfiction = learning through information. 

Fiction = learning through imagination.”

So then the question becomes less about what is real or fake and more of, what can we learn from pretending? How can we be inspired by playing make-believe? How can we be moved by imagining that, Hayom Harat Olam, “This is the day of the world’s birth. This day all creatures stand before You.”

As a former parent in our Buerger Early Learning Center, I loved receiving articles and resources from our center director Leah Briggin and our director of Judaic content, Andi Miller. One article was about the benefits of make-believe for our children and noted three ways pretend play nurtures a child’s development. It helps them:

• Work out confusing and scary life issues: Have you ever witnessed children pretending to visit the doctor? One child dutifully holds the mock stethoscope as the others line up for a check-up. More often than not someone gets ‘shots’. This is a child’s way of exploring an experience that is common and sometimes confusing or scary

• Imagine what does not yet exist: Think about the kid who creates a shrinkinator, out of blocks. Maybe one day, because of that imagination, that children will be an engineer who actually works on currently non-existent microcomputing technology. 

• Cultivate social intelligence: Pretend play requires communication and social skills. Through pretend play, children learn to read social cues, take turns, and ultimately create community.

These concepts are not limited to children. As adults, we too can gain the same insight from playing make-believe. And this has been proven scientifically. Our brains are wonderous organs that we are still just beginning to understand. Our imagination can have profound real world effects on our lives. 

Have you heard of phantom limb syndrome? It is a condition in which patients experience sensations, often extremely painful, in a limb that does not exist. It is very common in amputees, and typically is a chronic condition, often resistant to treatment. In one type of phantom limb syndrome, a patient’s phantom hand is clenched so tightly that the phantom fingers and phantom fingernails inflict unbearable pain upon the phantom palm. Many of these patients can’t escape the pain because their phantom fists are paralyzed in this eye-watering clench. Although the phantom hand is not actually ‘really’ there, the pain is very much real. 

A brilliant researcher, Dr. V. S. Ramachandran recently discovered a surprisingly low-tech solution. He had his patients put their remaining non-phantom hand into a box, tightly clenched, mimicking the position that they felt their phantom hands to be in. Inside the box was a mirror. When the patient looked down, they didn’t merely see their actual hand; they saw its reflection as well, which  looked just like seeing the phantom hand. By slowly opening their only real hand, they could make it look as if they were opening both of ‘hands’. And, sure enough, this deceived the brain into thinking that the phantom hand had opened. This relieved the pain.

These patients know that they only have one real hand. They knew that the box contained a mirror. But the illusion (even though they knew that it was an illusion) was what the brain needed to behave appropriately in the real world.

We know it’s not ‘really’ the birthday of the world, we know we aren’t ‘really’ standing before God in judgment… and, if we imagine, if we pretend, this might be just what our minds need to help us in this real world. Pretend play can help us all, just as pretend play helps children; helping to work out difficult life events, helping to imagine a future that has yet to exist, and helping create community. So let’s pretend, Hayom Harat Olam, “This is the day of the world’s birth. This day all creatures stand before You.”

Comedian W. Kamau Bell tells the story of his daughter’s favorite tv show, Doc McStuffins. It’s a favorite in our house as well. For those that aren’t familiar with it, it is an animated show about a six year old black girl who is a doctor for her stuffed animals and toys. In the show, Doc’s mom, a black woman, is a real doctor who treats people. The show also has non-animated interludes with black women who talk about their paths into medicine.

One great aspect of the show is that it prepares children for the doctor; it makes them less scared. Through these types of role plays, researchers say, children become more comfortable and prepared for life events in a safe way. We have a magic stethoscope at home and my kids love to play Doc McStuffins with their own toys and W. Kamau Bell talks about how when it was time for his daughter to go to the doctor, she wasn’t scared at all, in fact, she was excited!

Pretending helps prepare us for difficult and challenging situations. It helps us work out confusing, scary issues in our lives. For kids, this might be going to the doctors for the first time. For adults, it might be the existential dread of our own mortality. Hayom Harat Olam, “This is the day of the world’s birth. This day all creatures stand before You.” We stand before God in judgment. Tomorrow we will hear the haunting melody of Unetaneh Tokef, a prayer which asks us to consider that our lives are in the balance. “Who will live and who will die? Who by fire and who by water?” Why read such difficult, scary liturgy? In his commentary on this prayer, Rabbi Ed Feinstein writes:

Who will live and who will die? Who by fire and who by water? I sat in shul for years reading these words before I realized the answer. The answer to each of these questions is: “Me.”

Who will live and who will die? I will.

Who in their time and who before their time? Me. Like every human being, when I die, it will be at the right time, and it will also be too soon.

All year long we might pretend that we are in control…but the holiday skillfully strips us of all that.

Unetaneh Tokef asks us to stop pretending that we are in control and instead to seriously pretend that we might die this year. Our tradition offers us props as well like fasting, or wearing a kittel, a white shroud, to help us ‘play dead.’ Morbid, perhaps, but kids do it all the time. They casually pretend, “Ahhh! I’m dead.” It can be jarring at first to adults, but experts say this is developmentally appropriate. In their play, children inherently understand something that we as adults often miss – we can’t ignore the hard parts of life. By normalizing death, by pretending and really immersing ourselves in the imagery, we can better prepare for the inevitable. When we use play and make-believe to face the difficult situations in life, we realize what is most important and we hopefully live richer, more fulfilling lives.

Doc McStuffins really is one of the best shows on TV. It is groundbreaking because it offers role models of black women in medicine. Young people, actually all of us, need images, visions of what does not yet exist in order that we might strive for it. Mae Jemmings, the first black woman to go to space, was inspired by the late Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhuru on Star Trek. The Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a trekkie and once met Nichelle Nichols. At the time, she was thinking about quitting the show. When King heard this he told her that she absolutely should not. He told her that Star Trek was the only show that he would allow his children to watch. He told her she was crucial to the civil rights movement. King said, “for the first time on television, we will be seen as we should be seen every day, as intelligent, quality, beautiful, people who can sing, dance, and can go to space.”

Kamau Bell notes that after watching Doc McStuffins, his daughter’s image of what a doctor looks like was a black woman. One day he was with his daughter at the doctor’s office; the doctor walked in… and… it was a white man. And she says, “What the… That’s not a doctor. Doctors are black women. Frankly dad, I’m not sure if white men are ready to be doctors. I’ve never seen a white man as a doctor.” 

Star Trek and Doc McStuffins imagine a better version of our world. During these High Holy Days, we are presented with that same vision; a better version of ourselves, a better version of our city, a better version of this world. 

Hayom Harat Olam, “This is the day of the world’s birth. This day all creatures stand before You.”

Imagine a world where we all stand equitably before God. By pretending and immersing ourselves in worlds like Doc McStuffins and Star Trek, which are sadly still, all too make-believe, we change perceptions and realities. We need to see those visions of hope, those visions of the future to be able to dream and to be able to make those dreams a reality.

In a recent interview on the theme of imagination, Jewish parenting expert and author, Dr. Wendy Mogel, talked about a research study where audience members were monitored with sensors while watching a production of DreamGirls. She says:

What they discovered is relatively shortly that their heartbeats were synchronized. Émile Durkheim coined the term collective effervescence that as a species, we are designed to respond to each other’s vibrating mirror neurons, and as audience members in a theater, we are experiencing both collective effervescence and a synchronized nervous system, and this is what we’ve been so deprived of during quarantine, to experience watching the musical, or certainly performing in a musical…

When we imagine together, when we collectively immerse ourselves in the same story, we form community. Children use play to cultivate social intelligence according to experts. Put more simply, we all use play to create community. Playing make-believe with a classmate or friend teaches kids how to read social cues, recognize and regulate emotions, and negotiate and take turns. And the same is true for adults; when we worship together, when we share the same narrative, it can have a profound impact on our lives.

We are connecting with one another and it has been so missed. That is what we are doing when we gather in this sanctuary for worship. We are watching the musical and performing in it! We each play a part and we need our entire congregation to be complete.

Hayom Harat Olam, “This is the day of the world’s birth. This day all creatures stand before You.” 

There are Jews who believe, and Jews who disbelieve. But I think the majority of us are Jews who make-believe…

Abraham Joshua Heschel famously stressed that we achieve Judaism not through a leap of faith but through a leap of action. And yet, in these Days of Awe, we are asked to take a leap of faith. To make-believe. To pretend because pretending leads to action. It can make us better people and make the world a better place.

This High Holy Day season, suspend disbelief and let’s play pretend together. Let’s make-believe that, Hayom Harat Olam, “This is the day of the world’s birth. This day all creatures stand before You.” 

Happy birthday, world. And happy birthday, Foxy.

Sharing Space with Jews in ALL Hues these High Holy Days

We are grateful to be in a values-driven community that embraces diversity; yet, an honest look at our community reveals that we have not reached the diversity toward which we strive.  For instance, the percentages of Jews of Color at RS does not approach the national percentages.  So we are exploring ways to demonstrate our support for the needs of Jews of Color.  Our EID/Witness (Equity-Inclusion-Diversity) leaders and congregational Anti-Racism study have taught us so much!   Listening to experts and to members of historically marginalized identities has helped us understand that past approaches and assumptions are often not the most helpful.  For instance, now understanding that there is no such thing as colorblind helps us shine the necessary light on identities in their belonging.  Understanding minority loneliness for some in an integrated space helps us understand the importance of affinity spaces. 

Jews in ALL Hues, a locally-based national group, has requested space to gather in person for their mostly online High Holy Day services.  Of course, at RS we seek to welcome Jews of Color; yet we are listening to this group’s needs and we welcome the opportunity to support them even as we reinforce our congregation’s mission to provide inclusive services for us all.  This Jews in ALL Hues service is designed to serve Jews of Color who are not members of a congregation with an affinity space, and we welcome their growing relationship with Rodeph Shalom. They have requested an out-of-the-way space for their privacy and feel the Beth Ahavah Historical Sacred Space on our lower level is perfect.  We see the poetry in their use of a space that honors another historically marginalized community, and that marks our LGBTQ+ community’s historical need for an affinity space even as the congregation embraced the LGBTQ+ community into the whole.

We are grateful to be on this EID journey with you all, working to create a community that is more whole.

Have you been reading Staying Connected’s fascinating factoids about Israel’s scientific advances? Did your children enjoy Israeli dance and a falafel lunch last May to celebrate Israel Independence Day? Did you hear the D’var Torah of Rabbi Tamir Nir, spiritual leader of our new sister-synagogue in Israel, Kehilat Achva Bakerem?  

All these developments come through the efforts of Rodeph Shalom’s newest Connection Group – Israel ConnectRS – initiated and chaired by Ned Hanover with the help of Rabbi Eli Freedman.  Ned faithfully attended monthly meetings with Rabbi Josh Weinberg, VP of the Union for Reform Judaism. With Rabbi Weinberg’s guidance and inspiration, Reform congregations throughout the US are strengthening bonds with our Jewish homeland and bringing to the forefront Israel’s remarkable accomplishments.  

“It has been a joy to watch Israel ConnectRS blossom over the last 12 months,” Ned said.  “It started as simply an idea to engage our Rodeph Shalom family on the topic of Israel.  Now it is just amazing to see a passionate group bring this vision to life by creating innovative programming.”

Israel ConnectRS has ambitious and exciting plans for this coming year.  Among the most anticipated: the Israel Speakers Series. Elaine Crane, co-chair of the series said, “We’re extremely pleased and proud to bring Jason Isaacson, internationally acclaimed authority on the Abraham Accords, to inaugurate our series.” 

Among Israel ConnectRS’ 25 congregant members are RS Past Presidents Rick Berkman and Fred Strober, whose long experience and connections to the broader Jewish world have already benefited this young group. “It is time for Rodeph Shalom to become more involved in discussions with and about Israel,” Rick said. “We are all part of one Jewish people.”