A little over one year ago, I stood before you as the new President of Rodeph Shalom. We were still talking about emerging from a pandemic. I introduced myself, and asked:

Who am I and Why am I here? Who are you, and Why are you here?

So here we are, almost a year to the day since October 7 and nothing feels the same. I don’t know about you, but my personal identity as a Jew and what it means to be a Jew today in America has been tested in ways that were unimaginable a year ago. And yet, if anything, my faith and hope in this community is stronger than ever.

Admittedly, this has not been an easy time for anyone. In a large, diverse congregation such as ours, we hold many different views. Trust me on that one! But that diversity is what makes us strong.

How has Rodeph Shalom navigated these turbulent times? The answer is as old as the Torah and as new as our efforts to constantly reinvent and redefine what we do consistent with our vision. I believe that RS stands as a shining avatar for how to confront these current crises – fully imbued with our Jewish values. We have leaned into the complexity, the nuance, and to quote Rabbi Maderer’s Rosh Hashana sermon – the “nonbinary”. We have accepted the challenge of having difficult conversations. Like our Clergy, I too am truly proud of our Israel ConnectRS and Israel-Palestinian Discussion groups for modeling how to engage, listen and treat each other with respect, even when we fundamentally disagree. Just this past Sunday, 50 more than of our congregants came together to engage in deep, honest discussions about how they were feeling about what was going on in Israel and their deepest feelings about their Judaism. The conversation in and of itself is both the means and the end. As it is said in the Talmud, “An argument for the sake of heaven will have lasting value. An argument not for the sake of heaven will not endure.”

I have never seen the need to come together as a community more profoundly than right now.  This past Monday, we marked the one year anniversary of October 7.  We hosted a deeply moving memorial service where we packed every seat in the chapel with congregants representing all ages and demographics. The feeling of community and solidarity was palpable.

We are actually seeing a surge in engagement and affiliation after a time when many congregations were seeing the exact opposite trend. The level of intense and thoughtful engagement by our affinity groups has never been higher. You can feel the electricity, pride, and dare I say hope that pervades this building when you walk through our doors. I encourage those of you who don’t typically come to the building on a Sunday morning when our Berkman Merkaz Limud is in session to stop by sometime; it will simply make you smile.

We can’t do any of this work without devoted clergy, staff and volunteers. In a recent survey about this “surge” in engagement, the Union for Reform Judaism found that on average there is only one staff member for every 26 newly-engaged congregants. On the other hand, there are actually two congregants to each newly engaged member. We already know that we do not have enough resources to fully serve all of the needs of our community. And that is where you come in.

Let me issue two challenges to you today. First, look within yourself, and ask, what really matters to you?  Now, more than ever, is the time to recommit to this community and make it a priority. We can stay true to our values and assure the strength, health, and vitality of our congregation by centering Rodeph Shalom in our lives. Whether that’s by getting involved and joining an engagement group, coming to services, volunteering to make calls to those in our community in need, raising your hand to work on a program, and yes, finding a way to increase your philanthropy through membership gifts or general giving. I can’t emphasize how important your personal investment in RS is today, and how impactful that investment will be for the future. Many of you have stepped up financially in the past year, and it’s making a real difference.  As it is said in the Shulchan Aruch: “One who is engaged in attending to the needs of the community is just like one who is engaged in Torah study”. There is no higher calling. (Shulchan Aruch, Orah Hayyim 93:4).

Second, we have a unique opportunity in this post-October 7 “surge” in engagement. Our community is hungering for connection and community. We need to roll up our sleeves, and exercise our RS muscles and do that wonderful engagement work we are known for.  So when you’re here, if you see someone new, please reach out to them – find out what brought them here and how we can help make them feel truly part of our community. Many come and don’t even necessarily know exactly what they are looking for other than feeling a need to be with other Jews. It us up to each of us to help make them feel at home – that they belong here.

It is said in Psalms – “This is the generation and those who seek its welfare.” (Psalms 24:6) We are the generation in whose hands the future of Judaism squarely rests. This is a pivotal moment in Jewish history, and for our community and our congregation. I know you will join me in meeting this moment.

Rabbi Maderer’s sermon last night at Kol Nidre focused on hope. I know I have hope. When I look around this great assembly, I see hope. While times are difficult, just look around this room at each other for a moment. We wouldn’t all be here if we didn’t have hope for a better world, and a better future.

I wish you a happy and healthy New Year. Let us hope and pray that when we return for next year’s High Holy Days, we find a world reborn, filled with hope, renewal, and Baruch Hashem, with peace.  G’mar chatima tova – may we all be sealed in the book of life. Gut Yontiff.

 

 

In the beginning, there was dark, empty space.  Then there was a burst of energy, and the process of creation could be discerned in the vastness of nothing.  During eons of time, universes, far flung galaxies came into being.  There was darkness and there was light, there was earth and sky, sun, moon and stars, there was life and there was humankind.  We viewed our domain, considered the distant planets and stars and deduced that all this was created for us:  the air for our breath, the sun for our warmth, the earth for our produce.  We looked into the eternal abyss beyond our world and dreamed of space and time without end.  We lived in the paradise of innocence in which no threat existed to goodness or to life.  But then death came into the world, and completion of our earthly existence.   For the first time we felt fear.  We began to lose our vision, and in our confusion we pondered only as far as our own end.  The tranquility of life ceased.  We came to know agony and pain, strife and war, cruelty, oppression and slavery.

Out of that slavery came forth a people.  This people gazed at the distant heavens and their vision of eternality returned.  They perceived a vast, creative universe.  Despair turned to hope, darkness gave way to light.  The heavens called to this people:  “you are my witness,” cried the majestic but demanding voice.  “only you have i known.  Only you, of all the peoples on earth, feel at one with the creative powers of the universe.  Only you see and feel  the awesome rays of the sun , but do not worship its source.  Only you stand in awe of the moon and stars, but do not bow down to them.  You give testimony to the glory and power of life.  Only you hold it sacred above  all else.  Only you feel the heartbeat of all generations of humankind, feel the pulse of life beyond your own age.  You are my witness to the goodness and potential of human life.  Only you will strive to turn wormwood into parchment; only you will cite slavery as reason for compassion.  You are my witness,” thundered the voice.  But then the sound of instruments and singing could be heard.  This people had forgotten the voice.  This people danced around a golden calf and ascribed to it power and might.  At first the voice was angry.  It wanted to destroy this people.    But then the voice wept  “there can be no dream without a dreamer.  There can be no witness without a people.”   The voice offered a challenge – not for your sake will i save you, but rather for mine  – for the sake of this world.  The people became Israel and Israel again became the witness.  This was another beginning.

For us there have been centuries of anguish and sorrow and death.  Again and again we have been reminded of our finite existence.  Yet we ever have been a faithful witness.  Hope has emerged from suffering;  restoration has risen from the ashes of destruction.  Always we have kept our eye on the infinite, clinging to a vision of a  messianic future.  “Hear, o Israel,” has been our admonition.  “I believe with perfect faith,” has been our response.  From Egypt to Canaan, from Spain to America, from Auschwitz to Israel, we have endured, nay, we have triumphed.  Now, we here, wear the mantle of our  inheritance, proudly proclaiming that we, too, are witnesses, answering over and over: I believe.

I believe that we can and do participate in the creative process of life.  We are endowed with the capacity to make of life something it is not.  Philosophers will debate the nature of the universe.  They will ponder the truly difficult question of human freedom.  Many will conclude that we are fettered by what we are, locked if you will in a container from which we cannot escape.  Our parents were not our choice.  We had little to say about our childhood environment, whether strict or laissez faire, wealthy or poor, urban or rural, tense or relaxed.  No choice at all did we have in the selection of the color of our hair, the sound of our voice, the capacity of our mind.  Some of us do not like what we are:  brunette becomes blond, blond becomes auburn.  We would have liked to have someone consult us:  how tall would we like to be, what color eyes would  have, what hue skin would we prefer?  But we were not asked!  What we are in large measure was settled long before we were even aware that the issue was in question.

Yet I believe in a dynamic world, not one which is static and stagnant.  We were not forever restricted by the mold in which we were formed.  If that were true we would never be responsible for our own behavior.  Our tradition very much holds us responsible.  “I have set before you the blessing and the curse, good and evil, life and death.  Choose that which is right and good that you may live.’  nowhere do we find the implication that we are helpless pawns in a genetic chess game.  Foreign is the notion that accident alone determines what we are and what we do.  Others are not responsible. Only we contribute to the present and future generations of humankind.  What we do and what we are does indeed make a difference.

A legend – thirty six just human beings roam the earth.  They are the lamed Vavniks.  The Hebrew letter lamed vav correspond to the number “thirty six.”  The lamed Vavniks do not necessarily know who they are.  A lamed Vavnik came to Sodom, the sin filled city of biblical lore.  He was determined to change the behavior of Sodom’s inhabitants, to rescue them from inevitable punishment.  Day and night he walked the streets and markets, preaching against greed and theft, falsehood and indifference. In the beginning people listened and smiled ironically. Then they stopped caring. He no longer even amused them. The killers went on with their killing.  The wise kept silent, as if there were no just man in their midst. One day, a child, moved by compassion for the unfortunate preacher, approached him questioningly:  “Poor stranger.  You shout, you expend yourself, body and soul.  Don’t you see that it is hopeless?”  “Yes, I see,” answered the just man.  “then why do you go on?”  “I’ll tell you why.  In the beginning, I thought I could change humankind. Now I am not so sure.  If I still shout today, if I still scream, it is at least to prevent others from changing me.”

I believe in tikkun olam – in our capacity to repair a broken world. I believe, however, that the task begins with us. If we are unable to change ourselves then we will be helpless to transform  humanity. I do believe in repentance – that we can be different today from what we were yesterday.  Our lives do have meaning and relevance.  We struggle – yes.  We endure pain and disappointment – yes.  Sometimes we feel like Sisyphus, pushing  a massive boulder toward a mountaintop, when its  unalterable course is to roll back down the mountain without ever reaching the summit.  We feel destined to strain against that terrible burden to all eternity.  Yet, it might even have been possible for Sisyphus to understand something about life  – that  the struggle itself has meaning. We never reach the apex of existence.  Life does require work. But in that effort, we also experience joy and fulfillment.  We come to understand  that life offers infinite numbers of  possibilities to do something that is worthwhile.  So we alter our own perspective, to be optimistic rather than pessimistic, hopeful rather than anguished.

I believe in America. Our heritage of freedom has allowed beliefs and ideas to flourish in our nation. When Thomas Jefferson campaigned for president he was verbally assaulted by religious leaders of his day because he had advanced the notion that this was to be a non-religious nation, and that the constitution should reflect that fact.  Jefferson understood that there could be no higher authority than the will of the people if this was to be a democratic society.   I believe in a nation where we welcome the stranger, we guarantee that women will have control over their own bodies, where all people of every race, religion, ethnic background, sexual orientation has equal standing and equal opportunity. We will care for the widow and the orphan and the poor and the immigrant, and we answer in the affirmative – yes, I am my brother’s keeper. The reading of books will not be censored by any government agency and freedom of and freedom from religion will be honored I believe in an America that cherishes the holiness code of the book of Leviticus, that you shall not steal, that you shall not deal falsely with one another, that you shall not defraud your neighbor – where honesty and integrity shall prevail.  I believe in an America in which, in the words of reassurance by George Washington to the Jewish community of Newport, “we give to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance” – an America where, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, the admonition of FDR after Pearl Harbor, where we can all hold hands and sing “this land is your land, this land is my land, this land was made for you and me.  We, the Jew, promote freedom and democracy for all people.

I believe that we are especially sensitive to the pain and the agony of human history.  We sit in this magnificent sanctuary surrounded by its glory and its splendor   the very walls speak to us from the past.  Think of the tens upon tens of thousands of men and women, of children who have worshiped within these walls, the famous and the ordinary, the exhilarated and the woeful.  They speak to us of our history and of our destiny.  They remind us that we are Israel, that we have a mission to fulfill.  Their visions and their dreams never should we be restricted by the walls which house them.  Our commitment is to people as well as to  buildings; to life, as well as to institutions; to ideals as well as  just the words which state them.  Long age we abandoned the practice of bringing our offerings to the temple mount.  The practice of sprinkling blood upon the altar became abhorrent.  It satisfied no universal demands and it distorted the  message of the faith it represented .  No longer are we part of a cult and no longer is the religious leader a high priest.  We do not come here once a year, twice a year or fifty times a year to bring our offerings and thus fulfill our commitment as part of the people of Israel.  We are a prophetic people who stalk the earth indignantly.  The message we bear is not  restricted to time and place.  It is eternal, it is universal.  Because we were slaves in the land of Egypt, because we were the pariah in every country on earth, because we were the victims of the most heinous crime in all of human history, because we are the people  Israel we cry out against human suffering.  We are intolerant of injustice.  We are impatient with societies and governments which are indifferent to the misery of the stranger, the plight of the impoverished, the distress of the oppressed.  “seek justice, relieve the oppressed; let justice well up as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream,” demanded the prophets.  We responded, “we will do so and we will obey.”  We, the people of Israel, exist in order that humankind may hear the warning of Amos that a fat and complacent society will destroy itself.  We exist in order that they may encounter the vision of Micah, that there will be a time when nations will live at peace, when people will live without fear.  This mission has always been our reason for being and this forever will be the banner of this people, Israel.

So I believe that we can and will respond to the call to gaze at the distant heavens and see beyond our own lives.  Of all the creatures on earth, only we have the capacity to envision a future different from the present or past.  Life has meaning and purpose because the creation of that future is possible.  The moon is within our reach, the sun and the stars a  goal not too far off.  “I have placed heaven and earth before you,”  spoke the voice.  It is the fulfillment and the opportunity, the striving and the accomplishment which have been laid at our feet.  Always there is heaven–always that which is beyond our reach.  The struggle is as important as the serenity of achievement; the dream as important as the reality.  Any animal  can build a shelter and hunt  food.  Only we can see beyond the basic needs of life.  Only we can infuse life with a sense of significance beyond the moment.  When we touch the lips of our children and our children’s children, we are blowing breath into the future, we are feeling its beat, we are sensing its life-blood.    When we plan, when we build, when we create we are giving something of ourselves to the generations of the future.  Not only for our own sake do we share in life’s joys and sorrows, not only for us do we know the ecstasy of love and endure the stabbing pain when it is taken from us.  We hold hands not only with our own generation but  with people of every generation.  We have a sense of history, of time.  We have a commitment to all life in all times and in all ages.  We can and do and will remain the idealists of humankind, seeking the stars, listening to the voice.

Out of the darkest mystery did life begin.  Out of the bleakest conditions was Israel born.  Life evolved,  Israel developed into a people, a witness people, witness to the creative process of the universe, to the sanctity of life, to the potential  for justice and righteousness among men.  I believe that we shall always be a faithful witness, that we shall always bring forth the law from Zion and the word of the lord from Jerusalem.  We shall ever have the courage and the devotion and the idealism to be different and even unique.  The words of the prophet will always speak to us:  “let all peoples walk each one in the name of its god, but we

Will walk in the name of the lord our god forever and ever.”  Amen.

Last year, on Oct 8, the Jewish community felt alone. Jews across this country felt isolated, misunderstood, and abandoned by some of our historic allies.

I made the mistake of going on social media that day and the first thing I saw was a post by an imam, a friend and colleague, whom I had worked with for years on interfaith dialogue and social justice issues. We’d lobbied in Harrisburg together to advocate for public education funding, gun violence prevention, and voting rights. Meanwhile, his post on October 8 showed no concern for those killed on October 7 and his post justified Hamas’ actions as legitimate resistance. A pogrom is not resistance. Rape is not resistance.

I had hoped on October 8 that I would hear from some of our interfaith allies. The imam didn’t call me to check in. Did I have any family in Israel? Were they okay? In pain, I felt invisible to him.

I was angry; still reeling from what I had seen and heard on the news and from friends and family in Israel. I sent the imam a text message that was pretty harsh. I didn’t mince words. I asked him if he thought 9/11 was legitimate resistance too. How would he feel if his family was under attack. I probably should have slept on it before sending (good advice to all of us). And then we didn’t talk for a bit.

In true, clergy joke irony, it took a pastor to bring us back together. The pastor invited us to join him at a faith leaders conference sponsored by the US Department of Justice. So, two months later, a pastor, an imam, and a rabbi walked into the National Constitution Center to learn about the dangers of white supremacy and homegrown-terrorism. We learned about the shared threats to our houses of worship and the role that we can play in protecting each other. We learned how to spot and report hate crimes. And we learned that standing up for each other’s safety is a powerful tool in combating extremism and hate.   

After the briefing we had lunch together, we talked, and we listened. We accepted that we are not going to agree about the politics of the Middle East, but we understood each other’s pain a little better. 

I felt validated and seen when the imam recognized that a recent protest in Center City was indeed anti-Semitic. And it went a long way for him to understand that I, and much of my community, do not blindly support the policies of the current Israeli government. In our fear, we had assumed the worst of each other.

Most importantly, in that moment, we realized that while we have little effect on the politics of the Middle East, we can have a profound effect on our own communities here in Philadelphia. 

That one lunch did not solve all our problems, and some of our multi-faith relationships are still strained. But at the National Constitution Center, the three of us agreed that we would not let mistrust and fear divide our multi-faith, multi-racial, diverse coalition.

We’ve spent years building bridges. And today, in this season, we need those bridges more than ever.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught:

כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד והעיקר לא לפחד כלל

The whole world is a very narrow bridge and the most important part is not to be afraid.

The bridge really does feel pretty narrow right now! The isolation and abandonment many Jewish Americans understandably feel makes us want to put up walls and give up on bridge-building. But Nachman is saying: don’t let that fear cloud your judgment, don’t let that fear consume you, don’t act on that fear. Nachman’s metaphor feels so tangible; it’s like we have to walk this tightrope – and when we look to the left or the right, all we see is danger, a chasm so deep, it feels insurmountable. But that narrow bridge is all we have. And we need those bridges – for our own protection and for the good of our country. Our Jewish safety is inextricably linked to the safety of other communities and to the future of our inclusive democracy.

I recently had the chance to learn from activist Eric Ward, a true ally to the Jewish community and a nationally-recognized expert on authoritarian movements, hate-fueled violence, and preserving inclusive democracy. As a Black man, Ward has been on a mission to help Americans understand the interconnectedness of hate. He sees antisemitism at the core of dangerous authoritarian thinking such as white nationalism, the belief that the United States should be an all white nation, free of people of color and Jews. 

Ward writes: “Antisemitsm is so central to white nationalism that I became convinced that people of color and other marginalized groups will never win our freedom if we’re not also active in the struggle to uproot this form of anti Jewish hate. Jews are cast in the same role that they’ve always filled for anti-Semites as the absolute other.”

Ward explains that for white nationalists, it is the fantasy of invisible Jewish power that explains how Black Americans, supposed racial inferiors, could orchestrate the end of Jim Crow. For white nationalists, it is the fantasy of invisible Jewish power that explains how feminists and the LGBTQ community could upend traditional gender roles. 

When the Tree of Life Shooter said Jews were committing a genocide against white people, he was using language that was intimately familiar to his fellow white nationalists. Antisemitism is at the core of white nationalist thinking. And Jews are not the only victims.

Black shoppers in a Buffalo supermarket were killed by a mass shooter who believed that he was in a war with Jews. The worshippers killed in a Black church in South Carolina, Latino shoppers murdered in a Walmart, in El Paso. For white supremacists, there is no difference, Jewish, Black, Latino, Gay – we are all an affront to their vision of America. We are all connected.

כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד והעיקר לא לפחד כלל

It’s not easy to walk that bridge right now, but we must not be afraid – we need to keep building bridges. As we become more divided as a nation, our bridges are the one thing that continues to keep us connected. The bridge is being stretched like never before. And white nationalists, extremists, and authoritarians are all feeding off this polarization to reshape our nation. 

In a recent webinar with rabbis from across the country, Justin Florence, director of Protect Democracy, taught us how democracy has been eroding across the globe since 2007, including in America where we have seen a frightening surge of authoritarianism in recent years.

The authoritarian playbook is fairly similar across regimes and Protect Democracy defines some common characteristics that might sound familiar:

1. Spreading Disinformation: Autocracies create confusion about what’s true and what’s not and use disinformation and propaganda to divide us and further their political goals.
2. Quashing Dissent: Though cracking down on legitimate protests or limiting the media.
3. Stoking Violence: They rile up private militias and use that violence to intimidate the opposition.
4. Scapegoating Vulnerable Communities: Ones like ours in order to build their own political power and pit minorities communities against one another.
5. Corrupting Elections: They hold elections that are not free and fair; disenfranchising voters and creating unnecessary roadblocks to voting.

This is not hypothetical – we are seeing this very rise in authoritarianism in America at the expense of our democratic ideals. 

And to answer the age-old question – is it good for the Jews? No. No, it is not. And it is not good for our country, our democracy, and the majority of Americans. The best defense against authoritarianism is to build bridges across lines of difference to combat the hate that affects us all. 

Jews make up just 2.5% of the population in America; we are too small to go it alone. And sadly we are often pitted against other minorities. White supremacists want us to fight. They are using antisemitism as a wedge to break up historic multi-racial, multi-faith coalitions. 

Take DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion), for example. Some would have us believe that DEI departments have contributed to antisemitism on campus. While it is clear there are gaps in knowledge of some DEI departments in the area of antisemitism, rather than fight DEI, let’s ensure that DEI offices are well trained in antisemitism. Rodeph Shalom was honored to host Dr. Valerie Harrison, Vice President for DEI at Temple University for our congregational Passover seder this past year. It was an opportunity for her to learn about our historic oppression and antisemitism today.

We’ve spent years building bridges. And we need to keep building them. But it doesn’t mean it is always going to be easy. It will be uncomfortable. It has been uncomfortable.

This doesn’t mean we tolerate antisemitism, but maybe it’s ok to stay in a setting even when we are uncomfortable. Because the good outweighs the bad. Because building bridges means we can educate others as well. We need to continue helping other people understand antisemitism and why the fight against antisemitism is inherent to their own safety and to our democracy

If we can overcome our fears and stay on that bridge, we educate others.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (known as AOC) was recently in dialogue with Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the JCPA, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, to better understand antisemitism. While the two do not agree on all issues (especially in regards to Israel), for Spitalnick, engaging new partners in the fight against antisemitism, white supremacy, and extremism comes first. After deep listening, AOC said, “Antisemitism, hate, and violence against Jews because of their identity is real and it is dangerous. When the Jewish community is threatened, the progressive movement is undermined.”

And then what happened a day after this conversation between Spitalnick and AOC? The Representative publicly called out an anti-Semitic incident in her district. The bridges work – our communities are stronger when we are in dialogue and partnership.

We have a unique opportunity in just over a week to hear from Amy Spitalnick, when she joins us in a conversation about civic participation in polarizing times as part of our Broad Perspectives Speaker Series.

Then join us a week later, on Tuesday, October 29th for our ‘Get Out The Vote’ phone banking. RAC-PA, the Pennsylvania branch of the Religious Action Center, is phonebanking every week through Election Day with our partners; doing wide scale voter education and voter turnout, especially in underserved Black and Latino communities across Pennsylvania. We are calling voters with nonpartisan encouragement to vote. 

Lastly, 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 nonpartisan message reminding fellow Pennsylvanians about the importance of voting. (Thank you to our Berkman Mercaz Limud students for your help with the postcards.) 

כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד והעיקר לא לפחד כלל

The whole world is a very narrow bridge and the most important part is not to be afraid. 

It is so easy to let fear take control of us, because it is a scary bridge these days.  But we must resist this instinct to stay on our side and not walk the path together. Our safety is bound up with the safety of other minorities in this country and our path forward is one deeply rooted in relationships and solidarity. 

I think of that famous picture of the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr walking hand and hand with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and many others across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama almost 60 years ago, marching for voting rights. 

We’ve spent years building bridges. It is time to reinvest in those bridges, to work together against extremism and hate, and to build a just, democratic future for our country.

Ken Y’hi Ratzon/May This Be God’s Will.

Amen.

As this summer drew to a close and my eldest was packing for his first year at college my husband and I hid some slips of paper into his bags. Each had an inspirational quotation from a favorite sports hero or a favorite Talmudic rabbi.  (Basically Rocky, RBG, and Rabbi Nachman.) That way, in the dorm, as our son unpacks his duffle bag, excavates his bins, and—we pray—opens his box of laundry detergent, he will find these gems of wisdom. These quotations waiting to be discovered, while ostensibly for him, are really–who are we kidding – for us. Each note is a way to show love, to express faith in him, to share guidance when we are away from him, and to remind us that in fact, we need to stay away from him, for the sake of his own growth. And I believe they are, for us, an acknowledgement that we cannot know whether he will thrive. In our reality of worry, the notes serve as a sign of possibility; in our reality of uncertainty; they are a practice of hope.

We Jews know well the reality of uncertainty and the practice of hope. Now, hope does not mean the absence of worry, nor does it sweep the possibility of misfortune, under the rug. If wishing, is wanting without doing something about it; if pessimism, is the belief things won’t work out, so why try anyway; and if optimism, is the belief that things will work out, so no need to try; or, as the joke goes, the Jewish version of optimism is, it can always be worse…then what exactly, is hope?

I think Yom Kippur is Jewish hope. Hope is approaching God, and each other, and our own inner selves, in all of our imperfection, to say: For all these failures, forgive us, pardon us, lead us to atonement/V’al kulam. Hope is walking the path of repentance/teshuvah, believing people can change, not giving up on ourselves, taking responsibility for who we are, and who we ought to become.

Hope is neither an emotion, nor is it a mood. So many people I know feel despondence, about the hostages return, terrorism, wars, catastrophic weather, climate change, about Israel’s safety, about diplomacy for Israel and Palestinians to each have their own home, about polarization and Jewish safety in our own country, about family rifts from it all, and about the personal struggles we face in our own lives.  I know so many people who are not feeling hopeful. To expect a feeling of hopefulness, might sometimes be unreasonable.  That’s why it cannot be based on a feeling.

Hope is a disposition. Hope is the capacity to look at the seemingly impossible, and see the possible. The very name of our Israeli national anthem Hatikvah, means the hope. Embedded in that Hebrew word tikvah, teaches Rabbi Shai Held, is its root, kav, meaning, cord.  Hope is the cord, connecting our present reality to a future possibility; the lifeline pulling us out of those darker moments. Even if it’s slim, as in, hanging by a thread, the cord endures.

 

In her book, Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit writes: “Hope locates itself in the premise that we don’t know what will happen and that, in the spaciousness of uncertainty, is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes – you alone, or you in concert with a few dozen, or several million others. It’s the belief that what we do matters, even though, how and when it may matter, we cannot know beforehand.”

Try Googling stories of hope and you’ll find most are stories about challenging circumstances, with a happy ending. Inspiring stories of resilience: the couple struggling with infertility who finally carries the pregnancy, the young person securing a scholarship who then graduates from college, the person on the dating apps who meets their beloved. But once things have worked out, it is no longer a story of hope– that’s gratitude.  Hope is choosing to expect, it can work out.

Those stories not yet resolved are unsettling, even scary or worrisome: the teenager who amid antisemitism wears the Star of David to school; the young adult who torn by family conflict seeks to approach a conversation for repair; the person struggling with mental illness, who perseveres through medications & therapy, wellness and unwellness; the one who is in addiction recovery, and does not take any day of sobriety for granted;  the one caring for a loved one with dementia and striving to know they are making a difference in the life of their loved one; anyone who pushing though fears takes steps to move their lives forward; anyone who, facing the darkness of our existence, determines that efforts to mend God’s creation are worthwhile; all of us who even in the discomfort of teshuvah, shine a light into our souls, to return to the right path. The unresolved stories, those people who believe no matter how things turn out, it’s worth working on—those people who fall, and then get back up, who tire and rest, and then get back in, those are the stories of hope.

When it comes to choosing hope in our broken world I think there’s a quality of, “in spite of.”  I recently attended a workshop by a community leader Maxine Rich, titled: Hope Anyway. Maxine Rich insists: e”specially when we are struggling, hope is our best way out of powerlessness and toward the belief that we can create change for better.”

Holding up a mirror to our society and to our own selves, she teaches: When there is an absence of hope it’s self-fulfilling– it fuels despair, inaction, complacency; the absence of hope lets us off the hook and keeps us stuck in the status quo. From global concerns to our most personal issues, hope means something better is possible, so it’s worth working on, even if things seem bleak – hope anyway.

Meanwhile, doesn’t Hope Anyway sound like a bit like a title for the entirety of Jewish history? For, in times of narrowness and seeming impossibility, ours is a narrative, of seeking expansiveness, possibility. Egypt/mitzrayim, our place of enslavement, even means narrow straits; the Exodus is a journey of spaciousness.

Imagine what it’s like for the Israelites, in the moments just before they cross the Sea of Reeds. A time of profound worry, terrifying uncertainty–we can relate.  Get into the mindset of those Israelites. In the story, God is about to say, Do not act on your fear/Al Tira-u. Flooded with anxiety, how do you imagine Moses and the people are even able to let those words in? How do they persevere, to take another step? When God says Al Tira-u: Do not cower/Do not let fear decide your future, how are Moses and the people even able to hear God’s message?

They must already have within them, a capacity for hope! After all, when the Israelites reach the other side of the Sea of Reeds, Miriam leads the people, in song and dance – with her timbrels!  It makes you stop to think—where did those musical instruments come from?  Did Miriam pack them?  Could she have had so much hope, that while still back in Egypt, fleeing enslavement, packing up a few belongings so quickly they did not even have time for the bread to rise–is it possible, in that anxious moment of departure, she had so much hope for redemption, that she packed musical instruments, so she would be prepared to celebrate liberation?  Miriam chooses to expect survival, to plan for the celebration on the other side, before the dry land of liberation is even in her sights!

When God encourages Miriam and those Israelites to move forward they have enough hope in the first place, to even be open to receiving God’s encouragement.  Somehow, even as slaves, the Israelites cultivate hope, prepare for possibility. Somehow, even in our darker times, even when we have trouble mustering hopefulness, we too can cultivate hope, prepare for possibility.

Today, we cultivate hope, in the very rituals of Jewish living.  Jewish wisdom offers spiritual practices that fill our well and help make hope available, so that we too, may be open to encouragement in the first place. How?

We retell our people’s story of the Exodus–a scene that is recalled each year at the Pesach seder, every Shabbat in the words of kiddush, and every day in the Mi Chamocha prayer.  And make no mistake, reaching the dry land of liberation, although worthy of gratitude, is not the story of hope. The story of hope is in those moments before liberation, when the outcome is unknown and the journey uncertain. It is the story of the Israelites, standing there on the shore in the first place, finding within themselves the spaciousness for possibility, the power to take a step.  And retelling that story helps us build our capacity for hope, so that together, we too can bring it from within.

So we train in hope-strengthening; hope is a Jewish orientation, a Jewish value, a Jewish choice, a Jewish practice. That training readies us, for this season of teshuvah. For today it is we who stand on the precipice of the shore, determining whether we have within us, enough of a foundation of hope that we can receive God’s encouragement to reflect, to repent, to forgive, to move forward, to take responsibility for who we are, and who we ought to become. We imagine all that is possible.  And we begin anew.  We worry through the uncertainty and we choose to prepare for the possibility. Even in a broken world, even in our broken lives, we never give up hope.

Now, what about those days, when it’s still hard to tap into the hope?  When that well seems dry?  A Midrash from our tradition, reminds us of a scene that follows the Exodus, a later stop on the journey.  When the Israelites are at the foot of Mt Sinai to receive Torah, Moses brings down the first set of the commandments that God reveals, and Moses finds the Israelites dancing around a golden calf they had created. Furious that the people had turned to idolatry, Moses shatters the tablets. A low-point for the people and for Moses, arguably a low-point for God. Still, despite the temptation, God does not give up on us; God decides to rebuild the covenant with us–to take what is broken and make it whole. God and Moses create a second set of tablets, to reveal to the Israelites. And according to the Midrash, on what day does God present this new set of tablets? On Yom Kippur! The very day every year, on which Jews will need to remember: people can change, God does not give up on us.

With the unknown ahead, with no guarantee that we will thrive, in a reality of worry, God exemplifies possibility; in a reality of uncertainty, God practices hope.

Amid narrowness, we seek spaciousness. Amid cynicism, we orient towards hope–that Tikvah—that cord–that connects present reality, to future possibility.

Today, as we stand on the shores before the dry land of redemption is even in our sights, may we discover within us enough of a foundation of hope that we can receive God’s encouragement to reflect, to repair, to forgive, to grow, to move forward, to take responsibility for who we are, and who we ought to become. With Yom Kippur before us, may we imagine all that is possible.

I’d like to express my deepest condolences to all of you who are mourning for a loved one who died during this past year, as we gather at this sacred Yizkor Memorial service to remember them.  Shortly, we will read their names, as we recall all that they meant to each of us. But this year, seared into our minds is the memory of our brothers and sisters in Israel, who were taken from us in the brutal massacre one year ago this week.  I offer these words by Alden Solovy, a modern day poet and teacher, who is a friend and inspiration to so many of us in the Reform Movement, from his recent prayer :  “Eileh Ezk’rah After October 7.”

Eileh Ezk’rah

These I remember…
The young and the old,
The children, the mothers,
The babies, the fathers,
And I do not look away.
The brutalized, the maimed,’
The assaulted, the raped,
Burnt alive,
Terrorized and tortured,
Killed and kidnapped,’
And I do not look away.
Al-eileh ani vochiyah…
For these I weep…

In every age,
In our homes and our villages,
In the fields and on the streets,
In our cities and our towns,
Death and terror stalk…

Eini, eini yordah mayim…
My eyes, my eyes flow like streams of water…

For every community,
In every generation…

Eileh esk’rah…
These I remember…

But how can I remember
What was stolen?
The loves, lost.
The dreams, lost.
Scientists, poets,
Artists, visionaries,
Leaders, learners,
Teachers of Torah,
The generations, lost.
The children of children,
And their children, And theirs,
Never to be.

Eileh ezk’rah, v’nafshi alai eshp’chah…
These I remember,
I pour out my soul from within me…

And I call out…
Adonai, Adonai, El rachum v’chanun…
God, God, compassionate and gracious…

Remember us.  Amen

[Solovy]

But, of course this Yizkor service is about remembering our loved ones who have died during this past year, as well as all of our loved ones who are no longer with us, no matter how long they have been gone.

This is why Yizkor is such an integral part of Yom Kippur, in order to teach us that mourning and atonement are indelibly linked. For on Yom Kippur, we confront our own mortality, we think about the real meaning of our lives. What is our purpose? For what will we be remembered?

Yizkor is a transcendental experience when we rise above and beyond the normal range of our daily lives and we try to see ourselves for who we really are. We try to see that we exist apart from and not subject to the limitations of our lives. And we do this as we remember our loved ones who are no longer with us.

The Hebrew word “Yizkor” means “remember,” as we pray that God will remember our loved ones.  But this Yizkor service is a time for us to see our own lives within the context of those we’ve lost.  We reflect upon the lives of our departed loved ones and we think of the lessons we have learned from them.  And the best way to honor their memory is to value all that was good in their life, and to retain that good as part of the essence of who we are.

But this is a huge task!  How do we really improve ourselves?  How do we pay attention to our own life?  Well, I’m glad you asked!  I happen to have a few thoughts on that.

Recently, I have come to realize that there are two places to find guidance on how to pay attention to your own life:  The Book of Genesis, and the great author Thornton Wilder, whose play “Our Town” is, to me, one of the most powerful  pieces of literature ever written.  I was drawn back to “Our Town” by last year’s NY Times #1 best selling novel “Tom Lake,” by Ann Patchett,  which is based on “Our Town.”

There is also yet another revival of Our Town, which opened recently on Broadway, where it has been enacted many times since it first appeared there in 1938.

“Our Town” is one of those pieces of literature that most of us were required to read in High School,  and you may have dismissed it as a simplistic, “relic of Americana…preaching old fashioned values to a modern public.” [David Margulies].

But coming back to “Our Town” after I had lived enough of life to finally understand what was so great about it, I see it as “timeless, profound…it is said to be …life itself.”  [ibid]

“Our Town” has a lot to say to us today, during this Yiizkor service because it is about paying attention to your life and realizing life is just made up of little moments, little connections.  It is about “finding value above all price for the smallest events of our daily life.”  [ibid].

It is a play in three acts which takes place in a fictional small New England town (Grover’s Corner, NH) in the early 20^th century.  In the first act, you meet the characters and see them in their daily routine lives.  In the 2^nd act, two of the characters, high school students Emily and George fall in love and get married.  And [Spoiler alert] in the 3^rd act, Emily dies in childbirth, and the scene switches to the town’s graveyard during Emily’s funeral.  The dead are seen sitting in chairs on the stage – representing their gravesites – talking to each other.

Emily, recently dead, longs to go back to visit the living, to see her family – and her younger self, while she was alive and happy.

And here is the climax of the play – when Emily is granted her wish to return to see her living family, she realizes that she is seeing life the way most people live it.  Troubled, going through their days in a busy matter-of-fact manner.  Never really noticing each other.  Emily pleads with her mother “just look at me one minute as though you really saw me.  Mama…now that we’re all together, just for a moment…let’s look at one another.”

Emily then leaves her family and returns to the dead, and she cries a plaintiff good by and says “Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you…(and she asks)   Do any human beings ever realize life when they live it?…” Every, every minute?…

One of the other people in the graveyard says to Emily, “Now you know what it was to be alive.  To move about in a cloud of ignorance.  To go up and down trampling on the feelings of those about you.  To spend and waste time as though you had a million years.  To always be at the mercy of one self-centered passion or another.  To live in ignorance and blindness.”

As brutally honest as the playwright is in that scene, he ends the play  with a message of hope, just as our Yom Kippur day ends in hope.  Wilder says, “We know that something is eternal.  It’s not houses, it’s not names, it’s not earth, it’s not even stars…everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings.  All the greatest people who ever lived have been telling us that for 5,000 years, and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it.  There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.”

Thornton Wilder said that the central theme of his play is “What is the relation between the countless “unimportant” details of our daily life, on the one hand, and the great perspectives of time, social history, current religious ideas, on the other?”

And you might say that this is the central theme of Yom Kippur, and of this Yizkor service.

How do we train ourselves to notice the countless seemingly “unimportant” details of daily life?  How do we notice the power of every connection?  How do we perceive the awe in life?

The great 20^th century sage Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said “the meaning of awe is to realize that life takes place under wide horizons, horizons that range beyond the span of an individual life, or even the life of a nation, a generation, or an era.  Awe enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing, the stillness of the eternal.”  [Heschel]

In the book of “Bereishit” Genesis, our ancestor Jacob has his famous dream of seeing a stairway set on the ground where he slept.  The stairway reached all the way to the sky, and angels of God were going up and down on it.  And Jacob dreams that God appears to him and promises to protect him and his descendants.

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he said, “Achein! Yeish Adonai ba-makom hazeh, v’anochi lo ya’da’ti.”  Jacob said “Wow!  How awesome is this place!  God is present with me, and I, I did not notice!” [Gen. 28:16-17].

Jacob was traveling on a trip from one place to another.  He simply laid down to rest before the next leg of his journey, a lot on his mind, distracted… sort of like we are on a typical day.

And then he had the most extraordinary vision, and wakes up and says “Wow! Awesome!  God is here – and I didn’t even know it – until I took the time to notice.  To look.  To open my eyes.  To really, really see.  To be alive in the moment.  To be radically amazed.  To perceive the awe…every every moment.

My friend Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl from Central Synagogue in New York, recently wrote that she is worried that people are going through life without wonder and awe.  She said she was walking through Central Park one day and saw a college-age student wearing a tee shirt that read:  “Born Bored.”  Rabbi Buchdahl said she wanted to pull her under a blossoming cherry tree she was walking past, totally oblivious, and yell:  “YOU WERE NOT BORN BORED!!  NO ONE IS?  LOOK UP!!”   [Buchdahl].

Heschel said “Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement…to get up in the morning and look around at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted…to be spiritual is to be amazed.”

In this Yizkor Memorial service, think about your life with your departed loved ones and try to recall one moment when you were together.  Can you remember a moment of awe?  Can you remember a time when you really looked at each other?  Can you think of a time when you really realized life when you lived it together?  Every, every minute?

I hope you can.  But I know it’s hard to live life in the moment, every, every minute.  We’re busy, we have a lot on our mind.  We have work to do, iPhones to check, games to watch, cable news to make our blood boil.  We are busy.  We are distracted.

On these High Holy Days we say, “Awake you slumberers!”  Look around you.  Notice the needs of your spouse/partner who needs your love.  Hear the cry of your child who craves your attention and guidance.  Reach out to your parents who long for your words of comfort.  Embrace your friends who treasure their relationship with you.  Be aware of the world around you and do what you can to relieve some suffering.

And please do it today.  As the author Ann Patchett said, “all those moments in life we missed…we will never get them back again.”  And those of us in this room today, who are grieving from the recent loss of a loved one, we can tell you that life is short.  Way too short.  And you never know when it may be too late to awake, to open our eyes, and open our hearts, and notice the awe that is all around us…every, every minute.

AMEN.

 

MATERIAL GATHERED FROM:

Our Town by Thornton Wilder, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1957.

“Forward” to Our Town,  by Donald Margulies, Harper Perennial, New York, 2003, 2013.

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 2023.

God in Search of Man by Abraham Joshua Heschel, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York, 1976.

“Stanford University Baccalaureate Address”, Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl, June 17, 2023, from Stanford Report, June 19, 2023. Book of Genesis Ch. 28 v.16-17.

Enter These Gates, by Alden Solovy.  CCAR Press.  2024.  New York.

 

 

Ambassador Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, the US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism tells a story from when she was a professor at Emory University. A student came to her office and for the first time in the four years that she had known him, he was wearing a kippah. Not wanting to be rude, she said nothing; but as he stood up to leave, he turned around and said to her, “Look. You notice?”

“Oh, yeah. What’s that about? You haven’t worn that before,” she said. And he responded, “There have been so many attacks on Jews recently. I’ve decided every time there is an anti-Semitic act, I am going to wear my kippah to show the anti-Semites they can’t frighten me.”

She admired his moxie, his chutzpah, his desire to show his identity and not cower in fear. And at the same time, inside, her heart was breaking – because he had allowed the anti-Semites to determine when he felt Jewish. They were controlling his Jewish identity. He had ceded to them the power over his Judaism. 

In short, he was motivated by the “oy” and not the joy of Jewish life.

Lipstadt ends the story saying, “That’s not my Judaism, and I don’t want it to be his.”

Amen, Ambassador Lipstadt! That is not my Judaism either, and I don’t want it to be any of ours.

It’s been a hard year. According to the FBI, anti-Semitic incidents rose by more than 60%. Congregants have asked me, “Rabbi, are you going to speak about antisemitism at the High Holy Days this year?” Yes and No. Here’s my sermon: The best response to antisemitism is living joyful, vibrant Jewish lives.

To be clear, for those that have witnessed or experienced antisemitism this year, we are here for you. We see you, we feel your pain, and we are ready to stand with you. We must not ignore antisemitism. 

And we cannot allow our Judaism and our lives to be driven by it. The constant barrage on social media, protests in our own backyard, or finding hate symbols in our parks and schools can make us angry – can make us want to be defiant, just like Lipstadt’s student. 

Tonight, I want to urge you (and myself) to not get sucked down that rabbit hole of anger and hate. It’s not worth it. If doom scrolling is not helping you (and it’s probably not), turn it off. And instead of focusing on the hate – focus on the joy.

On October 7th we witnessed the single greatest loss of Jewish life in a day since the Holocaust. Not long after the Holocaust, at a time like ours, when it might have seemed inconceivable to find any joy, German Jewish Reform Rabbi, Emil Fackenheim wrote about what he called the 614th commandment, “Thou Shalt Not Let Hitler Have a Posthumous Victory.” There are traditionally 613 commandments in the Torah; Fackenheim proposed adding a 614th: we have an obligation to ensure our Jewish community continues to thrive. For some, this may sound just like Ambassador Lipstadt’s student, a very negative reason to be Jewish, spiting Hitler and all the anti-Semites. Yet, I do not believe that was Fackenheim’s intention. Rather, he saw the education of each Jewish child as a victory over forgetting and over darkness. Every mezuzah hanging, every conversion, every wedding, every Torah study is an opening for joy and a triumph over despair, hatred and indifference. 

That is my Judaism. Cultivating joy through the everyday of Jewish living.

The traditional haftarah reading for tomorrow morning comes from the Prophet Isaiah. Exiled in Babylon, and praying for a return to Jerusalem, Isaiah (55:12) writes:

כִּֽי־בְשִׂמְחָ֣ה תֵצֵ֔אוּ וּבְשָׁל֖וֹם תּוּבָל֑וּן

Go out in joy, and be led home in peace.

Isaiah is in literal exile in Babylon from Israel. But Isaiah is also in spiritual exile. In some ways, we are all in exile – even (especially) those that physically live in Israel feel like they are in spiritual exile this year. Distanced from God. Dislocated from joy. 

But if we lead with joy, if we go out in joy, Isaiah reminds us, we might find some shalom – some sense of peace and wholeness, some escape from the feelings of exile and dislocation; some sense of return.

The High Holy Days are all about joy. We begin tonight with a celebration; Rosh Hashanah marks Hayom Harat Olam, the Birthday of the World. With the exuberance of a birthday party, our tradition sets the stage for this season of joy. The High Holy Days end with Simchat Torah, literally, the Joy of Torah. And in the middle of this month of haggim/festivals, under the full moon, we go out into nature and we build. On Sukkot, known as zman simchateinu/our season of rejoicing, we are commanded to, “v’samachata, b’chagecha, v’hayita ah sameach/celebrate in our festivals and have nothing but joy!” 

And even Yom Kippur is traditionally a time of joy. The rabbis of the Talmud (Bava Batra 121a) teach, “Yom Kippur is a day of joy, because it is a day of pardon and forgiveness.”

Chaviva Gordon-Bennett, a writer for ReformJudaism.org, notes: “While it is true that these holidays ask us to tie our joy to the calendar, our tradition also recognizes that one cannot set a timer and say “this will be my joyful moment.” These holidays ask something of us that is more difficult: we must actively set the stage for joy and allow ourselves to revel in it, if and when it arrives. We cannot force joy, but we can beckon it.”

We need to set the table for joy and invite it into our lives. Easier said than done. It’s hard work. But that is what this season is all about; doing the intentional work that we know will make our lives more joyful and fulfilling. And we must not do it alone. The path to joy is communal. In fact almost every time we find the word, “Simcha/Joy,” in the Torah, it is in the context of communal celebration. Simcha is joy that is shared. 

Chaviva Gordon-Bennett also reminds us that, “Beckoning to joy can require assistance. For those struggling with their mental health or with substance abuse, setting the stage for joy can include a call to a mental health professional.”

Tonight, we re-gather as a community to mark the end of one year and the start of another. It is an opportunity to look back and reflect on the joy we were able to find this past year. And a chance to think about the joy that we want to invite into our lives in the coming year. 

As I look back on this year, I think of the moments when my own family worked to cultivate joy amidst so much pain and challenge. Shortly after October 7, some of our own family were evacuated from their kibbutz in the north of Israel and came to live with us here in Philadelphia. Many of you had the chance to meet Dorit and Zohar during their time here. As this year comes to end, and we begin anew, I am holding on to the joyous Jewish moments we shared. Zohar riding bikes with his new friends from Rodeph Shalom and his Jewish day school. Our whole family decked out in matching Hanukkah pajamas that we bought at the Weitzman Museum gift shop. Home cooked Shabbat dinners each week with matbucha, schnitzel, and Dorit’s challah (which, I have to admit, is even better than mine). In each of these moments, we didn’t force the joy, we simply created space for it to grow. For Dorit and Zohar, that little bit of joy gave them the all important peace that they had been seeking since the moment of their physical and spiritual exile. Isaiah was speaking to us, “Go out in joy, and be led home in peace.”

Another story of joy. Recently, one of our local Philadelphia Hillels, the center for Jewish life on campus, was the target of anti-Semitic protests. While I am thankful to university leadership for speaking out and ensuring the safety of all students, I am especially impressed with the Hillel students. In the moments of vitriol being spewed at them, they chose not to directly respond and get dragged down by the hate, but rather to embrace Jewish joy. What did they do during the protests? They went into the kitchen and braided challah for Shabbat. For those students who found the joy in challah braiding amidst so much hate, Isaiah was speaking to them, “Go out in joy, and be led home in peace.”

One last story of cultivating joy (and the resulting peace that it brings). Our clergy have the pleasure of leading Tot Shabbat with our Buerger Early Learning Center students every Friday morning. We set the stage with songs and stories but the joyfully climatic moment comes when we take out our stuffed Torah scrolls. The students each take a colorful plush Torah and we march! Through our Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art galleries, past our security desk, filling the lobby with the sounds of singing, giggling, and tiny feet dancing to the joy of Torah. Let me be clear, the students bring the joy, we just create an intentional opening. And I have to tell you, Isaiah was right: Go out in joy, and be led home in peace. The sense of peace that our clergy and staff walk away with each Friday morning comes from knowing that there is a future generation of children who will one day lead our community in joy.

As you think back on the past year, how did you cultivate joy? How did you set the table and invite Jewish joy into your lives?

And as you think forward, how will you choose joy this coming year? What concrete actions will you take to beckon joy this next year?

Recently, I found myself getting upset at something I was reading online and my daughter reminded me of something that I often tell her, “You can’t control what other people do, but you can control how you respond.” There is still so much tumult, antisemitism, and pain in this world and in our Jewish lives. And so much of it is out of our control. For so many in our community, this year has felt like a year of exile and we are simply seeking some peace. There is an answer – beckon joy – do the work and invite joy to sit at your table this year. Isaiah’s words to his people some 2500 years ago still speak to us today, “Go out in joy, and be led home in peace.”

Shanah Tovah! 

Ours, is not the first time of disquiet in the memory of the Jewish People. In ancient days, after decades of oppression from the Canaanites the Israelites cried out to God.  At that time, the Bible describes a leader named Deborah–a prophet, a judge, and a military commander. Calm and wise, Deborah sits under her palm tree as her people come to see her, seeking insight about their dilemmas. Deborah hears her people’s pain, and knows their terror.  As she protects the Israelites through crisis, and through battle, Deborah bravely leads them to victory.  After she defeats the Canaanites’ commander, Sisera, Deborah composes a poem to recount the victory. With gratitude for her people’s devotion and survival, she recites:

“I will sing to God…My heart is with the Israelite leaders, with the dedicated of the people…bless God.”

And then, she focuses on her adversary, Sisera. As though she understands there can be no one-sided victory Deborah — imagining her enemy Sisera’s mother waiting for her son’s return from battle—Deborah recites the following words:

“Through the gate peers Sisera’s mother, behind the lattice she wails, Why is his chariot so long in coming?”

In Deborah’s verses it is clear: passion for her people. And then within that same poem it is unmistakable: compassion for the other. At the same time: this military commander protects the survival of her own people, and bears witness to the suffering of her adversary.  In later generations, our sages are moved by Deborah’s compassion. In the Talmud, in a discussion about the Rosh Hashanah shofar blasts, the sages describe the shofar sound as, yevava, meaning: a trembling cry. And how should we get that trembling sound in our ear? The sages teach: recall the sound of the enemy, Sisera’s, mother. The tekiah, her wail.  Shevarim, her broken sigh. Truah, her whimper. Deborah knows the sound of a mourning mother.  Our sages honor it.

Today, can we hear it?  Can we, at one and the same time, hear the call for the survival of our own people, and bear witness to the humanity of the other?  Even if we do not hear equally the cries of Sisera’s mother, and the cries of the Jewish People—our own siblings—can we hear both?  I pray that as a congregation, we, and personally, I, can learn from Deborah.

Today, nearly 1 year after October 7, with every breath we pray for the hostages’ return home.  And now, days after the sight of the ballistic missile attacks, we hold our breath for Israel’s safety.

Last October 7, the repressive terrorist group Hamas’ brutal charge to hunt down, massacre, and eradicate our people with murder, rape, abduction of civilians of every age, including Israeli peacemakers who devote their lives to Palestinian statehood–left us shattered. The cries of babies and Holocaust survivors, young adults at a musical festival, Israelis celebrating Simchat Torah–the cries, pierce the soul of the Jewish People. From our despair, we’ve asked: how can so many, have the capacity to look past the humanity of the Jew?

On October 8, even before Israel launched its response, while our people remained in pieces, the world’s hateful attack on Israel’s very right to exist–left us abandoned.

By October 9, the world, the American Jewish community, even the streets of Philadelphia, had, denying complexity and nuance, ceded the narrative to the loudest extremes–to an only-Pro-Israel camp, and to an only-Pro-Palestinian camp–and left us divided into a binary.

There is so much pain—immeasurable loss, fear, and alienation—so I understand the temptation, even comfort, of simplicity, of sides. But what if the pain might instead serve as a signal that we need to listen all the more closely, to Deborah’s teaching.  For the binary is false.

Our hearts are expansive enough to champion the security of Israel and to grasp the needs of the Palestinian people. The parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, of blessed memory, in their brave plight to keep hope for the hostages alive put it simply: “In the competition of pain, there are no winners.”

When we allow that competition of pain we relinquish the microphone to, and center the voices of, those who advocate a zero-sum. But we do not have to indulge the false binary.

Resisting the binary means respecting two things can be true at the same time.

Resisting the binary means acknowledging there are Pro-Palestinian protests that tolerate hate speech, that make no space for Israeli rights, and in some cases, make no space for Jews–whether in the classroom, the boardroom, or on campus; and resisting the binary means conceding that too many Jewish spaces omit concern for Palestinian rights.

Resisting the binary means affirming that we can mourn Palestinian deaths while remaining loyal to Zionism; and we can mourn Jewish deaths while remaining committed to Palestinian statehood.

Resisting the binary means affirming that I can call for the hostages’ return home while at the same time opposing this Israeli government and its territory policies; and resisting the binary means affirming that I can believe the war should end, and that it’s failing to bring the hostages home, while at the same time, supporting Israel’s right to defend itself.

Resisting the binary means acknowledging that when modern Jewish pioneers settled the land there were Arabs living on parts of that land; and resisting the binary means acknowledging

Jews have lived there since ancient days–in the very land where the biblical Deborah sat under her palm tree.

Resisting the binary means honoring the gate, the door, even the window, that can open to sacred, trusted conversation.

Resisting the binary, for me, is in the privilege of having hard and holy conversations, striving not to persuade each other but to more deeply understand each other. In these months there have been so few places in my life where I see nuanced conversation across lines of difference. It is my honor to be in conversation with and learning from, you–to hear your love for fellow Jews, your fear for Jewish safety, your hopes for all people’s children, your longing for peace. You challenge me, you complicate my understandings; it is not easy, but I try to resist the temptation of the comfortable binaries.

In one conversation I have permission to share I sat with a congregant who has close family in Israel who remain evacuated from their Kibbutz, escaping months and months of Hezbollah attacks. Although he appreciates the need for a two-state solution he sees the possibility as so far-off that it feels almost irrelevant to speak about Palestinian rights. To him it’s more important to express and hear words of comfort and support for Israel, for the hostages’ return, to advocate for Israel’s right to protect itself by any means, somehow end the threat of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and return his family to their homes. There are deep truths in his perspective, that are important for me to understand.

In another conversation I have permission to share I asked a young adult, a young woman, to help me understand how she uses the term “anti-Zionist.” For me, Zionism—pluralistic and progressive Zionism–binds me to ancestral Jewish history, liberation, and spirituality; and the Israeli flag deepens my sense of Jewish Peoplehood.  I imagined that everyone who identified as anti-Zionist today, opposed the existence of a Jewish State, and believed millions of Jews living in Israel, should be forcibly deported, or as the Hamas charter mandates, driven into the sea. Anti-Zionism sure sounded a lot like, antisemitism. Yet, for this young woman I met, and many others in her circle, antizionist means: she opposes the occupation of the territories from 1967, and opposes aggression in Gaza. Although she identifies with this description of antizionist, she avoids the term, because people assume meanings different from her intent. And she does not want to shut down the conversation. There are deep truths in her perspective, that are important for me to understand. These talks are challenging. But I want to understand this next generation—who became B’nai Mitzvah and Confirmed, here, and in congregations like ours–these are our kids.  I have been sitting with them here in synagogue, where they do not know if they have a home, but where I desperately want them to have a home.

Real conversation is not social media-friendly or protest-banner-friendly.  It is hard. So much language is being used in one way, and heard in another way.  I am learning from you: real conversation stretches our curiosity and our generosity.

There’s a Yiddush proverb that teaches: You cannot bring two mountains together, but you can bring two mensches together.  This sacred congregation is filled with mensches, that is, good people. This is a place of profound connections, where we can talk – really, deeply talk with complexity –find wisdom in the diversity. RS leaders from our Israel ConnectRS Group, and from our Israel/Palestinian Discussion Group– leaders with vastly different points of view and deep love for this congregation – have been meeting to better understand each other. I am grateful that they will open this opportunity to us all with a congregational facilitated dialogue. This October 6, at our gathering just for RS members called Tell Me More: A Facilitated Conversation about Israelis and Palestinians, in a large room of small facilitated groups we will share and we will listen.

Then, to mark one year, this October 7 we will join together in mourning for a Memorial Service with Prayers for the Hostages’ Return. Rodeph Shalom means pursue peace, but it also means pursue wholeness; we would not be whole without any of you.

Deborah the prophetess sitting under her date palm–Deborah the military victor who pictures her enemy Sisera’s mother peering through the gate–Deborah knows trauma.  And, somehow at the same time, she protects the survival of our people and she hears the trembling shofar sound of Sisera’s mother’s cry. We can hear Deborah’s desperate call to us, the call of passion and compassion, the call to resist the binary and to embrace a vision of a bound future—inextricably linked.

To embrace a bound future means to consider: only when Israelis and Palestinians each have their own home where they are secure and free, will both be physically safe and morally whole.

To embrace a bound future means to mourn the tears of our adversary’s mothers, and the tears of our own.

To embrace a bound future means to commit to the discovery of common ground and of truths across lines of difference. To embrace a bound future means to know an unshakeable love of Zion – our millennia-long, righteous, social justice dream.

Like the blast of the shofar, Deborah– with moral courage, with passion for her people, and compassion for all –Deborah calls us to hear Sisera’s mother’s cry, and to hear one another’s cry –the wail of tekiah, the broken sigh of shevarim, the whimper of truah. May we heed that call of shofar as together we open the gate to this new year.

L’shanah tovah.