Thank you, Rabbi Maderer for inviting me to speak today.  And I’d like to thank all of you for remaining loyal members of this great congregation, and thank you for keeping the Jewish community alive in your hearts.

During this Yizkor Memorial service, we remember the 48 hostages (only 20 of whom are still alive) still held by the terrorists in Gaza on this 726^th day since the horrific massacre of our people on Oct. 7, 2023.  May God bring the hostages home speedily, and may there be a cessation of this war soon.

I’d like to offer my condolences to all of you who are mourning the loss of loved ones, especially during this past year, but also all of our loved ones who we still mourn, and whose memories we pray will always be a blessing.

We come together today to remember.  “Yizkor” means Remembrance, We pray that God may remember them, and that we may remember them as well by saying the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning.

As one of our wonderful members of our congregational family Kiera Faber wrote recently, which I share with her permission:

“We say Kaddish for our loved ones by reading out their names in community.  We are collectively validating their existence, enlivening them, bringing them into the present – into our own living world – if only for a fragile moment.” [Faber]

In other words, Yizkor is about Death, but it is really about Life.  The death of a loved one causes us to think more deeply about our own lives, and the lessons we can learn from the way they lived their lives?

Now, in the waning time of this long day of Yom Kippur, we reflect upon the many profound prayers we have offered in hopes that this Yom Kippur has given us guidance on how to improve our lives. This is why this Yizkor service comes toward the end of our day, in order to help us see our lives through the prism of memory… the memory of those who came before us, as we try to learn from them.

As our prayer book teaches us, “Memory can tell us only what we were in company with those we loved; it cannot help us find what each of us, alone, must now become.”  [GOP-Levy].

This is why we are here now.  To think about what we must now become.   And we look for examples from the people around us, as well as from our sacred Jewish texts for guidance.   I’d like to tell you about one of the most powerful stories in the Hebrew Bible about an obscure character found in the Book of 1^st Kings, known as King Rehoboam.  I learned about this story from a commentary by Rabbi Jack Riemer, a well-known author and teacher.

King Rehoboam was the son of the great King Solomon who built the first Temple in Jerusalem, and united the 12 tribes into a powerful nation.  But when Solomon died, his son Rehoboam inherited the throne, and he immediately raised taxes severely on his people, so much so that the kingdom split into 2 parts.  10 tribes seceded and formed the northern kingdom (called Israel), leaving Rehoboam with only 2 tribes to form the Southern kingdom of Judah.  So Rehoboam’s legacy was to be the king who split the land into two separate nations, making it much weaker than Solomon’s united nation.

Soon, the King of the much more powerful Egypt invaded Jerusalem and plundered the treasures that were in Solomon’s palace.  As the Bible tells us “The king of Egypt even carried off the golden shields that Solomon had made.”  [I Kings 14:25-26].

After this awful invasion, during which most of their valuables were stolen, the text tells us “King Rehoboam had bronze shields made in place of the gold ones that he had lost, and he entrusted the bronze shields to the officers of the guard who guarded the entrance to the palace.”  [I Kings 14:27].

Now, what do these bronze shields have to do with our Yizkor Memorial Service?  At this moment, we think about the loss of loved ones who were the best of our lives,  just as the ancient Israelites lost their gold shields, we too have lost our gold shields, representing the best of our lives.

And we think of how we can go on, to make the best of what we have left.  We may never be able to replace the gold shields that have been taken from us, but we too can try to make our own bronze shields and we “give those substitute shields the same dignity and honor we gave the golden shields we once had, but lost.”  [Riemer]

Life will never be the same as it was before we lost our loved ones, before we lost our gold shields. But at this Yizkor service, we are called upon to make the most of our lives, and to make the most with our bronze shields.  In a way, we are re-creating ourselves.

This is the very purpose of YK, to think seriously about our lives and to try to do T’shuva, to return to our true selves.  With God’s help, we go through a re-birth, a renewal of purpose.

This is the grand vision of Yom Kippur:  we can change, we can renew ourselves, we can rise up to any challenge and find our real purpose, no matter the obstacles.

This applies to all of us, whether we have lost a loved one or not.  We all experience some kind of loss in our lives:  loss of health, loss of a job, loss of a relationship, loss of strength through aging.  All kinds of losses.  All of us will lose our golden shields at some point in our lives.  It is our task to create the best bronze shields we can, to take their place.

I know a lot of people who have retired, and many of them are dealing with these feelings of loss. Emily and I have a dear friend who ran a very successful business for many years, but she decided to sell her business and retire.  I asked her recently how she felt about being retired, and she said she didn’t like it.  She said she felt like she had lost her “purpose.”  I said I can certainly understand that!

So I said, “can’t you find something to do?”  And she said “Well, actually, I am doing something.”  In the town where she lives there is a homeless population, so she decided she would try to do something about it.  She arranged to build tiny houses for the families facing the housing crisis.  Tiny houses are small-scale homes approximately 400 sq. ft. in size, and are part of a broader social movement promoting simpler, more affordable and environmentally conscious living.  She approached the principal of a high school for troubled youth, and convinced them to undertake a project to help build some tiny houses in their shop class.  She found some vacant land and then went to battle with the city council to get the zoning and approval.  And she raised the money to make it all work.

And voila!  She is providing some temporary housing for those experiencing homelessness, helping them gain stability, finding jobs and securing sustainable long-term housing.

I believe our friend is one of the greatest examples of re-creating yourself that I have ever known.   And if you look real hard, her bronze shields certainly look like solid gold to me.

Now we may not all be able to something on this scale, but there are so many ways to use your talents, skills, knowledge and connections to make things happen in our world.  There are so many ways to make your own set of bronze shields.

But how do we know where to begin?  We are overwhelmed by the news, and the constant barrage of problems in our world.  As our prayerbook says, “There is always a crisis raging somewhere” and we barely notice because we become almost immune to the suffering all around us.  “We tune it out, so we can get on with our day, believing there is nothing we can do about it.”

But sometimes, somehow, we may be moved to act, like hearing the shofar blast loud enough to alarm us to act.

We see the problems in our world and we may or may not really notice.  We may hope that someone might help them.  But we keep on walking.

Our friend saw them and felt from the bottom of her soul that she must find a way to help.  And so she did.

These High Holy Days come to wake us – to alarm us – to command us to act – to find a way to get out of our shell of indifference and be a Jew of action.

During this Yizkor service, we are commanded to remember, but we are also commanded to move forward with our lives – to choose life – and to re-create the kind of life in which we use our God-given talents to change the world for the better…to live up to our potential to find what we must now become.

There is a famous verse in the Book of Ecclesiastes [9:11] in our Bible that says, “time and chance happen to all.”  Time and chance.  This is actually a major theme of Yom Kippur.  What does Ecclesiastes mean by “chance?”  We know that some of us will live a very happy life this year and, God willing, we will not be touched by sadness.  But we know the possibility always lurks, the chance that something unknown, unexpected, unforeseen may suddenly tear our lives apart.  Even though we believe it could never happen to us, we know that at any moment it could happen, a sudden tear in our existence, an abrupt diagnosis from a doctor, a phone call in the middle of the night, and nothing is ever the same again.

But Ecclesiastes teaches us that “chance” is not the only kind of loss.  It also teaches us about “time.”  We really can’t do much about chance.  But time is something over which we can have some control.  For it is we who determine how we use our time.  Of course, we cannot slow the progress of time, but we can resolve to use our time well.  We can realize the value of time and we can decide to make our lives worthwhile. [David Wolpe]

When King Rehoboam lost his golden shields, he made bronze shields to take their place, and he tried to make the best of it, in spite of his loss.  The interesting thing about bronze is that you need to polish it.  Gold shines bright without a whole lot of work.  But bronze tarnishes easily, and you need to work on it to keep it looking good.

So it is with our lives.  After we have suffered a loss, we need to work hard to rebuild our lives, to improve our relationships with those around us.  To find a way to make our world a better place.  We need to keep polishing our bronze shields, and if we do, they will glisten and shine almost like the finest gold.

The Book of Psalms teaches us that “we are like a fragile vessel, like the grass that withers, the flower that fades, the shadow that passes, the cloud that is dispersed in the sky, the dream that flies away.”  [Ps 103]

Do not live life as if it were forever – for we are reminded at this service of Memorial that our time is short.  “Time and chance happen to all.”  Do not turn away from what you need, and can give, because you think there will be time.  The moment will be stolen from you – and when it is lost, it will be gone forever.

God has given us this profound moment as we begin our New Year so that we may consider the meaning of our lives, and the purpose of our days.

And in this way will we truly understand the amazing value of our own lives.  Every moment is precious.  Let us resolve to use our time well.  May we promise to reach out to our loved ones, to lighten each others’ burdens, and to help build the kind of world which our tradition envisions .  And with God’s help, may we find what each of us must now become.

AMEN.

 

MATERIAL GATHERED FROM:

Kiera Faber Adult Bat Mitzvah speech at Congregation Rodeph Shalom 2025.  1^st Kings 14:25-27.     “When The Golden Shields Are Gone,” by Rabbi Jack Riemer, from May God Remember, edited by Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, Jewish Lights Publishing, Woodstock, VT. 2013.     “It is Hard to Sing of Oneness” by Rabbi Richard Levy, from Gates of Prayer, CCAR Press, New York, 1975.     Ecclesiastes [9:11], from an idea by Rabbi David Wolpe in a sermon 1996.     “Misery for Breakfast” prayer from Mishkan Hanefesh Rosh Hashanah, CCAR Press, New York, 2015.     Psalm 103.