Hineni – Here, I am – Rosh Hashanah 5778 2017

In every generation, there are monumental events for which those aware of the events at the time can remember where we were, what we were doing, and whom we were with.

I remember where I was when the news broke about Ronald Reagan being shot in 1981. I was with my friend, Dan, at his house in his basement. We were playing with Star Wars toys.

I remember where I was when I heard that the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. Just leaving the barbershop. I can remember with clarity hearing the words repeated over and over again in the news, “Challenger, go at throttle up.”

I remember September 11, 2001 in vivid detail. I remember feeling like another attack could happen at any moment, perhaps right where I was, wherever I was at the time. And I can still hear Rabbi Robert Jacobs, the longtime rabbi of Washington University Hillel, at 93 years old, standing before the gathered crowd at a vigil that evening, saying in a defiant voice, “We are at war.”

We remember what we did during floods, hurricanes, snowfalls and tornados.

We also creatively remember, with a bit of embellishment as the years go by, our connection to other events. Some 400,000 people attended Woodstock in 1969. Some of them have no memory of being there… But many more tell stories about what might have been true. The same happens with sporting events.

When an event is momentous, it is not unlikely that people will seek to remember themselves being a part of it, for good or bad.

Sometimes, we only see ourselves as spectators, watching what is happening around us, seeing ourselves as apart from the entertainers, actors, or players. We’re just attendees or people who were impacted by events.

At other times, we feel like we’re a part of the events. We see ourselves not as watching a team, but as being a part of the team. We don’t say, our city’s players won or our university’s team won. We say, “We won,” even if we have nothing to do with what the team actually did during the event. To an extent, we realize that, as a fan, the team only represents the city or university, and not necessarily us as individuals, even if we’re connected to them, but we often feel like they do represent us.

Sometimes fans can be more heavily involved with what happens on the field than the players are. They players are playing a game. For some fans, it’s their life. When the team wins, the fans are happy. When they suffer a crushing defeat, the fans feel crushed themselves. There is a lengthy history of studies of how positive and negative results of sporting events affect the family dynamics of fans, from spikes in police reports of abusive behavior to significant increases in births about 40 weeks later.

This isn’t only the case when we’re watching sporting events. It can happen when we watch a good movie or TV show or read a well written book. We enter the world with which we’re interacting. It can feel like we’re really there and our laughter, our tears, our sighs of relief, our hopes and fears about events on the screen or in the pages may be as real as they would be if the events were happening around us in real life.

For the Jewish tradition, there isn’t a line between what we read about and what we experience and have experienced. Our tradition teaches us that when we talk about events in ages long past, that they happened to us and are happening to us.

Judaism believes in timelessness. In our prayers for Chanukah, we thank God for the miracles performed for us “Bayom hahu b’zman hazeh.” Sometimes translated, “At that time, in this season.” But the words could easily mean, “In those days, in this time.” Meaning, at all times, then and now.

In our Torah portion for Yom Kippur, we are told “Atem Nitzavim,” that we are standing before God. It isn’t that we read about what the Torah tells us happened in ancient times to our ancestors. The Tradition tells us that we, all of us, our souls, not only those of our ancestors, were in fact standing at Sinai. On Yom Kippur, we are reenacting the event, once again coming before God.

In other stories, we seem to be more like observers. This morning, we read the story of the Binding of Isaac. We are not Abraham, feeling called to sacrifice his child. We are not Isaac, going along with his father, questioning but never really challenging. We are not the angel who stayed Abraham’s hand, though in the sense that we’re rooting for a character like we do when we’re watching a movie or reading a book, we’re certainly on the side of the angel, wanting to reach out our hand to stay the knife.

It is somewhat difficult to see ourselves in many of the stories in the book of Genesis. I don’t mean that we can’t identify with aspects of the stories. We certainly can identify with sibling rivalry, with infertility issues, with fears and hopes. But we are not those characters.

Where we most closely identify, perhaps, is in a word, “Hineini.”

The rabbis present Hineini as if it is a response of enthusiasm. “Bring it on!” “Let’s go!” “I’m ready, able, and willing!”

But it may also be a term of inevitability, of acceptance.

When God calls, when the universe drops something into our lap, we cannot hide, we cannot escape. Hineini may be a response offered by someone called upon without the choice to respond other than by acceptance and giving it their best.

It’s the response of the people of St. Thomas, not even having remotely recovered from the devastation of Hurricane Irma, hearing that Hurricane Maria was on the way. “Hineini.”

In our Torah portion, divine beings call out to Abraham twice, once to announce the test and again when the angel wishes to stay his hand as Abraham was about to proceed. Abraham complies each time.

The first “Hineini” was perhaps an “I have to do what???”

The second, asked by Isaac where the lamb for the sacrifice was, this time, “Hin’ni, B’ni,” was perhaps a “Have faith.” And the final one, the one after the angel of God calls to stay his hand, might well have been a “What now???” Abraham did not yet know that he was being given a reprieve.

In regard to Jacob, in Genesis 46 that:

² God spoke to Israel in a vision at night and said, “Jacob! Jacob!”

“Hineini,” “Here I am,” he replied.

³ “I am God, the God of your father,” he said. “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. ⁴ I will go down to Egypt with you, and I will surely bring you back again. And Joseph’s own hand will close your eyes.”

And in regard to Moses, in Exodus 3:

⁴ When Adonai saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Hineini,” “Here I am.”

⁵ “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” ⁶ Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

⁷ Adonai said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. ⁸ So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

God calls, Jacob and Moses respond, “Hineini,” “Here, I am.” It seems to be an acknowledgement that a task that must be performed is forthcoming. MUST. That seems to be the real issue. “Hineini” seems to be the response offered by someone who realizes that though they may be afraid, though the task may be daunting, though he or she may feel unworthy to even make an attempt, they need to accept the challenge before them.

We see in the story of Moses and the Burning Bush, not only a man no doubt awed and frightened by the flames before him and the voice of God seemingly coming from within them, but faced with a tremendous task, going to speak to Pharaoh, and not feeling up to the challenge. “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

We also have a story that we read on Yom Kippur in which the main character, the one to whom God reaches out, doesn’t respond “Hineini,” “Here, I am,” but instead runs away. The point of the story of Jonah, beyond the idea that God is willing to forgive those who seek forgiveness, the people of Ninevah, is that from certain responsibilities, when God calls upon you, when life drops something difficult or challenging that you must face into your life, you cannot run away. You choice is in how you say, “Hineini,” “Here, I am,” or perhaps, “I guess, I’m ready enough. I need to be.”

There is a prayer said by the leader, usually the rabbi, on the evening of Rosh Hashanah, called “Hin’ni.” The Rabbi comes before the open ark near the beginning of the service and confesses, “Here I am, so poor in deeds, I tremble in fear, overwhelmed and apprehensive before You, to whom Israel sings praise. Although unworthy, I rise to pray and seek favor for Your people Israel.”

The prayer is an acknowledgement that no leader, no rabbi, is good enough, has done well enough, has accomplished enough, to truly deserve the task of speaking on behalf of the community. We are all like Moses, trembling before the Burning Bush and asking, “Who am I to take on this task?” with the certainty, not the doubt, but the certainty, that we are flawed ourselves and the challenge is a daunting one.

And so today again, “Hineini.” Here I am. “Hineinu,” Here we are.

During the High Holidays, we are not spectators. Our souls are once again wandering through a wilderness. Before us is a burning bush with a directive to move forward in the direction that we must go for ourselves, for our families, for the broader Jewish community, for the Jewish people. But the message isn’t for the whole community, nor is it just for its leader. It is for each of us individually.

We each have our own journeys. We each have our own challenges.

Some of us woke up one morning and life called upon us to face a challenge, perhaps several of them, perhaps on several mornings. Some of those challenges may have been relatively minor. Others may seem impossible for us to meet or as with Abraham’s test, ones we are loathe to face.

There are times in our lives when we’re given a choice of whether to move on or to remain, to make a change or leave things as they are. Sometimes, we have only the choice of how to deal with new circumstances and challenges.

Today, the great shofar has been sounded.

We are called to awaken.

We are called to take on our tasks, to face our challenges, to return ourselves again to paths of righteousness.

May we be prepared to do the hard work, to go on the journey that lies ahead.

And may we find the strength and courage within us to keep going as best we can.

Today, may our response be “Hineini,” “Here, I am.”

L’shanah Tovah

The Three Advisers – Erev Rosh Hashanah 5778 2017

This is a time of considering what should be our priorities in life and being mindful of how well we have been acting in relation to them.

What should fill our lives? What actually does fill them?

If we imagine our lives as a home, what would we like to fill it?

Let me begin with my version of a classic Jewish tale:

Once there was an old, wise, and prudent king who had no children. As the king grew older, he decided it was time to confer his kingdom upon one of his loyal advisors. So he called to them and said, “I am getting older my friends. Soon, I will pass away. But before I die, I will anoint one of you to be the next ruler. I know that all of you are good people, so I am going to give you a test: I will give each of you four gold coins to take to the market to bring back things that will fill my house with beauty and make it a nicer place to live.” He told them to come back the next day with what they had found.

The three advisers went to the marketplace. It was full of all kinds of things that were interesting and beautiful. The smells of delicious baked goods filled the air. You could find anything you needed or wanted.

The first advisor was a big fan of rugs. All he could think about when he received the assignment was finding the best ones. He glanced at the rugs in the market that day. He thought they were very beautiful and of how nice it would be to be able to stand on one of them instead of upon the cold stone floors of the castle. The rugs were useful and beautiful—but also expensive. He could only buy a couple at most. Yet, the task was to help to fill the house with beauty and make it a better place to live. The rugs would be a good start.

The second advisor slowly wandered through the market. He was becoming very discouraged. He thought about buying rugs too, to help with those cold castle floors, but saw another advisor doing that. Perhaps, some nice furniture? If he got a chair that was too small, it wouldn’t work. If he got one that was too big, the king might even be insulted. Could he find the Goldilocks chair?

He imagined an embarrassed and angry king stuck in his chair. Perhaps, I should not get something that would go on the floor? Then he saw a large and wonderfully beautiful tapestry that could be hung on one of the walls. It would not fill the whole house with beauty, but it would help.

The third advisor was contemplative. She walked around the marketplace all day, looking and looking. Once she stopped to help a lost little girl find her mother. Another time she helped an old woman load her donkey with bundles of firewood. She talked with the shoppers and laughed with the children playing games. But her search for something that could fill the King’s house with beauty and make it a nicer place to live seemed in vain. She had almost given up finding anything. It was getting dark and the market was closing.

And as she passed a small shop for the last time, she saw exactly what she needed! “Why didn’t I think of that before?” she said out loud.

The first advisor, arriving early the next morning, brought in the gorgeous rugs. They brought beauty to two of the rooms. “Those rugs are quite a nice addition to the castle,” said the king.

The second advisor, arrived shortly after lunch. He brought in the work of art, a tapestry of the setting sun that would hang on the wall of the entry hall. “Amazing details,” said the king. “Again a nice addition.”

Standing on the rugs helped to take a bit of the chill away. The tapestry of the setting sun brought a bit of color, when the light shone through the windows, but as the light was fading outside, it was becoming difficult to see.

Finally, as it was becoming dark, the third advisor came in. In each room of the house she set out candles which she lit. A soft, warm glow filled the corners and hallways. Everyone began chatting amiably as they busied themselves around the house, for the light had chased away the shadows. Now, you could see the tapestry and the rugs. She put wood into all of the fireplaces and heated the whole house. While she was going about her work, she sang a beautiful song. As she sang, other people came to the house and joined their voices with hers.

The king sighed a happy sigh and smiled with contentment. He knew that he had found his successor, the woman who had filled the castle with light, with warmth, with the beauty of song, and with friends and family members of the king who not only increased the beauty of the song they sang, but filled the home with the beauty of friendship and love as well.

Sometimes, we focus on our possessions. “The one with the most toys wins.”

Sometimes, we focus on what we lack. “If only I had a bigger house, a nicer car.”

Sometimes, we focus on what others have. “I wish I was like them.”

“$1,000 really isn’t THAT much for an IPhone X is it? It has facial recognition!”

Sometimes, we focus on what we perceive that others have,

“The grass must be greener on the other side of this fence.”

Sometimes, we go through our lives half asleep, not even aware of our surroundings.

Today, the great shofar has been sounded, waking us from our slumber, calling us to attention. The High Holidays are upon us.

Let us take time to turn our attention from the complexities of the world around us to the complexities of the world within us, to the needs and desires, the longings of our souls.

What do we want in our lives?

With what will we fill our homes?

We would begin with love, happiness, health, and warmth.

Some would say beauty, interesting and pleasing artwork, pleasant scents perhaps from flowers, though for allergy sufferers maybe not.

Some would say the smells of good food wafting from the kitchen and chocolate, lots of chocolate.

Some would add good music.

Some would say laughter, sounds of joy, and the voices of family and friends.

Some might say light, perhaps sunlight shining through the windows, perhaps, in the more abstract, rays of hope filling every room.

Some might add feelings of compassion toward others, of tolerance and welcoming, “let all who are hungry come and eat,” with that hunger perhaps being for food, perhaps being for companionship, compassion, or love.

Some would say, Shalom, an absence of violence, a sense of well-being, feelings of completion and wholeness.

For a moment, let’s consider a different ending to the story that I told. For a moment, let us consider this:

In the middle of the night, when the King awakened, he sat up in bed, swung his feet off of the side of the bed, and right into standing water up to his knees and rising.

Last month, when hurricane Harvey struck Houston, many people woke up to find that their homes were flooded by rapidly rising water. One of my rabbinical colleagues and his family found their home flooding rapidly and realized that their best hope for survival until a rescue boat could arrive was to break into the neighbor’s taller home and seek higher ground.

Rugs? Tapestries? Furniture? Candles? Cars? Family heirlooms? People were lucky to escape with their lives, a few of their most important possessions as long as they were small, hopefully their medications, and perhaps a change of clothes. That happened, in many cases, only because people came from long distances away with boats, kayak, and even giant rubber duckie pool floats to help with rescue.

We have a tendency to believe that disaster brings out the worst in people. In some people, perhaps. There have been plenty of reports of looting and no few of price gouging. Yet, for most people, studies have shown, disaster causes us to elevate communal good over personal good and saving lives over maintaining prejudices and seeking gain. We share our food, our clothing, our transportation, and our shelter.

Some people invited dozens of people seeking higher ground, electricity, or perhaps simply a roof over their heads into their homes. They picked up strangers in their cars or trucks. They dove into raging waters and formed human chains to save both people and animals. People like you and me. Not trained emergency responders. Not soldiers. People who happened to be at the right place at the right time. In many cases, people who went out of their way to try to be in the right place at the right time. Leaving the safety of their homes to seek what kind of help they could bring to those in need. One business owner, Mattress Mack, turned his Gallery Furniture store into a shelter.

In spite of the attitudes of some preachers who want to argue that hurricanes are punishment for sin, very few people affected by such events treat anyone they encounter as if they deserved to have their homes flooded, their possessions destroyed, their lives threatened by violent winds. We do not believe that anyone deserves that.

Amid the floodwaters, there are no arguments that someone is homeless or hungry because they’d rather not work or don’t have the fortitude to quit drugs or any of the other arguments that people often use to excuse an unwillingness to help. If everyone is endangered, nothing differentiates anyone from anyone else. The winds and floodwaters from hurricanes strike rich and poor, people of all colors and ethnicities.

Amid the floodwaters, someone being cold and wet and shivering and endangered isn’t the result of punishment for bad behavior. It’s as good as a commandment for us to enact Tsedek: to enact righteousness, to correct the wrongs that are going on around us, to respond to needs, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, house the homeless, lift up the fallen. And we tend to appreciate what is most important in our own lives.

If watching the news about all of the horrible things going on in our world, you ever find yourself wondering how humanity has survived to this point and wondering what hope there is for the future, the answer is that human beings rise in support of one another at times of true adversity. At times of disaster, we are more likely to see strangers as B’tselem Elohim, in the image of God, in our image. We are more likely to see commonalities instead of focusing on differences.

We are told that God created the world from Tohu and Vohu, a swirling mass of water and earth, and brought order to it all. Human beings standing in the midst of great floodwaters take on a similar task.

When our world is tohu va-vohu, a swirling mass of chaos, our task is to help bring order and a sense of shalom. Let us bring light and hope into places of darkness and despair.

May the New Year 5778 be a year of light and hope, of warmth and security, of health and prosperity. Should there be times of difficulty for us, may the coming year be a year wherein caring arms embrace us and lift us up. May the new year be a year in which joy and laughter, love and kindness, health and prosperity, fill our homes and our community.

Kein yehi ratson. May it be God’s will.

And let us say, Amen.

Shanah Tovah

Faith, Trust, Skepticism and Doubt Rosh Hashanah Morning 2015-5776

In the middle of the night last night, I awoke to a story. I’m not sure if it was my subconscious saying, “You need a good story for your sermon” or perhaps it was my mother speaking to me. This is the kind of story she would have loved. It isn’t a true story. It didn’t actually happen in our household. It could have. But I had to tell it today, because it is the perfect introduction to a sermon about Faith, Trust, Skepticism and Doubt.

How many people here have at least two siblings? How many have at least three children? Everyone else, look at the nodding as I tell the story.

Sibling #2 would really like a big cup of hot chocolate but knows that there are only three packets and that mom and her siblings might want some.

“Mom, can I make hot chocolate? There are only three packets!”

Sib #1, “I’d like some too!” Sib #3, “Don’t forget me!”

Mom, giving up any hope for a share, responds by telling sib #2, “Make one for you and your brother and sister.”

Sib #2 complies. She takes up her own cup and places two steaming cups of hot chocolate with marshmallows pleasantly floating on their surface onto the table in her sibling’s traditional spots.

Sib #3 comes into the room, grabs his cup, and immediately starts drinking.

Sib #2, holding her own cup, picks up the cat and says, “Stay away from the hot chocolate!” just as Sib #1 enters the room.

“What happened?” Sib #1 says.

Sib #2 replies, “Well, our beloved cat just went to the bathroom and then jumped up on the table. I thought I saw him pawing at your hot chocolate. Maybe he was playing with the marshmallows or something.”

Sib #1 walks over and looks at the hot chocolate. “Really? There’s dark stuff on the marshmallow. Eeeewww! Well, so much for that.” Then she leaves the room.

Sib #2 puts the cat down, finishes the cup she’s holding, and puts it in the sink. Then she walks over and picks up the cup she made for Sib #1 and starts drinking it.

Sib #3 says, “Wait, I thought you said the cat messed with that right after going to the bathroom!”

Sib #2’s reply, “I don’t know about her, but I’m certain that I was just imagining things.”

There you have it; faith, trust, skepticism and doubt, all wrapped up in one story.

Why do we believe what we believe? This morning, I would like to talk a bit about faith and trust. I will speak about our Torah portion as well as about what Maimonides and the Rabbinic Tradition say about faith, about how our changing understanding of the world in which we live has impacted faith and trust in the modern world, and about the importance of questioning our assumptions.

“And after these things, Haelohim nisa et Avraham, the Divine tested Abraham.” With those words one of the most troubling texts in our tradition begins. I have spoken before on Rosh Hashanah about my own interpretation of the story; of how Abraham was doing what he believed was expected of him, while Adonai interceded and stopped the test by sending an angel and a ram. I would argue that this story, interpreted in this manner, is perhaps the very foundation of our people’s worship of Adonai apart from the divinities in which other people in ancient times believed.

I believe that in very ancient times, people understood that Abraham once had faith in those divine beings, or at least trusted this particular tradition connected with them, but he came have faith and trust primarily and then only in Adonai, the God who did not seek the death of his beloved son as a test. You won’t find that interpretation of the Akeidah explained anywhere else, because the Jewish tradition came to have faith in the ideal that Abraham was a monotheist long before the story of the Binding of Isaac. I contend, on the other hand, that what we see instead in the stories of Abraham’s life is the development of his faith in Adonai.

Maimonides says essentially that it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you keep all of the mitzvot. Judaism for him was about practice, not belief. Yet even that practice depends on having faith in the revelation that has come down to us, primarily as expressed through the Torah and the Prophets. Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Faith include that we must have faith that the Torah, the Law of Moses, is of divine origin and is immutable, unchanging over time. This belief lies at the heart of Orthodox Judaism.

For most of our people’s history, people had two choices, have faith or doubt. Most of the time, they could not investigate. People couldn’t simply “Google” the history of their ancestors, look at maps, or even better, telephone, Facetime or Skype with someone across the world. Neither could they access scientific inquiry, archaeology, and a plethora of historical texts all of which could help in the decision. Add that deciding to deny what you were taught in times not too distant could have led to persecution, excommunication, or worse, and even asking questions could have been considered a matter of life and death.

There is a version of Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles that is part of the traditionally daily liturgy called “Ani Ma’amim” which begins, “Ani Ma’amim, b’emunah shleimah,” “I believe with a perfect faith…” and then lists Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Faith. The song Yigdal Elohim Chai, which is part of our High Holiday liturgy, is a poetic version.

Yet, doubt and skepticism were always present. We are the people whose own texts describe how, having seen miracles, we were skeptical, doubting, and rebellious. I say, we, and not them, because if you’ll remember your Passover lessons, we are to always act as if we ourselves were there as slaves in Egypt, freed by wonders and miracles.

Most of us don’t have perfect faith and trust in much of anything that anyone might want us to believe or do, especially not if they claim to be speaking in the name of a higher power. In our age of technology, if someone claiming to be a modern day Moses came down a mountain with tablets he claimed to be inscribed by the finger of God, someone would ask why he didn’t just use email. Someone else would snap pictures or post a video showing Moses shattering the first set in anger at the people who protested against Aaron and built the golden calf.

Doubt and skepticism, we have aplenty. Reform Judaism originated among those who were skeptical of the origins of the traditions that been handed down to us, including those in our sacred texts. The founders of Reform sought meaning and relevance and eschewed those traditions that required faith and trust without the support of reason and modern understanding. They believed that in the modern world, we were beyond simply trusting what we are told by a source claiming to know the truth.

In this, they were wrong.

While we may question truths shared by people in the name of a higher power, we are the people who, in modern times, too often believe that because something is on the internet and people are sharing it, therefore it must be true. Maybe not the whole internet, maybe just on Facebook or Twitter.

And while we may question the words attributed to Moses, we tend to imbue other fictional characters with trust and then act as if the actors who play them should be so trusted.

Many of us remember the “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on tv?” commercial. “So why then are we hearing your opinion on a medical issue?” We ask rhetorically. The answer is that we develop a sort of trust from watching characters on television and in movies. That ad campaign, for Vicks Formula 44 cough syrup played upon the trust that we have for doctors, even fictional doctors.

How many products do we see advertised with someone claiming to be a doctor endorsing them? There is a massive industry of supplements and remedies. But that is not new. Coca Cola was introduced in 1886 as medicinal remedy containing cocaine, alcohol, and caffeine. It was originally called Pemberton’s French Wine Cocoa, but because of prohibition in many places, the alcohol was removed and a new formula introduced. Pemberton claimed that the formula cured many diseases including morphine addition, dyspepsia, headache and-you guessed it- impotence.

Woody Allen, in the movie Sleeper from 1973, made fun of our faith in health products. The doctors in the movie, Dr. Melik and Dr. Aragon, make fun of his character who wakes from cryostasis many years in the future.

Dr. Melik: This morning for breakfast he requested something called "wheat germ, organic honey and tiger's milk."

Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.

Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or... hot fudge?

Dr. Aragon: Those were thought to be unhealthy... precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.

Dr. Melik: Incredible.

In this regard, I recently read an article about salads in the Washington Post. This quote caught me a bit off-guard. I expect it will impact many of you in the same way. After noting that lettuce is almost all water and has little nutritional content, the author stated that, “A head of iceberg lettuce has the same water content as a bottle of Evian (1-liter size: 96 percent water, 4 percent bottle) and is only marginally more nutritious.”

He added that:

Collard greens are 90 percent water, which still sounds like a lot. But it means that, compared with lettuce, every pound of collard greens contains about twice as much stuff that isn’t water, which, of course, is where the nutrition lives.

Meanwhile the author noted that:

Lots of what passes for salad in restaurants is just the same as the rest of the calorie-dense diabolically palatable food that’s making us fat, but with a few lettuce leaves tossed in. Next time you order a salad, engage in a little thought experiment: Picture the salad without the lettuce, cucumber and radish, which are nutritionally and calorically irrelevant. Is it a little pile of croutons and cheese, with a few carrot shavings and lots of ranch dressing? …Items labeled “salad” at chain restaurants are often as bad, if not worse, than pastas or sandwiches or burgers when it comes to calories. Take Applebee’s, where the Oriental Chicken Salad clocks in at 1,400 calories!

Why do we allow this to happen? Bret Thorn, columnist at Nation’s Restaurant News and longtime observer of the restaurant industry, said about salads that:

 Chefs are cognizant of what’s going on in the psychology of diners. They’re doing a kind of psychological health washing, not just with salads, but with labels like “fresh” and “natural,” and foods that are “local” and “seasonal.” “A chef is not a nutritionist, or public health advocate,” Thorn points out. They make food that customers want to buy.

And we want to buy things that are fried or creamy or salty or sweet, or all of those things. Which doesn’t mean that the right salad can’t be a good choice for a nutritious meal. It just means that it’s easy to get snookered.

The fried chicken finger salad covered in ranch dressing and cheese over lettuce and the giant taco salad, may be yummy, but they are not great dietary choices simply because they are called “salads” and have lettuce.

Meanwhile, with all of the options we have to get our news and analysis today, we often forget that a bit of skepticism is required there as well. Too often, we simply read the menu, order, and consume. Like our dietary choices, we tend to watch those stations that appeal to us. That may mean that we only access news sources that tell us what we want to hear and avoid the ones that make us question whether or not what we want to hear is correct. It is far too easy to be led astray, if we do that.

Let me suggest that the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, is the time when we should take the time to listen to contrary voices, voices that make us question. The Hebrew term “Noraim” has within it the root for the verb “to look,” ra’eh. In fact, one could see “noraim” as a sort of causative reflexive, something that could make the term Yamim Noraim mean something like, “The days that cause us to look at ourselves.”

During these days, “Why do we believe the things that we believe?” is an important question to ask ourselves. Why do we trust? Why do we have faith? Why are we skeptical?

Do we doubt a source’s information and opinions simply because they differ from ours? Because they’re found on the wrong TV network or the in the wrong newspaper or webpage? Do we seek tonics to dull the pain of the criticism, perhaps applying labels or broad generalizations that help us negate challenging arguments?

Do we have faith in arguments supporting the positions we already hold because just as we like salty, creamy, goodness and having it be organic and on lettuce make us feel better about consuming it, we’re willing not to question arguments that make us feel good about what we want to believe?

Even more problematic, are will willing to follow expectations without question, even ones we don’t like, and climb the mountain walking alongside our loved one carrying a knife and wood.

Or instead, do we seek to respond to challenges without trying to brush them aside, looking at the ingredients of the argument without the lettuce that works to convince us that it is all okay?

It isn’t just our stomachs and our politics that work to convince us to agree. We are experts at convincing ourselves that our habits are acceptable, that we need not change. The Yamim Noraim, these days of looking within, challenge us. The shofar blast tells us to “Wake up! Open our eyes! Challenge ourselves!”

It is time to question our assumptions and expectations. Do our actions match our goals? Are we willing to question how we interact with others, how we perceive the world, how we defend our vices, how we support our causes or fail to do so, how we find excuses not to give, volunteer, or make sacrifices to help? Are we quick to excuse ourselves for our failures while swiftly convicting others? Are we pretending to diet while eating fried creamy fatty decadence over lettuce? Are we living and acting in ways opposite to what we truly know to be right?

When we look at Abraham ascending the mountain, our thoughts are not of praise for his faith. We ask instead, “How could he?” Yet, we too often act without question, following expectations, whether our own or those of others.

Let the coming days be ones in which we perform Heshbon Nefesh, taking an accounting of our souls, of our desires and actions, of how we go about our lives. Let us turn ourselves in the right direction, performing Teshuva.

Our tradition does indeed stress having faith in the traditions and beliefs that have come down to us, yet may we not simply rise early to meet expectations and to unquestioningly follow our assumptions.

The shofar reminds us that we need to listen to challenging voices, “Avraham! Avraham!” and that we need to consider possible alternatives to our direction, to question whether or not we or others to whom we listen are just “imagining things.” A new possibility and better understanding may be just beyond the thicket, if we but consider it.

L’shanah Tovah

Erev Rosh Hashanah 2015-5776 Adapting to Change

At this time of year, and to a greater extent during the time between the Jewish New Year, tonight, and the Day of Atonement, ten days from now, Jews are expected to perform Heshbon Nefesh, an accounting of our souls. Heshbon Nefesh involves trying to look at our lives as God might look upon us. How are we living our lives? Are we fulfilling our promise, living up to our abilities? Are we striving to improve or falling back into bad habits?

Are we content with mediocre or accepting of the philosophy, “Happy is the person who is content with his or her lot?” Or do we interpret the latter statement to mean that we should strive to achieve betterment so that we may become content? And if we are discontented, perhaps, because changes in our lives brought with them chaos and disorder, challenge and uncertainty, how will we confront them? Sometimes, the challenge is simply to go on with our lives.

The Jewish New Year is a day of celebration, of renewal of the cycle of life, but it is also a time to confront the reality of our lives, a time when the realities and opportunities of change are placed before us.

Tonight, I would like to share a story about change with you and then to help you consider two things, first, how we might respond to changes that happen in our lives to which we must adapt, and second, how we might elect to make changes when the opportunity arises. Of course, not all of those changes are difficult decisions or painful ones, but change always brings challenges with it.

There are many versions of this story. I have entitled my adaptation of it, simply, “A Story of A Cow.”

In an isolated place, on land where there were no crops and no trees, a young man lived with his wife, three young children, all with long drawn faces, and a thin, tired cow. The man, whose name was Samuel, had purchased the cow when it was but a calf, having labored long and hard to earn enough to do so, in order that he might offer a marriage proposal to his beloved Rachel. Samuel was an apprentice cobbler. Each morning, he walked to the small village nearby, returning after dusk. Samuel earned little, but learned much. Someday, he would have his own shop.

Now though, he barely earned enough to keep his family fed. The family once had a pair of goats in addition to the cow, but during last summer’s drought, when the price of food rose, they had to be sold so that the family had enough to eat. Samuel felt badly about that now. He knew how much Rachel enjoyed goats milk and cheese.

It so happened that a rabbi and his disciple, hungry and thirsty, and a bit lost, were traveling by the home as Samuel cut the grass among the bushes, seeking more to feed his underfed cow. Samuel didn’t have much to offer, but he didn’t hesitate to invite the rabbi and his student to come inside for a rest and bit of refreshment in the heat of the day.

The pair stayed for a couple of hours, eating and then dozing off for a nap. At one point, the sage asked Samuel: “This is a place in which it would seem difficult to live. It is far away from other people. You have no trees or crops. How do you survive?”

“You see that cow? That’s what keeps us going,” Samuel said. “She gives us milk; some of it we drink and some we make into cheese. When there is extra, we bring it to the village and exchange the milk and cheese for other types of food. That and what I can afford with my earnings as an apprentice cobbler is how we survive.”

The sage thanked them for their hospitality, vowing to repay it when he could, and then he and his disciple left. When they were out of the hearing of the family, the disciple asked “Rabbi, why do they live like that? Surely, they could move somewhere more hospitable. This is no life.”

The rabbi thought about a story similar to our Fiddler on the Roof and about how life sometimes is truly like that, so easy to fall. It was obvious that the cow would not be long lived and then what would happen to the family? They could starve, but perhaps they would be able to move on and live a better life somewhere else.

The rabbi and the disciple continued on their journey, but neither could forget the family. The disciple, who was traveling with the rabbi on his way to be installed as the leader of a new school, went on to have disciples of his own. Some years later, he travelled to visit his beloved teacher and passed by the place where the run down shack had been.

Upon rounding a turn in the road, he could not believe what his eyes were showing him. In place of the poor shack there was a beautiful house with trees all around, and children were playing in a lush yard.

The heart of the disciple froze. What could have happened to the poor family? Then he remembered the sickly cow. It must have died. Without a doubt, they must have been starving to death and forced to sell their land and leave. At that moment, the student thought: they must be begging on the street corners of some city. He approached the house and asked the man on the front step what had happened to the family who used to live there.

“We are still here,” he said. The disciple was dumbfounded. He went over to Samuel and asked: “What happened? I was here with my teacher a few years ago and this was a miserable place. There was nothing. What did you do to improve your lives?”

Samuel looked at the disciple, and replied with a smile: “I remember you. Back then, we had a sickly cow that barely kept us alive. She was all we had. Not long after you left, your rabbi came back. He brought a man to teach us how to grow crops and even planted a couple of trees for us. There wasn’t much at first, but when our cow died the next year, there was enough to keep us going. To survive, we had to start doing other things, develop skills we didn’t even know we had. We planted more trees and crops, then traded crops for chickens, and chickens eventually for a healthy cow. I bought materials to make shoes as well. Now, we live so much better with crops, chickens, and cows. We sell produce and shoes in the village, enough to turn our shack into a house. Life forced to come up with new ways of doing things, and because your rabbi thought to prepare us by teaching us how, we are now much better off than before.”

The moral of my version of the story is that not only might we be better off trying to do something new and different to succeed instead of merely trying to get by, but we should help others learn to do so. We understand that we should be helping others adapt to the challenges that life may bring. When we teach about Tsedakah, we often think, “Give someone a fish, they’ll eat for a day. Teach them to fish, they’ll eat for a lifetime.”

Thus, we are people who work with charity after charity. We work with organizations helping battered and abused women, immigrants, the homeless, big brothers and sisters and so many more groups, helping others to change and improve their lives.

But how good are we at seeing personal challenges and adapting to them? How are we at setting new goals and seeking to achieve them? That is, to an extent, what we are tasked with doing during the high holidays each year. And the Torah portion that we read on Yom Kippur afternoon tells us, “It is not too distant from you.” We can change.

There are years when we come into this sacred space at this sacred time amid changes that have happened to us, our lives tossed and turned. Other years, changes brought us increased joy and happiness. Sometimes, we enter this space, this place and time, at a loss for what we should do.

Sometimes, We are Forced to Change

Going back to our story. Sometimes, the cow dies, whether we are prepared or not. We lose our job, our health fails or that of a loved one. Life can come at us pretty hard. We can be tossed into the deep end or even tossed about on a stormy sea.

In the original Story of the Cow, the sage demands that his disciple push the cow off of a cliff in order to force the family to abandon its struggles right away rather than continuing to merely get by until the cow inevitably died. The family simply wakes up one morning to find the cow dead.

This narrative doesn’t work in a Jewish version of the story, of course. In our religious tradition, taking and then killing the cow would be stealing, destruction of property, not to mention a violation of the directive to care for defenseless animals, and in this case, endangering the lives of the whole family as well. They could just as easily have starved as succeeded in their efforts to change. So such a sage’s advice wouldn’t be very Jewish advice.

The moral of the story as it is traditionally told is that sometimes our dependency on something small and limited is the biggest obstacle to our growth. We can cling to something that sustains us, but also limits us. Overcoming that dependency can be daunting, hence the version of the story in which the family is forced to change by the death of the cow, but once we are willing to change, we can improve.

Yet, the traditional story is also often closer to what happens in life. Sometimes, we wake up to changed circumstances. What we’ve relied upon to help support us is simply gone. At this time of year, we are particularly mindful of times of loss, of the people who are no longer sitting beside us reaching out to hold our hand.

Certainly, during this High Holiday season, my family and I are particularly mindful of that as we mourn the loss of my mother.

Yet, we are also particularly mindful of new hands that are present in our lives and new responsibilities that we have. There is an appropriate cruder version of this statement, but for Rosh Hashanah, let’s just say, “Life happens.”

Being able to adapt is the key to thriving and often to survival.

Charles Darwin once stated, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” This is true in regard to evolution, but also to success and happiness in life.

A few weeks ago, I attended a program about Israel’s response during times of major disasters around the world. Two young Israelis spoke about their experiences in Nepal right after the massive 7.8 on the Richter scale earthquake wrought havoc across the nation, killing over 9,000 people. One of the Israelis, Avi, had just finished his IDF service and was planning to hike through the mountains with three friends.

When the earthquake struck, Avi and his friends realized not that they were in the wrong place and the wrong time, but that they were in the right place and the right time. Their hiking trip wasn’t going to happen. That was obvious, but they knew that they could help and headed to Katmandu, straight into the heart of the disaster to seek out ways to do so, eventually working with the IDF disaster response team that arrived shortly thereafter, helping to distribute food and blankets to hundreds of people over the next few days.

The second Israeli who spoke was Tal. Tal is a nurse serving with Magen David Adom and in the IDF reserves, who aspires to become a doctor someday. She was at home in Herzliya, having dinner with her parents and watching television when reports of the earthquake were broadcast on the news.

Tal said that her father asked, “So are they going to send you?” “Maybe,” she said. It was nearly midnight. A few minutes later her cell phone rang. Within the hour, her unit was at the home of the doctor who runs the medical clinic that gives immunization shots for those traveling to foreign lands. The clinic was closed, but that wasn’t going to stop anyone. The doctor’s wife brewed coffee and the soldiers were lined up at the kitchen table to receive their shots. By the end of the next day, Tal was in Nepal, one of the first foreigners to enter the country after the quake.

When Tal’s unit arrived at the main hospital in Katmandu, eight stories tall, they found everyone from the hospital, doctors, nurses, and patients, sitting in the parking lot. All of the staff were working out of a batch of hastily assembled tents. The hospital building was unstable and there were powerful aftershocks.

Tal was informed that there was one particular patient, a premature baby born to Israeli parents, for whom she was especially to look to help. She couldn’t imagine where the baby was. The child needed to be in an incubator on oxygen with IVs. This was a tent city with little or no electricity.

Tal related that she looked around and there in the middle of the tents was a running car. They wandered over to see what was going on; perhaps they were using the car for electricity or lights. Instead, the hospital staff had realized that they needed a controlled environment amid the chaos. They turned the car into an incubator. An oxygen tank was outside one window and an IV pole was outside the other. Inside, on the backseat in a bassinet was the baby.

As Tal said, they made do with what they had. When asked why Israelis do these things, why they were there so quickly with no hesitation, she said in essence, “It’s what we do. It’s who we are. We just go and do it, no matter how difficult. We try. We believe in Tikkun Olam. We repair what’s wrong in the world. Anywhere we can. It’s what we believe in as Jews. It’s what we believe in as Israelis.”

And I would suggest, that attitude is plays no small part in the narrative of how our people has survived so many trials and tribulations through the generations. When we must adapt, we adapt.

Electing to Change

While life does regularly tell us, “Lekh Lekha,” “Go forth,” like Tal’s commanding officer did, and gives us no choice but to comply, often, we have the opportunity to make a choice.

In our High Holiday liturgy, we read of the Gates of Repentance opening this evening and closing at the end of Yom Kippur. Our tradition urges us to feel a sense of urgency and to seize the opportunity to change our direction in life, to perform Teshuvah, literally returning to the path.

The High Holidays remind us that we have it in our capacity to change ourselves and our relationships. There is no promise that it will be easy. We do need to understand what we can and cannot change about ourselves and to know the difference. The High Holidays are a time when we are reminded that we can change our relationship with our tradition and with the divine, but also that it is not beyond us to heal and improve other relationships, to seek forgiveness, to express love and caring, to act differently.

Sometimes Both Happen at the Same Time

Sometimes, we may find ourselves both forced to change in some ways and elect to change in others. Major changes in our lives can also force us to confront the possibility of making other changes.

It is best for us not to wait until the cow dies to adapt the possibility that it will. Neither is it good for us to endure suffering rather than seeking a better situation. We are the people whose tradition tells us that we wandered forty years in the desert to find the Promised Land and whose national history is of living in the Diaspora for nearly two millennia before being able to return to our homeland. Electing to deal with some hardships, while seeking something better is very much a part of who our ancestors were and of the tradition that they passed on to us.

Some days, it does indeed feel like the world is testing us, that we not only have to ascend a mountain, but know that what we face when we reach our destination is going to be a greater challenge still. Perhaps, a new alternative will arise, a ram will emerge from the thicket, on a very rare occasion someone may step in and help us, our angels, but most of the time, it is up to us to build up the courage to overcome the challenge.

Like Abraham, we may find ourselves all prepared to continue with the task, the expectation, whatever we’ve been planning to do, and then think to ourselves, “What am I doing?” Sometimes, knife in hand, we realize we’re on the wrong path and a voice inside of us speaks up and then calls out, “Avraham! Avraham!” We suddenly see what we’re doing and where we are. We decide to change. We turn. We find a new way.

That process of making changes, of turning and returning, of Teshuva, repentance, is what the High Holidays are all about. May each of us be open to change in the New Year.

L’shana Tovah!

What Do We Want the Next Generations to Preserve? - A Sermon for Rosh Hashanah Morning 5775-2014

In Today’s Torah portion, we read the story of how Isaac came to be spared so that the blessings promised to Abraham’s descendants could be passed on through him. In the past, I have discussed this story from a number of different perspectives. I have asked questions and offered some of my own answers to the challenges they pose. The test itself is problematic. Why would a righteous and benevolent God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son, even if God knew that the event would be interrupted by an angel? How can Abraham be considered righteous if he ever intended to go through with the sacrifice?

Many of you have heard my argument that in fact the sacrifice was an expectation of the times and that Abraham’s devotion to Adonai as his God and as the sole divinity of his descendants is the result of Adonai stopping him from going through with the task which he assumed to be expected by the divinities in which people commonly believed at the time. It’s certainly a different reading of the story, but that explanation makes me feel better about the character of Abraham and about God’s role in the story.

Often when we read this story, we miss seeing the forest because of the trees. We miss the fact that the story is principally about how the blessings of what came to be the Jewish tradition and the Jewish people were passed on from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to his children and then to generation after generation of the people who came to call themselves Jews because of their historical connection to the land of Judah. But we’re still not looking at the bigger picture even when we consider that. The bigger picture of the Torah’s narrative from Abraham through the entry into the land is about how and why the Jewish people are “chosen”, to use the traditional language, or why we have chosen a “special,” “different,” “unique,” or “important” religious path to employ terms that progressive Jews might choose to use.

The Jewish Tradition essentially argues that Isaac’s life was preserved so that the Jewish people would eventually come into existence. We see this idea also in the interaction between Isaac and his sons, Jacob and Esau, and between Jacob and his sons as well. The Torah tells us again and again of the difficult circumstances and challenges overcome in order for those blessings to be passed on to the next generation with the understanding that we are the beneficiaries of the prior generations. Our people’s history over the past hundred generations adds greatly to that narrative of overcoming adversity, challenge, and difficulty. The ongoing survival of the Jewish people is amazing. Some go so far as to say that it is “miraculous” that there are still Jews in the world today.

The overriding theme of our tradition at times seems to be, “They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat!”

While it is certainly true that we do like to eat and that is a funny joke, all of this history and all of our experiences as a people, however, including the miraculous narratives in our ancient texts, do not truly focus on our continuing existence on food.

The questions that we must ask ourselves today, based upon the Akeidah, are centered on one theme, “Why does it matter that we survived?” That is certainly something that we here today should appreciate. That said, three questions, which I will endeavor to answer, are the ones before us as Jews today.

The questions

What is so important about Judaism that it needs to a part of our lives?

Why should we care about future generations being Jewish? and

What do we want those generations to hold sacred?

I believe that the order of the questions that I just asked is how we normally might consider them. We probably ask them of ourselves slightly differently. We may start off asking, “Why should I be Jewish or do Jewish?” Then “Why should I care if future generations are raised as Jews, if I’m not sure of my own Judaism?” Those who can’t answer the first two questions with at least some satisfaction, probably would not ask the last question, “What do we want those future generations to hold sacred,” in the context of Judaism. They would think of it in more general humanistic terms and I think miss some exceedingly important things only found in the context of Judaism.

I believe that this order of asking the questions often leads to a misleading result, to the devaluation or even rejection of a stripped down version of Judaism devoid of most of its most important teachings, certainly as Reform Judaism would present them.

So let me start off by answering the last of these three questions first and then I will address the first two. “What aspects of Reform Judaism, its beliefs and practices, at least in my estimation, would I like future generations to hold sacred?”

To answer this question, I think it makes sense to go back nearly 130 years and see what aspects of Reform Judaism found in the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform of Reform Judaism we still hold dear today.

I see the following both as valuable principles and as remaining true of us today.

Although, we see our own traditions as the best way for us, we respect other religious traditions. Our concept of truth as individual Reform Jews is one to which we personally hold dear, but not as the only valid way and not as the only possible truth.

We believe that science and the Jewish tradition are not antagonistic. As our understanding of the nature of the world in which we live changes, our Judaism, Reform Judaism, adapts with that understanding.

We maintain and promote work with those of other faiths as we seek to improve our communities and to advance the cause of righteousness.
And to use the words of the 1885 Platform, “In full accordance with the spirit of the Mosaic legislation, which strives to regulate the relations between rich and poor, we deem it our duty to participate in the great task of modern times, to solve, on the basis of justice and righteousness, the problems presented by the contrasts and evils of the present organization of society.”

We care about making our world a better place.

There is so much more to add to the words of that platform: both actions representative of who we are and principles that guide us. Let me share some of these things that I think we should hold sacred beginning with the start of the 20^th Century.

We shouted our condemnation at the treatment of the workers in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, demanding change, and we have stood fast against the exploitation of laborers ever since.

We protested for women’s suffrage and have championed the cause of women’s rights and equality.

We, and now I’m speaking about the Reform Movement, hosted the drafting of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the conference room of the Religious Action Center in Washington DC. The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism continues to be a leading force advocating for the principles in which we, along with other progressive religious communities, believe.

Whenever we have heard the cries of the suffering and oppressed in communities whether across the world or right here at home, Reform Jews have spoken up and taken action.

We are individuals and groups who have marched for justice and righteousness in cities across America from Selma, Alabama and St. Augustine, Florida in the 1960s to Washington DC and Ferguson, Missouri in recent times, having been inspired by the words of the ancient prophets of Israel and living modern ones.

When we heard the words spoken by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “I have a dream,” we felt it was our dream too. When we heard the words, “Free at last,” we remembered that we were once enslaved in Egypt.

Why? Because we hold Passover Seders where we remember that we, ourselves, were there and then, journeying from slavery to freedom. And we’re reminded at every service and even more so during every festival that we need to be thankful that we’re still not enslaved strangers.

We’re the people who construct Sukkot. Even if we don’t have one of our own or spend any time in one, we should be reminded why they exist. It isn’t just so that we have a way to use tree clippings, to create pretty multi-colored paper chains, or to show off our beautiful gourds. Our Sukkahs remind us that there are still those who sleep outside, sometimes in dwellings without four walls, in tents and in boxes, exposed to the elements, not by choice. Moreover, our Sukkot remind us that we were once like those people.

We’re also reminded during the Festival of Sukkot how to treat guests and that sometimes people who are strange to us, whom we do not know, can bring us blessings because of our care and generosity.

We are the people thankful that a little flame lasted as long as we needed it to last. Think about that. The miracle of Chanukah is not that the light blazed forth like the sun. Not that the light lasted for weeks or months or a thousand years. We’re thankful that a light which we needed to last for eight nights did so. We are the people of “Dayeinu.” Thankful for having enough, even when we know full well that what we have isn’t enough for us, much less for all those in need.

We are the people who believe that everyone is created B’tselem Elohim, in the image of the divine. For us, people of all races, no matter their sexual orientation, should be treated not only as of value in our world and to be respected, but even as holy, as representations of the divine made incarnate.

We are the people who offer thanks for our very existence, our creation, during every worship service, while remembering that when we were created, we were given the job of being stewards of the rest of creation, charged with keeping our world a fit place for animals and plants as well as for our descendants. Caring for the environment is not just smart, it is a holy task for us, sacred work.

We are the people who believe that the world in which we live is in dire need of repair and that acts of justice, righteousness, and kindness can help make it the way that it should be, better than it ever has been before.

We are the people whose holy texts may be summed up as Hillel did, “Do not do unto others as you would have them not do unto you. All the rest is commentary. Go and learn it!”

We are the people who believe in the words of Rabbi Tarfon, that, “While we may be unable to complete the task, neither can we avoid working to accomplish it.”

We are the people whose holiest days are spent, not in feasting, but in Cheshbon Nefesh, a time for an accounting of our souls, during which we consider how we might improve ourselves in the year ahead. And we engage in teshuvah, a process of turning ourselves away from paths and actions that do not help ourselves or our world, while directing ourselves anew toward paths of righteousness.

We are the people who speak from the experience of centuries of suffering endured so that the current generations can live in peace, security, and prosperity.

We are the people who know that individuals can make all the difference in the world. For us, not only is the life of one worth the life of the whole world, but the actions of one person can change the whole world.

We are like Nachshon, marching into waters that have not parted, but believing they will, just as Abraham Joshua Heschel marched into waters that had not yet parted in Selma, Alabama alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

We are the people who generation after generation in spite of suffering hardships and setbacks that have could have, perhaps should have, caused our people to abandon the task, stubbornly believe that we can change this world and turn it into a Garden of Eden.

We are the people who do not just pray and sing about a better world, we volunteer, give, and build a better world: from homeless shelters and food pantries, to hospitals, social services, and schools, from environmental and social action programs to the arts of all kinds. We don’t just talk about making our world better, we make it happen.

We are the people who risk our lives to make matzah out of meager rations in concentration camp barracks, because the mitzvah of remembering and being thankful that our ancestors were sustained in life empowers us even there and then, in the most horrible places and times.

We are the people who sing songs around candles lit in the midst of darkness. Not only lit in darkened rooms during the festival of Chanukah, but lit during humanity’s darkest times and often while under threat.

We are like the people of the nation of Israel, often first on the scene with medical help after major disasters and whose doctors perform life-saving surgeries on children from Gaza even while in the midst of war against their parents.

We are the people who brought socialist ideals to deserts and swamps and made them bloom into one of the world’s leading economies and an agricultural marvel.

We are the people who have survived and thrived in a tiny nation, surrounded by enemies, on land that takes a bit of effort to get to flow with milk and honey.

We are a people who know that we and the nation of Israel have faults, but instead of ignoring them, we discuss and debate, march and protest; and we speak out for peace and tolerance, justice and righteousness, even when war and conflict is the easy answer.

While we are the people willing to sit in the dark and to joke about it.

We are a people whose anthem is HaTikvah, The Hope, and who strive to spread hope and light wherever there is despair and darkness.

All of this and so much more about our tradition, I would like future generations to hold sacred and to preserve for their children and to improve upon for the sake of humanity. None of this requires blind faith. None of this requires a belief in a kind of divinity at all.

This brings me back to the first two questions? Is this all reason for future generations to be Jewish? For us to be Jewish ourselves? I think it absolutely is, if we these ideals to be held sacred. They will not be or will not be to the same extent if they are not connected to the Reform Jewish tradition or to the Jewish tradition in general.

Preserving them requires participation in Jewish life, having Jewish experiences and receiving Jewish education. It means that we have a task, a mission if you will. We must take part in transmitting these ideals to future generations and to do that, we must be a part of the Jewish community.

They say, there is no I in “Team.” Well, there is no “Judaism” without U. The Temple and the Jewish community will be better if all of us take part in its life and our role in the broader community will be enhanced, if we are all involved. We would certainly love to have you add your voice to our congregation during services, but also your smile and words of joy, congratulations, support, comfort and consolation to our community members before and after them. Come and be a part of social action projects, educational programs, and social programs. You will help make our Reform Judaism better.

I know that there are many members of our community who are not Jewish. No few are here today with their families. Many of our loved ones and friends who are not Jewish regularly attend our services and programs. We appreciate and honor all of them. Our congregation has long lived by the philosophy that it should be a welcoming spiritual home for every member of our families.

And so let us take a moment to thank our family members and friends who support us on our Jewish path and support our congregation. Thank you for your love and companionship, for your care and support for us individually, for our families, and for our congregation. You are an integral part of our lives, our congregation, and our community. Thank you. Thank you.

On this Rosh Hashanah day, let us renew our commitment to supporting what we hold sacred, strengthening our congregation and our own commitment to Reform Judaism. Together, we can change our congregation, our community, and our world for the better.

L’shanah tovah u’metukah tikateivu!

May you be inscribed in the Book of Life for a good and sweet year!