5769 Rosh Hashanah sermons

Erev Rosh HaShanah 2008

I did a little reading about rules of etiquette in a blog called “What would Emily Post do?” Here is what I learned:

• Say please and thank you;

• Don’t chew with your mouth open;

• Cut the price tag off a gift;

• If you can't say anything nice, talk about the weather.

• Just don't, for goodness sake, ever talk about politics or religion at the dinner table!

This is not the dinner table, so I assume Emily Post will not be offended. My intention tonight is to talk about both religion and politics. As a matter of fact, I intend to tell you how to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

Last February, in the heat of the primaries, I heard a lecture by Dr. Jacque Berlinerblau. Isn’t that an amazing name: Jacque Berlinerblau. He is a professor at Georgetown University and he had just written a book entitled Thumpin' It: The Use and Abuse of the Bible in Today's Presidential Politics. He makes the argument that American politicians on the left and the right use Scripture in their speeches, and that policy wonks on both sides of the aisle draw on the Bible to defend positions on the environment, stem cell research and foreign policy. Berlinerblau finds politicians' use of Scripture to be shallow, and of course he is absolutely correct. They throw in a pasuk, a verse, here or there and fail to acknowledge the Bible’s diversity and internal contradictions. In other words, they don’t admit, as William Shakespeare said, “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”

The truth is religion must be cited in politics in America. It’s expected and demanded. Our constitution guarantees separation of church and state, but America is a religious country. Polls indicate that people care less what religion you are than that you have one. Perhaps the most vivid proof of that was the nomination of a Jew for the VP slot in the year 2000 election. (Here in Connecticut I cannot mention the name of that nominee.) A national telephone survey released earlier this year by the Pew Research Center asked which traits, including being black, a woman, a Mormon, a Muslim, or a homosexual, would help or hurt a candidate the most. Do you know what was the worst trait for a candidate to possess? “Doesn’t believe in God.”

A recent phenomenon in American politics is the rise of the Evangelical Right. By dint of their numbers, the fervor they put in to all they do, and the power of persuasion their leaders have on them, they are a force to be reckoned with. Most Jews have strong opinions about this. They ask the classic question: Is it good or bad for the Jews? I don’t have a clear answer to that question. Apparently, it is good for Israel that the Evangelicals have so much influence in American politics, and intuitively that tells me that’s good for the Jews. On the other hand, I firmly believe that what is good for America is good for the Jews and good for Israel, and that is where I get hung up on the issue of the Evangelical Right; so many of their core values are contrary to my own.

Both Obama and McCain are very aware of the religion/politics nexus in American life. They ran from Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Reverend John Hagee like the plague. Yet, they both understand that in politics religion is here to stay. Both Democrats and Republicans want to know that their candidates are people of faith – preferably their own faith – but they will settle for faith in general as second best.

Does it make sense for religion and politics to be bedfellows? I think so. If religion is to have meaning, if it has anything to say to us, then it must provide values that effect our actions and worldview. Religion must speak to the issues of today, as it has done since the Torah declared, Tzedek, Tzedek tirdof. “Justice, justice thou shalt pursue.” Many people seek religion as a source of comfort, and it should be. But it must be much more than just that. It has been said that the task of true religion has forever been “to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed.” I want the candidate I vote for to be an individual who feels that discomfort. I want him to have the sensitivity to be outraged at a great deal of what is going on today in our own society and around the world. I want him to feel the pain of the world so deeply that he will make every effort to use his office to do something about it, to engage in what we call Tikun Olam, repairing the world.

The prophet Isaiah was a religious leader par excellence, and we see in his writing both messages of comfort and sermons challenging those who are too comfortable with the status quo.

On the Shabbat following Tisha B’Av we read his words Nachamu nachamu ami - “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,” yet, this is the prophet Isaiah who brings the stern warning we read on Yom Kippur.

Halo zeh tzom ev-charayhu

this is the fast I desire:

To unlock fetters of wickedness,

and untie the cords of lawlessness

to let the oppressed go free;

to break off every yoke.

It is to share your bread with the hungry,

And to take the wretched poor into your home;

when you see the naked, to clothe him,

And not to ignore your own kin.

As I read those lines, headlines from the daily newspaper reverberate in my mind. I want a president who agonizes when he sees suffering, be it in our own country or anywhere in the world. We have a sign on the front lawn of our synagogue concerning the genocide now going on in the Sudan. I know I cannot do much about it myself, but I can certainly vote for the candidate I feel is as pained as I am about this tragedy and will try to put the power of our nation behind ending this moral outrage.

I don’t want a president who will be even-handed when it comes to Israel. I want a president who understands Israel’s struggle for survival against its neighbors and recognizes that Israel is America’s only true ally in that part of the world. I don’t want a president who accepts the outrageous notion of moral equivalence when comparing Israel and her neighbors.

I want a president who understands the message that we proclaim on Rosh Hashanah, “Today is the birthday of world”. He does not have to understand the phrase “HaYom Harat Olam,” but I want him to know that we are God’s partners in creation and that we are responsible for what happens to this planet; that ecological concerns must be high on his agenda.  

I want a president who knows what it means that all humanity was created B’Tzelem Elohim, in God’s image; that the suffering of an illegal immigrant is no less painful because he does not have a legitimate Social Security card. The concept of B’tzelem tells me that everyone has a right to an adequate education, not just those who can afford expensive private schools or can live in wealthy communities. I will vote for the candidate who I feel has that value concept most at heart.

In Deuteronomy there is a fascinating mitzvah that does not apply to any of us, but from which we must learn. It applies to the King of Israel. The Torah says, “When he is seated on his royal throne, he shall have a copy of this Torah written for him on a scroll. He shall read in it every day so that he shall learn to revere the Lord his God.” Clearly, the Torah wants a king that follows the same laws as his subjects and it wants him to incorporate in his rule the values the Torah promotes. Those are the values I would want to see in our American president.

We find a clear example in the idea of social responsibility. God’s question to Cain, “Where is your brother?,” is a statement about how we are to live in this world. When Cain asks, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” we know the Torah’s answer. Of course you are, whether it is the brother in your own family or the one who lives in Darfur, Sudan, or Postville, Iowa.

Values in the Torah that should be a must for our president are expressed in verses we should all know well.

“You shall not be indifferent,

you shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor,

you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The candidate I vote for in November must reflect these values in all his decisions.

From my perspective, presidential politics and religion cannot be divided. While American society must respect separation of church and state, religious values must inform our actions. We all know that biblical verses bear various interpretations, and even the devil can cite scripture, but that does not mean those scriptures should be ignored by those in power. Judaism has a three thousand year tradition of disagreement about the interpretation of various verses. But through that give and take, through Torah study, we can raise the plane of our discussion and elevate the holiness of our actions.

A congregant recently asked me if we have prophets today as we did in the days of the Bible. I think we do. The prophets were the conduits for God’s voice in the world. People in our time such as Abraham Joshua Heschel, Martin Luther King and Elie Wiesel have played that role. They have shown us that we can combine a strong sense of religious identity with a commitment to Tikun Olam, the repair of our world.

The president we elect in November will be the leader of the strongest nation on earth. We must keep in mind that our vote will affect not only our lives, not only the security of Israel, but the welfare of the entire world. With that in mind, we must elect a president consciousness of God’s presence in the world, a president who will seek to do justice, act with loving kindness, and yet live with humility.

So, my recommendation to you for this coming election - is to vote carefully and joyously. You don’t have to rejoice in the choice of candidates on the ballot. That is a given no longer in our hands. But rejoice in our democratic system of election by ballot, not by bullet.

In the Musaph service on these holidays we pray: “Lord our God, let all Your creatures sense Your awesome power; let all You have fashioned stand in fear and trembling. Let all humanity pledge You their allegiance…carrying out your will.”

I pray that the man elected 44th president of our beloved United States of America will be a God fearing man who uses the power of his office for the betterment of all God’s creatures.

Ken y’hi ratzon. AMEN.

Rosh HaShanah Day 1 2008

Allow me to paint in words a picture for you to consider. A young man, a Jew in his early thirties who has not stepped foot in a synagogue in years, passes a storefront shul in the city. He hears words being mumbled, but he cannot make out any specifics. Then, the hum of words is broken by the piercing sounds of the shofar. His ears have sensed the sound, but more significantly, his heart has as well.  

Has this man fulfilled the mitzvah of hearing the Shofar on Rosh HaShanah? There may be some debate about the technicalities of this situation, but for me the intuitive answer is clear. Indeed, he may have fulfilled the mitzvah in a more significant way than many of the people assembled in that synagogue.

Consider this, the bracha that is recited just prior to the shofar blowing in the synagogue says nothing about the act of blowing the shofar. It isn’t “Litkoah shofar” “Who has sanctified our lives with the mitzvah of blowing the shofar.” The words of the bracha are “Lishmoa kol shofar,” “to hear the sound of the shofar.” Hearing the sound of the shofar is the essential.

But what is it that we are to hear? What is the message of the Shofar?

Take a look at the Machzor, the prayer book, you set aside a few minutes ago. It’s a hefty volume, full of thousand upon thousands of words. Yet, with all those words, I would argue that the most significant prayer of this holiday cannot be put on paper at all because there are no words, just a haunting sound. Indeed, being wordless may be the most important advantage Shofar blowing has over all the other prayers in the Machzor. The sounds of the Shofar are a blank canvas. The absence of words makes the notes of the Shofar similar to a work of art: they mean what they say to each listener. The intent of the artist becomes secondary. The listener defines its meaning. And is quite ironic that this wordless ritual has spawned more words of commentary than you could ever imagine.

According to the Slonimer, Rabbi Shalom Noah Berezovsky, one of my favorite Hasidic teachers, the cry of the Shofar is a call from God to return to Him, to draw close. My colleague Rabbi Edward Friedman puts an interesting spin on this. The root of the Hebrew word “Tiku,” the verb we use for blowing the Shofar, is the same as the root for the modern Hebrew word for an electric plug, a teka. The Shofar blast is meant to be our connection, plugging us in to the Divine network, giving us a wifi connection to none other than that Holy One. The Slonimer explains that hearing God’s voice is what it is all about. As a matter of fact, he says it is what all of Judaism is about: making a connection with God, hearing God’s voice, and striving to do God’s will.

That explains why the most central of all our prayers, the Shema, begins with that very idea, “Hear O Israel.” The key is in hearing God’s message to us. Spiritual giants like the Slonimer can live their entire life in attachment to the Divine. Every moment of every day they have God whispering in their ear. We, or perhaps I should only speak for myself, honestly cannot hear that whisper. We need a blast from a Shofar, but how do we understand it?

The first thing we hear in the call of the Shofar is the note pattern. Each series begins and ends with T’kiah – the whole note. In between is Shevarim and T’ruah, the broken notes. That pattern represents life. We begin whole and somehow, along our journey, stuff happens, we become broken, be it through pain, or illness, or presumed failure. So here we are tonight, all of us somewhere on the Shevarim/T’ruah spectrum of brokenness, and we desperately seek Tikun, repair. Forget about Tikun Olam, repairing the world: how do we achieve personal Tikun, improvement and correction?

We all know the nursery rhyme about Humpty Dumpty. Talk about being in need of repair! The Shofar blast comes to tell us that we can put all the pieces together again, and we won’t need any of the king’s horses or men, and that we can count on a hand from the King, Melech Malchay Hamlachim, the King who is the king of kings. The root of the Hebrew word Shofar is the same as the root Shipur, improvement. To quote a chant from the recent Democratic National Convention, the message is “Yes we can!”

How can we believe that?

Our Torah tells us that God created us from the dust of the earth, but that God breathed into each of His own breath, a N’shama, a Divine soul. Each of us, our Torah teaches, whether we are Jewish or not, whether we are Black or White, man or woman, gay or straight, was created B’tzelem, in God’s image. That is the ultimate advantage we have over Humpty Dumpty.

We begin the Shofar service with the blast called T’kiah, the long unbroken sound. That reminds us that deep within each of us is that Divine n’shama, that essence, which cannot be tainted irrespective of what stuff happens. That note is follow by Shevarim, the broken sound. It tells us that we have strayed, that things we did not want have happened, and we have not measured up to our own expectations.

It once happened that I was at a house of Shiva and during the evening service I heard what I thought was a Shofar at the other end of the crowded room. At first I was annoyed. Who was so rude as to interrupt my service by practicing on a Shofar. But then I realized: no one there had a Shofar. What I heard was the sound of weeping, of deep grief. That wordless prayer, like the cry of the Shofar, is most appropriate in a service.  It is indeed the most heartfelt prayer possible. Like that wail of grief, the broken notes of Shevarim, bring our pained souls before God. As we reflect on our brokenness, Shevarim turns to T’ruah, a cry of even greater intensity.

But then comes the T’kiah again sounding a note of hope. It reminds us before Whom we bring our tears. Avinu HaAv HaRachaman, our Divine Parent is full of compassion, and no compassionate parent can bear to hear the weeping of a child and not feel compelled to offer aid. The Shofar tells us to take heart, the broken cry of Shevarim /T’ruah will surely be followed by the whole note of T’kiah.

It is interesting that every one of the scriptural readings on Rosh Hashanah features a woman: Sarah and Hagar, Hannah and Rachel - every one of them sheds tears. They are models for us of true prayer; the prayer of a broken heart. And in every case, their prayer is answered. I love the line we will read in the Haftara tomorrow, when God says to Rachel, Mini kolech mebechee – Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; ke yesh tikva l’achreetaych – there is hope for your future.” As God’s voice called out a message of hope to Rachel, the voice of the Shofar is a cry of hope for each of us. Now you feel broken, but the future can bring healing.

The place of Shofar has been significant for the Jewish people at crucial moments in our history. At Moriah, at the Binding of Isaac, when Abraham proved his faith, the ram in the thicket was the precursor of the ram’s horn that became the Shofar. The sound of the Shofar tells us that we, the children of Abraham, must have the faith in the future that was so strongly demonstrated by him.

Moving forward in our history, Shofar blasts were heard at Sinai at the moment of Revelation, when God gave us His most precious gift, the Torah. The sound of the Shofar today reminds us to accept that gift anew, and to allow God’s Torah to guide our lives. Rabbi Jules Harlow, with whom we had the joy of studying last spring, has a beautiful prayer in the Friday evening service. It begins, “Torah is a closed book until it is read with an open heart.” The blast of the Shofar, as it was heard at Sinai, comes to open our hearts to the message of Torah.

Finally, our tradition tells us that the great Shofar will be sounded on the day of Redemption. “On that day a great Shofar shall be sounded.” We do live in a broken world today. It is not only our personal lives that are in need of repair, but the entire planet and all who inhabit it are in trouble. Reading the morning newspaper has become an ordeal. The problems in our world of global warming, terrorist attacks, genocide and warfare, poverty and deprivation, are so pervasive and overwhelming, that we despair of being able effect any change. The Torah teaches us that we cannot close our eyes to these ills, even though it is not incumbent upon us to complete the task. But what are we to do? Where do we begin? When people tell me they intend to visit Israel as soon as there is peace in the region, I know they won’t be on one of my trips. When they ask me if I believe peace will ever come to the region, I say that of course I believe that. But I say it much the way Maimonides said “Ani maamin.” “I believe in the coming of the Messiah and though he tarries, yet I believe.” The clarion call of the shofar reinforces that belief. The Shofar we hear today promises us that great Shofar to come in the future. It is a herald of miracles to come.

Let me tell you a story, related by Rebitzen Esther Jungreis, about a miracle Shofar in her life, and with that I will conclude.

The tale begins in the concentration camp Bergin Belsen where her family was interred and the events happened in the fall of 1944. In the Hungarian area of the camp, everyone was suffering horribly, but the religious Jews in particular were upset knowing that Rosh Hashanah would come and go and they would not have the mitzvah of hearing the sound of the Shofar. Through heroic efforts a group of inmates manages to gather 200 cigarettes and to barter them for a Shofar. Adjacent to the Hungarian camp was the Polish camp and somehow word reached them that a Shofar had been acquired in the other camp. When Rosh Hashanah came the Polish inmates came close to the fence to hear the sounding of the Shofar. When the blasts were blown, the Nazis beat them all mercilessly, but even as the truncheons battered their heads, they cried out the bracha, Lishmo kol Shofar – thanking God for sanctifying their lives with the mitzvah of hearing the Shofar. Can you begin to comprehend that; even in that Kingdom of Night, thanking God for sanctifying their lives.

Many years later Rebitzen Jungreis was lecturing in a village in Israel, in Neve Aliza in the area known as Samaria, the West Bank. She told the story of the Shofar in Bergen Belsen. When she finished, a woman who appeared to be a bit older than her came forward. She told her, “I know that Shofar you spoke about. My father was the rabbi in the Polish camp, and he smuggled the Shofar into that camp and blew it there as well. I have that Shofar in my home today.” With that she ran off and came back in just a few minutes clutching the Shofar. The two women embraced and wept. Hitler expected that he would succeed in putting an end to the Jewish people. But that Shofar triumphed over the flames of the crematoria. Holding that Shofar, the two women embraced in the land of Israel, in an independent Jewish state. To return to the message of Rachel in the Haftara tomorrow morning, that Shofar witnessed the fulfillment of God’s promise, “V’shvu banim ligvulam – your children shall return to their borders.”

We had privilege of fulfilling the remarkable mitzvah of Lishmoah Kol Shofar, of hearing the blast of the Shofar, earlier this morning. We heard the cry – the cry of weeping, the alarm urging us awake and examine our deeds, the call from God to return to Him and accept His love, and the promise of healing for ourselves, and redemption for all Israel and all humanity. May the promise be fulfilled soon. Ken y’he ratzon. AMEN.  

Rosh HaShanah Day 2 2008

My two-year-old grandson Yeshaiah loves to play with his little Kiddush cup. He raises it high, just the way his father does every Friday night, he says several words, a few of which are recognizable, “Baruch Nai Haynu Bore Gafen” but, then he concludes with one word that could not be clearer, AMEN. He then picks up his little toy Challah, says rather similar words, Motzi and Aretz, and again concludes with a hearty AMEN.

That AMEN is filled with such life and spirit. It says so much more than the literal meaning of that three-letter Hebrew word. In fact, the literal meaning is irrelevant. What counts is the Kavanah, the spirit, and that could not be more heartfelt.

Shai’s AMEN reminds me of a passage in the Torah. At Sinai, just seven weeks after the Israelites left Egypt, they respond fervently to the words of Torah delivered by Moses. The verse in Exodus says, “All the people answered in one voice saying, ‘All the things that God has commanded, we will do!’”

Moses then puts the words of the commandments in writing and reads them aloud, and the people confirm their commitment a second time: “All that Adonai has spoken - we will faithfully do.”

As I think about this passage on these High Holidays when we are supposed to be doing intensive soul searching, it raises an important question we should all consider. How do we respond to God’s words and the Torah’s laws?

There was a time, pre-Enlightenment, two or three hundred years ago depending upon what part of the world you are talking about, when it was taken for granted that a Jew lived in accordance with Jewish law. That is just how things were done. And if it was not to your liking, there was community pressure: you could not get a grave in the cemetery, you wouldn’t be called to the Torah and you certainly would not find a spouse. If you did not live your life in a traditional Jewish manner, you were the odd-man out. Our lives and our society are so, so different today. For the most part, that is something for which to give thanks. My grandparents ran from the poverty and anti-Semitism of the steitl as fast as they could. Yet, I mourn the fact that traditional Jewish living has become a rarity in most communities today. It is surely hard today to imagine contemporary Jews embracing God’s laws and covenant in the way our ancestors did. Unconditional, all-inclusive agreement seems foolhardy to us. We tend to be more cautious about everything we do. How many times have you gone online to check a movie review before you decide to go, or gone to TripAdvisor before making a hotel reservation? I am not saying its bad. I am only saying it the way we tend to be.

The famous phrase in Exodus, “All that Adonai has spoken we will faithfully do,” is a translation of the Hebrew Naase v’nishma, which could also be translated, “we will do and we will understand.” In other words, first we will obey, and then, through our observance, we will come to understand and appreciate.

That Naase v’nishma shouted by our ancestors was much like Yeshaiah’s AMEN. It was an enthusiastic “Yes” to life. Most of us, in contrast, tend to shout an enthusiastic “Maybe,” and then we quickly go on to our next project. My message to you as we begin a new year is to suggest a change from what comes naturally, and what could be more appropriate than change on Rosh Hashanah. The Hebrew word for Year is Shana, and that is closely related to two other Hebrew words: the first is shana meaning “to teach,” as in v’shinamtam l’vanecha, “and you shall teach them to your children.” The other is the word Shana meaning “change.” As we enter this new Shana of 5769, teach yourself to change your old ways. In the words of our teacher Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, I am asking you not to take a “leap of faith,” but a “leap of action.” Say ‘Yes’ to God and to Jewish life, with no “if’s and’s or but’s.” Say ‘Yes’ to Torah, as our ancestors did at Sinai, even if you don’t fully understand it yet. I certainly do not fully understand it yet, but I am working on it. In the meantime, jumping in and living it has enormously enriched my life and I believe it can enrich yours as well.

Acting before you fully understand should not be totally foreign to you. Some things, in fact some of the most important things in life, cannot be fully understood before they are agreed to. I meet with couples in pre-marital sessions. I try my best to be sure that they have done all they should in getting to know one another, but can you really know what marriage will be like before you say, “I do?”

Think about what it means to become a parent. I know someone who won’t make a move in life without drawing up an Excel spreadsheet of costs and benefits. How would you enter in a spreadsheet what it means to sit with a whimpering child running a high fever? How do you calculate the cost of waiting for your child to come home on a Saturday night, when she just got her driver’s license and this is her first time out with the car after dark? No amount of research or even staying with friends children for a weekend, can prepare you for what it means to have a child. That kind of relationship, like our relationship with God and Torah, cannot be explained. Life’s biggest decisions are leaps of faith, or in Heschel's’ terminology, leaps of action. If you wait until you are completely ready, until you feel you are fully prepared and you completely understand, you will surely miss the opportunity. Entering a covenant, whether it is the covenant of marriage with our spouse or the covenant of parenting with our children or the covenant of Torah we entered at Sinai, is not a one-time, single moment decision. It is a process of ongoing growth. When you come up on the bima for an aliyah and you say “Asher bachar banu – You have chosen us for this relationship” you conclude with the words Noten HaTorah, Giver of the Torah, in the present tense. It is not that God gave Torah once and for all at Sinai. We accept God’s covenant every time we say an enthusiastic ‘Yes’ to Jewish living.  Every journey in life that matters deeply, must begin with a committed ‘Yes.’

If you read Jewish periodicals and go to the meetings of Jewish organizations, it appears to be accepted that we want Judaism to survive here in America, and as we look at the numbers, we are more than a little worried about whether it will. Yet, as I look out at American Jewish life and the way most American Jews are living, I wonder if the concern is truly that deep. It seems to me axiomatic that moving further and further from our tradition is not a way to strengthen it; that making our lives less and less Jewish, is not a way to set an example for our children or grandchildren.

Back in the time of the prophet Eliyahu, he challenged the people. He said, “Ad matai atem poschim al shtay ha’s’eepim – How long will you straddle two opinions.” That is the question posed to each of us this Rosh Hashanah

.  Do you truly want to see Judaism survive in our society, or are you willing to sit on the sidelines and watch our tradition and heritage fade into the sunset?

There is a Hebrew expression that I think is relevant here. If someone is passionate about something, he is said to be “Meshuga l’davar.” They said that about Herzl and Eliezer ben Yehudah. Even if you don’t know Hebrew you probably caught that first word, MESHUGA, or more popularly “Meshuga.” If we want Judaism to survive, we need more meshuganas, more people willing to get passionate about the problem of disappearing Jewish observance.

Look around you. How great is it to see so many Jews gathered for prayer. “Hinei mah tov u mah naim – How good and pleasant it is to see Jews gathered together.” How awesome would it be if this Friday night we had so many people for the service that we couldn’t fit into the chapel? How spectacular would it be if for next Shabbat morning we would be forced to leave standing the hundreds of folding chairs we bring out for the holidays? Would that make a difference to the spirit and feeling of our service? There is no question about it.

I am not asking you to vow that you are going to change your way of life entirely. What I am asking for is a commitment that you make an incremental change toward more intensive Jewish living. If you attend services regularly on Shabbat morning, and I know that many in our congregation do, add another Shabbat mitzvah to your life. Make Havdalah at the end of Shabbat, to mark the end of the holy day and to begin a week of blessing. If you already say Kiddush and Motzi on Friday night at your Shabbat table, add Birkat HaMazon at the end of the meal, even just a paragraph of the prayer. If you do sometimes skip your responsibility to our Jewry Duty service, make a note to yourself to be more careful about it. Mark it in your calendar the way you would other obligations that are important to you. Do you feel you could learn more about Judaism? Do something about it: sign up for a course or read a few web pages from the links on our website. Do you feel you do enough in the realm of mitzvot to help humanity? How can any of us feel we do enough? Get involved with our Social Action committee and see how you can help on one of our projects to repair our world and help our neighbors, and most importantly, do it because it is a mitzvah, because God wants you to, not because it will make you feel better, which, incidentally, it will.

Would an enthusiastic ‘Yes’ to Jewish living make it more likely for Judaism to survive in America? I believe it would, if enough Jews would undertake to say it, and follow through.

We have all heard the line about today being the first day of the rest of your life. No doubt it is so. The only question is, will your life going forward be a repeat of what came before, or will there be a change. Rosh HaShanah comes to urge the latter. Grasp the opportunity, say a resounding AMEN, and say, “Yes” to a new year of Jewish living.

We will end the service tomorrow morning with a spirited piyut that I always find inspiring. The last line is always almost shouted out: Hayom titmachenu b’ymin tzikecha. This day, sustain us with the power of Your justice, and then we all say together: Amen, Amen, Amen Amen.  

The word AMEN means to affirm. Let that be our slogan this Rosh Hashanah. Let us affirm in full voice our devotion to Jewish living and a Jewish future. And let us all say – AMEN.