Here is my Rosh Hashanah Day Two Sermon with some changes:

The sun’ll come out tomorrow

Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow 
there’ll be sun
Just thinkin’ about tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow till’ there’s none

When I’m stuck in the day that’s grey and lonely
I just stick up my chin and grin and say oh

The sun’ll come out tomorrow
So you got to hang on
 till’ tomorrow, come what may!
Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow
You’re always a day away

Today is Rosh Hashanah,,the birthday of the world. And yes, the sun did come out this morning. Precisely at 6:44. Right on schedule. I blew shofar on my back deck to the amazement of the neighborhood dogs. Today is Rosh Hashanah morning and friends of mine gathered on the shore of Plum Island at dawn to watch the sun rise over the ocean and to blow shofar. Later they will enjoy a potluck breakfast on the beach and a shortened Rosh Hashanah morning service. It is a lovely, gentle way to welcome the new year. One year when I sat there, I wondered why the world couldn’t be at peace. In the early morning light, it all seemed so easy. That was the year a rabbi had been stabbed in Frankfort Germany on the way home from shul. They had just unraveled a terrorist plot for the Frankfort airport and the American base at Heidelberg. And I wonder—have we made any progress?

And yet, and yet. I trust that the sun will come up tomorrow morning, and the morning after that and the morning after that.

Once I wasn’t so sure. Simon and I had climbed Cadillac Mountain, in Acadia National Park, Maine, the first place the sun touches on the eastern seaboard in order to see the sun rise. It was slow by flashlight. It became clear we were not going to make it to the top for sunrise. We sat down on some open granite rock because it was clear we were not going to be at the summit in time. And then we waited and waited and waited. I said, “I don’t think the sun is coming up.” What I really meant was that the sun was not going to clear the fog bank that had settled in.

At Temple Emanuel of the Merrimack Valley in 1978, they converted the Ner Tamid to one that runs on solar power. Rabbi Everett Gendler explains, “Its symbolic appropriateness is evident.  Non-polluting, not in danger of imminent depletion, it seemed perfectly suited as a pure symbol of illumination and eternity.  We obtained two solar panels, storage batteries for hours of darkness and periods of heavy cloud cover, and at the dark of the year, during Hanukkah, 1978, we celebrated its installation.  People appreciated its symbolic value.”

The symbolic value is real—and keeping it going is not as simple as flipping a switch or replacing a bulb. Yet still the light burns. I trust that it will continue to do so as long as the temple remains.

I trust that the world will be here for our children and our children’s children. But that is not so clear. Every day when I wake up, I think that the world is going to be a better place. Maybe it is a naïve hope. Maybe it is a little like Anne Frank. She said in her diary: It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

That’s faith. That’s trust. In Hebrew they are related words. Emunah and Emet. Faith and truth.

This past week saw 400,000 people converge on Manhattan to participate in the largest rally for climate change. Our own Margot Seigle was there. 1500 organizations co-sponsored the event including my seminary, the Academy for Jewish Religion. They estimate that half of the participants were Jewish. Even from Elgin, we participated too. During ruach, our assembly, we made blessings for the world, for the environment which I put on ribbons and sent to the Ribbon Tree.

Their ribbons said:

• I want the world to be perfect
• I wish for more recycling.
• I wish for cleaner air.
• I wish for less pollution and less greenhouse gasses.
• I wish we would stop launching toxic gases into the air to save polar bears.
• I wish we could tow an iceberg to South Africa to provide fresh drinking water.
• I wish for more crops to feed the hungry.
• I wish there were a cure for ebola.

The people that I know that attended said that it was the most important, significant thing they have ever done.

Why? Why were half the participants Jews? Because we have a responsibility to take care of creation. We are partners with G-d in creation. G-d promised after the Flood to never destroy the world again through water. We need to protect this glorious creation. We cannot just wait for the next generation to solve the problems that we ourselves created. It is like the old Girl Scout adage, leave the place better than you found it. We have been entrusted with this world.

On this first morning of creation, the birthday of the world, let us explore the Jewish context for this. The early stories of Genesis

The principle of bal tashict, do not destroy, is rooted in Deuteronomy. We may not cut down fruit trees during a siege in a time of war. By Talmudic times the bal tashchit principle was expanded to include other forms of senseless damage or waste. It included preventing wasting lamp oil, tearing clothing, chopping up furniture for firewood or killing animals. Today, in contemporary Jewish ethics it is used as a basis for environmental justice.

This morning is Rosh Hashanah. It is the new year 5775. It is the beginning of a shmita year, a year set out in the Torah for release. “For six years you are to sow your land and to gather in its produce,
11 but in the seventh, you are to let
it go [tishm’tenah] and to let it be [u’nitashta], that the needy of your people may eat, and what remains, the wildlife of the field shall eat. Do thus with your vineyard, with your olive-grove.”

In Israel, they maintain the shmita year and 5775 is it. Based on this tradition, the Rosenfelds also maintain shmita but on a different cycle. Here at CKI where we are completing year two of our community garden, there may be other ways to think about shmita. Since our community garden is planted expressly for the hungry and they still need to be fed, I would recommend that we continue to plant it.

Following the shmita year is an act of faith and trust. Leviticus teaches us, “You are to observe My laws, my regulations you are to keep, and observe them, that you may be settled on the land in security, that the land may give forth its fruit and that you may eat to being satisfied and be settled in security upon it.. Now if you should say to yourselves: What are we to eat in the seventh year, for we may not sow, we may not gather our produce? Then I will dispatch my blessing fo you during the sixth year so that it yields produce for three years. “ It is not unlike the gift of manna in the wilderness, where a double portion fell on Friday so that there would be enough to eat on Shabbat.

Another commandment for the shmita year is to have a community gathering during Sukkot to teach these very words of Torah. (Deuteronomy 31:10). We are to assemble the people, men, women, and children, and the travelers within your towns that they may hear and that they may learn and they will have awe before the Lord your G-d, and guard all the words of this Torah and to act upon it, and that their children, who have not yet known it, may hear and learn and have awe before the Lord your G-d as long as you live on the land.”

This gives us a year to plan our very own Sukkot event for next year. What if it includes teaching these texts about leaving the corners of our fields for the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the hungry. What if we find ways to reduce the synagogue’s carbon footprint. We are on our way with the new windows and new heating unit. What if we find a way to make this ner tamid a solar one?

Sukkot has a strong connection to water. What if we find a way to make rain barrels so so that our community gardens are watered with rain water? What if we give out stencils for storm drains that say, Dump No Waste Drains to River in order to protect our drinking water. What if, as Elise suggested to me in an email, we find a way to host some kind of community potluck event to call awareness to the kinds of foods we eat. Or we find a way to partner with other Elgin organizations to work on these issues for the sake of our climate, for the sake of our world. Today I am just planting the seeds, pun intended. We will see how they grow. I am filled with hope.

Yet sometimes trust seems elusive. Sometimes trust is violated. This morning’s portion maybe that kind of portion. It is one of the most difficult in the Bible. G-d tests Abraham. Take your son, your only son, the one you love, take Isaac to a place that I will show you. And Abraham trusts God and off they go. Isaac asks his father about where the offering is. Abraham answers, God will provide. And the two of them walk on together.

What kind of G-d tests someone that way? What kind of parent follows that kind of voice? Really, I want to scream. Ask another question! Either of you. Ask another question! In the end G-d does provide, or so it seems, and a ram is offered instead of Isaac. The two walk back down the mountain in silence. No dialogue now. Isaac goes his own way, marries Rebecca, loves her and is comforted by her after his mother’s death. It would seem that Abraham and Isaac never have another conversation. Neither do Abraham and Ishmael. Neither do Isaac and Ishmael. That trust seems to have been eroded. Abraham died alone. Only after his death did Isaac and Ishmael come back together—to bury their father.

This is not just a Biblical story. Trust is hard to maintain. Every day there are little examples and then there are the big ones.

Every day when I get in my car I trust that the bridges will hold. Every day I trust that parents will love their children and yet there are examples of horrendous abuse. I trust that my husband will pick up the ice cream and sometimes he forgets. And sometimes I forget to remind him. I trust that doctors will figure out illnesses and help heal us, and sometimes they can’t. I trust our health care system, our legal system, our educational system. I trust that our world wants peace.

Here at Congregation Kneseth Israel we have built a community of trust. We are a warm and welcoming congregation where people are embraced when they are celebrating or when they have sorrows. As I listened to the choir rehearse and the sweet sounds of Stephanie, I know that I trust my bimah partners—Paul and Saul,, day in and day out. They have my back. I trust all our volunteers who love to lead parts of the davvening. Joe, and Myron, Linda and Perry, Rich and Barry. I look forward to more people feeling empowered to do so. I trust Stew and the amazing choir that has graced our services. I trust the house band—because they are committed to davvening, to worshipping, not to performing. I trust the religious school teachers to provide a safe, energetic, engaging experience creating Jewish memories so that our children want to remain Jews. I trust the kitchen people that make sure kashrut is observed. I trust our board and our executive team, Joe and Barry and Marc, Jana and Sue and Barb to keep this building humming.

Will mistakes be made? In the davenning, in the kitchen? Sure but that does not erode our fundamental trust. It takes working on it every single day.

Repairing the world, repairing relationships, repairing trust is hard work—but that is precisely what the High Holidays are about. That is what teshuva is. Being able to trust. Being able to trust is a form of security. Being able to trust brings peace. Let’s use these next ten days to begin the process. Like we learned yesterday, sometimes like Hagar we need to have our eyes opened to find the well. Don’t wait like Abraham. Sometimes we need to take the first step.

The sun will come out tomorrow. It will be a sweet new year and a Shabbat filled with Shalom.