Last night we talked about promises and about concepts of G-d. Today’s haftarah from the prophet Isaiah has haunted me all my adult life. Some of you may be getting a little hungry about now. Some of you may find that hunger distracting. Imagine going to be every night hungry. Isaiah demands in G-d’s voice, “Is this the fast I desire.” The answer is no. Rather it is to feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the naked. It is a process of rebuilding. Rebuilding roads, houses, It sounds like a hurricane had just hit Eretz Yisrael. (for those wondering, JUF has a special fund set up for disaster relief). Or maybe it was a pandemic, as organizations and communities struggle to rebuild after two years of being apart.  

There are lots of opportunities to rebuild—to make our voices and our lives count. To truly help the wider community move from surviving to thriving. We do part of that here at CKI. Our participation in the soup kettle, thanks initially to Nina and now to Judi and Barb. Our community garden, which lives out the commandment to leave the corners of our field thanks initially to Sherry Wiesman and now to Robin and Jerry. The Klionskys, the Rockwoods, the Morgans made a difference this summer too as we gathered at Kenyon Farms to harvest corn for Food for Greater Elgin. It was a warm, buggy morning but the sense of satisfaction in knowing that people would have fresh sweet corn that evening was palpable. Your donations to CKI for Project Isaiah to support Food for Greater Elgin help too. Your participation in each of these makes a difference. Your voices, your actions count.  

Later in the month we will have the opportunity to walk in the annual Crop Walk. Our own Peg Lehman with her team at the Church of the Brethren, is often the local person who raises the most money locally. Her participation matters. Her voice counts. Those contributions support Elgin Cooperative Ministries, which support the local soup kettles. Our vegetables from the community garden go to one. Our work at Zion Lutheran support another.   Every night in Elgin, there are meals available to support our must vulnerable. Watch for more details about how you can enjoy a stroll along the Fox with Simon and me and usually Caleb, as we raise money for the soup kettles and honor Michael Montgomery, the executive director of Food for Greater Elgin. Your voice and your actions will count. You will, as Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “praying with your feet.” 

These are feel good moments.  

Sadly, these efforts do not go far enough. There are still hungry people. There are still homeless people. There are still people who lack the basic necessities including adequate clothing, especially important as we head into the winter. While the Torah and this haftarah are quite clear, it is our obligation to take care of the most vulnerable, some of the approaches that have been used to do so through the millennia are more like band-aids. There are still needy amongst us. Perhaps according to Torah there will always be. These seem to be entrenched problems facing not just our communities, but the nation and the world. There are days when the problems that Isaiah outlines seem worse today than when Simon and I, together with others of the Greater Lowell Interfaith Leadership Alliance first started working on them some 36 years ago.  

The solutions are not clear. And we may disagree on how to solve them. What is clear is that each of these problems needs advocacy. Using your voice to speak out and demand that systems change to take care of the most vulnerable. One way to make your voice count is to find that cause for which you are passionate and speak out. There are plenty of issues. Let your voice be heard. Loudly and clearly. Join with others to amplify your voice. Write postcards. Send letters. Make phone calls. Join an organization that shares your views and work for a better tomorrow, for all. This November you have the opportunity to vote. A right that our ancestors did not have in many countries we once lived in. Vote for the candidates that have put together the clearest plans and solutions on the issues you are most passionate about. Every day my email is filled with requests to involved either for advocacy, action or yes, funding from any number of organizations that are doing this work. Some of them are specifically Jewish. Some are not. By joining your voice together with others, we can and will make a difference. Your voice counts. Your life matters. That is how as the verse from Psalms we will study later says, “Teach us to number our days that we may find a heart of wisdom.” The days of our life are short.  

At CKI we have a vision statement that includes meaningful observance—and we hope that today is a fulfillment of that plank for each of you. We engage in lifelong learning—and you have the opportunity to participate in some later today. Today supports our plank of building community, which all of this taken together does. Look around you—both in the room and on Zoom and see how strong we are as a community. 

Yet there is one more plank in our vision statement—embracing diversity. Diversity at CKI includes many things. 17 foreign countries that people were born in, 30 communities, 11 school districts. Different types of family structures, singles, families with kids, families without kids, old (101) to new born—8 weeks, straight, gay, trans, multi-racial, interfaith—all of that and more is CKI.  

Isaiah demands one more thing, to not ignore your kin. One group of the vulnerable includes those who are at high risk because they have disabilities or chronic illness. Recently we had an amazing morning here at CKI, the Bat Mitzvah of Kathy Lange. Once she was told she couldn’t have a Bat Mitzvah. She is so happy she was finally able to do that which was denied. She is proud of what she accomplished—and many of you expressed your own pride in the moment. We have made strides at CKI to be welcoming, to embrace those who are differently abled. Our first floor is almost entirely accessible, our use of Zoom allows even more people to participate fully, our ability to bring a Torah down from the bimah so someone can have an aliyah who cannot come up to the bimah, our sensory room when it is not being used for babysitting, is helpful for those who need a quiet place to chill. All of those are ways we embrace diversity and do not ignore our kin.  

Recently, a congregation took this morning’s haftarah and made a stunning video to challenge us to go even further. I want to leave you with that video and its haunting question.  

Yom Kippur 2022: A Call from High-Risk and Disabled Jews 

May this be a Yom Kippur where your voice counts, where all our voices count Where we feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the naked and where we don’t ignore our kin so that all will be truly welcome here and that this will be as Isaiah said, “A house of prayer for all people.”