On Kol Nidre, we had two people talk about community. One, Medina Gross has been a member at CKI since she was married in 1970. The other, one of our recent Bar Mitzvah boys, Jake Atkins. Here are their remarks:

Herb and I joined this congregation in 1970 when we were married. Our wedding and reception were at Rodfei Zedek in Chicago, because I declined to have my wedding reception under the basketball hoops, which was what the social hall looked like in those days.

As a newlywed, I was very nervous about my first aliyah at the high holidays, but Frieda Simon congratulated me warmly and made me feel at home. I met Clarisse Cutts pushing the cart as a volunteer at Sherman Hospital, and she invited me to a Hadassah donor dinner. Years and many events later, I asked Clarisse to help me set tables for the kids b’nai mitzvah, because nobody could set tables for an event like Clarisse. She did it with total concentration and for her, it was a spiritual practice. I think of her when I help get ready for a congregational event, and she is probably still setting tables in Minneapolis.

From early experience, I know what it feels like to be an outsider, so I try to reach out to new members, guests and people who feel uncomfortable. As a congregation, we learned our lesson when we were threatened with extinction, and everybody makes it their business to welcome strangers.

I have lived in Elgin for 45 years and have been a member of many communities, most more or less short-lived as my children grew up and the circumstances of my life and my interests changed. The CKI community is unique in being a community of faith, in serving my whole family, in being the focal point of so many life cycle events, and in lasting a lifetime. I feel a connection to the children in the congregation, as other people felt and still feel a connection to my children. I feel proud when other member’s children do such a fine job when they participate in services.

My daughter Rachel had tried out for the Elgin Children’s Choir, but didn’t make it, so Jane Vogel and I started a Children’s Choir at CKI. Her son Matt is now a Hillel rabbi. Once, when Rachel, age six, was singing her heart out with the children’s choir, Blossom Wohl predicted that some day Rachel would be President of Sisterhood. That hasn’t happened yet–Rachel is concentrating on her family now, but she works on the Facebook page. Blossom, now in her 90’s, recognized the significance of early experiences.

The Bonner children were at the shiva for Chuck Zimmerman’s Dad a few days ago, fulfilling our mission of passing on our traditions to the next generation.

It used to be that after a funeral, they would take the coffin out that side door in the front of the sanctuary. When I witnessed that, I used to think, we are all going to go out that door at some point. When I go, there will be CKI members at my shiva to comfort my family. We are all fortunate to be members of this community.
 Medina Gross

Community means that a certain group of people is loyal to each other, and respects and appreciates one another. They look out for each other. Of similarities that vary from religion, to hobbies. It describes a certain group of people. We, are a Jewish community. We all have many things in common, being Jewish is just one of them. We all care for each other. We are a kind loving, and non-judgmental community. Not every community is like this. We are lucky to have found ourselves with these kind people. Who care about the rest of the community, the synagogue, the education of the young, and many more. We are all respectful to each other. When someone is injured and healing, there is a prayer for them at the Friday evening and Saturday morning service. There are wonderful teachers who do a fantastic job teaching the young until they’re Bar or Bat Mitzvah. The Rabbi is magnificent, Joe is a very nice man, one of the first I met here at CKI. This is a great community. Since my Bar Mitzvah in June 2015, I’ve been thinking, what could I call CKI. I now know that CKI is not only a congregation, it is also an amazing community full of warm-hearted, loving, kind, and respectful people. This is our community.
Jake Atkins, age 13

Who knows what this is? It is my kippah that I bought right here, in Elgin, during my demo weekend. Precisely because it is from Guatemala. And I wear it proudly. Even more proudly now then when I first purchased it.

Sitting high on a balcony overlooking the town square in Quetzeltango, sipping hot chocolate, we were learning about moral courage. Then we jumped. What was that? Gunfire? A car backfiring? No, it was homemade fireworks, celebrating a candidate’s arrival and what was then the upcoming election.

What is moral courage? It is taking the awareness of the world’s problems and the awareness of self together with righteous indignation, imagination and risk which leads to action. It is the capacity to act according to one’s values despite the risk of adverse consequences. It is the ability to speak out when there are injustices and a risk to one’s own person.

It is exactly what Isaiah does in this morning’s text when he asks, “Is this the fast I desire?” He is crying aloud in the wilderness, with full voice, full throat, as he is commanded. He is speaking truth to power. Begging the leaders of the community to not be complacent. To not just fast. To feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. House the homeless. This is our mission as Jews. This is our promise as Jews. Never forget to remember. We were once strangers in a strange land.

Last summer I received a phone call from the Renz Center. They were doing a program on tolerance for teens at risk as identified by the U46 school system. They had hoped we would do a program about the holocaust at the synagogue as a field trip to teach tolerance. I called Gale Jacoby and she graciously committed to teach with me. She has a traveling kit of memoriablia of her father’s. He escaped Germany on a Kindertransport to Great Britain without any papers. I suddenly looked at the room, filled mostly with immigrant children and I asked, how many of you were not born in this country. I knew enough not to ask how many of them didn’t have papers, just like Gale’s father. Some of them no doubt. The parallels were striking.

As we AJWS Global Justice Fellows bounced on a bus, we neared the town of Quetzeltenago. We saw a larger than life statue of the hero. The hero is the one who made it to the US but who sends money back to his family. Last summer thousands of children arrived in US border towns from countries like Hondoras, El Salvador and yes….Guatemala. 68,000 children. Children. Without parents. With no place to go. Hoping to make it. They are arriving again, as my sister-in-law who works on the frontlines of this in Tucson can testify to. Talk to her or Simon’s brother Fred, an immigration attorney at the break-the-fast.

Why do those children flee? The reasons they come are varied. Hope to find relatives who might already be here. Escaping unprecedented violence in their home countries. The promise of a better life.

Last night we spoke about promises. Promises made and promises broken. We Jews make lots of promises. We promise that everyone is created b’tzelem elohim. We promise that we will take care of the widow, the orphan, the stranger. Those are old promises. Promises from the Bible. We promise to clothe the naked, visit the sick, feed the hungry, bury the dead. Those are newer, yet still 2000 year old promises, from the midrash, bound up with the Torah. That in the words of Hillel, If I am not for myself, who will be for me. If I am only for myself, what am I. If not now when? Still newer, based on these older promises, we promise that the Holocaust will never happen again.

These are my guiding principles. My core values. It is part of what drives me as a rabbi. Or more importantly as a human being. Hillel also said, “In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.” I take him to have included women too in that statement. I take that to mean I have an obligation to be a good person. To speak out, like Isaiah, when there are injustices. To find my voice.

My voice is rooted in my own story. That is true for all of us. People have asked me, why go to Guatemala when there is so much to do right here in Elgin. That is true. And there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t try to improve the world, right here in Elgin. Just yesterday I attended the Martin Luther King commission meeting. Well, actually, I begged off, still struggling to find the right words for Yom Kippur. Last week, joined by Risa and Simon, I went to the community policing meeting at Second Baptist. I am the chair of the 16^th Circuit Court Faith Committee on Domestic Violence. In truth, I have been working since college to prevent violence against women. That story, my story, is because like too many, I am part of that 1 in 4, a victim, a survivor of violence against women.

American Jewish World Service has helped me find that voice. AJWS has found that in order for their partners to provide the critical services that are needed in the 19 Global South countries that AJWS works in, they are more effective when violence against women and girls are reduced. This is familiar territory for me, having worked to reduce violence against women for decades.

I went to Washington to the AJWS policy summit. Early one morning, I crossed the street in front of our hotel, looked up and saw the Capitol Dome and I realized how fortunate I am. After coffee, I would be meeting with the IL legislative delegation. Senators Kirk and Durbin, Representatives Peter Roskam, Jan Schakowsky, Danny Davis, Mike Quigley and I would be doing exactly what Isaiah demands. I would be speaking truth, my truth, to power. I cried as I finished crossing that street, realizing how far I have come since that horrible night in 1981.

Last night we spoke about promises. We promised to not make the same mistakes that we made last year. We promised to uphold our vows. Kol Nidre. All vows.

The power of our speech is important. We can use our speech without thinking—spreading gossip, causing hurt, being unkind. Or we can use our speech for moral good. To improve the world around us.

I didn’t know much about Guatemala. Yes, I do have a son-in-law from Guatemala and yes, I proudly wear my Guatemala fair trade kippah. I didn’t know about Bitter Fruit, about the coupe in 1954 or the connection between the United Fruit Company, the CIA and the coupe. I had seen the movie Worse than War based on the book of the same name written by a Holocaust survivor and his son. More people have been killed by genocide than by war. One of those genocides happened in Guatemala. Since the Holocaust. Between 1981 and 1983 42,275 people were exterminated. Murdered. 83% of them Mayan. There have been more “disappearances” since then. I thought that the civil war had ended in 1996. However, the disappearances continue until today. At one NGO, CCDA, the coffee plantation, the leader was running for Congress. Despite that, there are 84 arrest warrants out for the leaders.

The statistics are horrifying. The stories are even worse. Chilling. I went to Guatemala to hear the stories. To bear witness. To provide hope. To say, Never Again. Anywhere. Anytime. To teach. To learn.

I discovered that they had as much to teach me about these topics as I had to teach them. In our prayer Ahava Rabbah written by the rabbis of the Talmud 2000 years ago we say “limod v’lilamed,” to teach and to learn but in Hebrew they are the same verbs.

I went to Guatemala because I support the mission of American Jewish World Service. “Inspired by the Jewish commitment to justice, American Jewish World Service (AJWS) works to realize human rights and end poverty in the developing world.” AJWS has been at the vanguard of doing precisely that. They were the lead sponsor of the work to Save Darfur. Ask me later about flunking Talmud to Save Darfur. It is a good story—if it were really true! They have worked extensively in Haiti and now Nepal after natural disasters. Currently their campaigns are around civil and political rights, land and natural resources rights, sexual health and rights and ending child marriage.

I discovered that the NGOs we visited are really skilled at organizing. For instance, one NGO has managed to make sex education mandated in all the schools of Guatemala, even the Catholic ones. I carefully brought home their Spanish language materials to the Crisis Center, who does precisely that here. Why should they have to re-invent the wheel if Guatemala is already being effective.

I discovered that civil disobedience can be effective. Like Shifra and Puah, the midwives in the Exodus story who saved the baby boys including Moses, Codecut, a training organization for midwives has been very successful in training Mayan midwives and even some men and gaining access to hospitals that previously were closed to them. They have saved countless lives with their dogged determinism. We are taught that if you save one life it is as though you have saved the world. Codecut has done precisely that. The star of the skit performed about ethnic discrimination, a man who is a pharmaceutical rep and an EMT training now to be a midwife is a symbol of hope. So is baby Winston who we all got to hold during the presentations. He will have a better life because of the work of Codecut.

I discovered that they greeted us warmly and fed us at every meeting, They have an audacious hospitality we should model. I am reminded of the Jewish value of hachnassat orchim, welcoming guests. We at CKI could continue to learn from them. At every meeting we played an icebreaker, a mixer, so that we would be a more united community, a more connected group. Sometimes these were silly, like Fruito Misto and sometimes more serious, like we did here at Selichot, weaving ourselves together with a ball of yarn, reminding ourselves that we are each connected to each other as we build community. And I was reminded that laughter is a universal language.

I discovered that they have a deep spirituality that in many ways feels very Jewish. When they perform the ancient maize dance I am reminded of our own corn fields here in the Prairie State. When they light candles before every meeting, I am reminded of Shabbat and Chanukah. When they talk about land rights, I close my eyes and hear the strands of Eretz Zavat Chalav, a land flowing with milk and honey or perhaps coffee, honey, macadamia nuts, sugar and bananas. In their struggle to maintain access to land they already own, there are echoes of Abraham buying a plot of land so that he could bury Sarah. Land we still struggle over. That coffee is a symbol of hope.

I discovered that organizations, non-profits everywhere, need capacity planning and training in order to grow and be effective. That while we need to feed hungry people today—and you have done that with the food you brought last night, we also need to understand why they are hungry and work to prevent that hunger. That is a model called upstream, downstream, and we studied the theory on a boat. Really!

But all the theories in the world are not going to solve the problems. Once we understand those upstream causes, we need to work for the systemic changes. Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a life time. As we learned at CCDA, give a woman a chicken as part of the patio systems group where they learn container gardening, and you can put a girl through middle school in the income from just that one chicken. It is microfinancing at its best. That chicken is a symbol of hope.

I discovered that the country has unsurpassed beauty. G-d will ask us “Have you seen My Alps” as one of the questions we will be asked in heaven. I have. When we got off that boat at Lake Atilan, we entered paradise. The flowers, the lake ringed by volcanoes. The fragrance of the flowers. The vivid colors. The butterflies and parrots. The tastes of mango and papaya, avocado, jaimaica. The lightening, thunder and shooting stars. Yet that unparalleled beauty is marred by the brokenness. We had a Shabbat morning labyrinth walk at the hotel. It was set in a rose garden. All the roses were labeled with their year and name. One of those roses was called William Shakespeare and was planted at the height of the disappearances. In 1982. At first I was angry. How could they possibly be planted right then? Weren’t there other things they should be doing—like preventing murder? I came to see that rose as a symbol of hope.

I discovered the power of walking (or running) with another. My first morning I went running with a women I met running Disney races. She lives in Guatemala City. She had much to say about the upcoming elections but it was too early in my trip and I didn’t understand much, although I noted the very heavy police presence in the city. According to what I can follow, she had been heavily involved in the protests before and after the recent election. She wants the corruption in Guatemala to end. She is a symbol of hope.

The last night we met with Claudia, a woman whose story begins at the height of the disappearences. Her first memory was of a bomb going off that shattered glass on her crib. She now journeys with people who are testifying about the genocide. She says what they do is simple….who we are and what we do is simple: we act as a support team for human rights defenders. She is working to end the current corruption in the government. Her story was riveting. Her faith and optimism amazing. She is a symbol of hope.

I discovered so much more and could tell stories all day…

But I am left with a question. What has happened to those children? Those 68000 children? Immigration proceedings are started. Because of an anti-trafficking law, children must have a court hearing. The Department of Health and Human Services gives each child a health screening and immunizations and assigns them to a shelter. Most children stay in those shelters an average of 35 days until they can be placed with family or a sponsor. According to the New York Times last October, 43,000 were able to be placed with family or sponsors already in the United States. There are 100 permanent shelters but with the unprecedented sudden influx 3000 beds were created on military bases in California, Oklahoma and Texas.

This is not a problem that only effects border states. Places like Tucson or Dallas or San Diego. Not our problem here in Elgin? Not so. Elgin is now 43% Hispanic according to available census data. And that number is difficult to quantify because of the fear of identifying. One of my Starbucks baristas is from Guatemala. One of the hotline workers at the Crisis Center is from Guatemala and was birthed by a Mayan midwife. The bananas some of you enjoy are mostly from Guatemala, check those Chiquita labels…and are processed in a factory on Route 20 that uses mostly day laborers. Paying less than minimum wage and providing no benefits. How many of us drive past it and never even see it? How many of us wonder what goes on there?

Now we have a new crisis on our hands. Or maybe it isn’t new. Last week we read about another mother, Hagar, who was kicked out of her home, forced to flee with her son, a little bread and a skin of water. She put her child under a bush and cried out, “Do not let me look on while the child dies.” And G-d answers the cry of the lad. Opens Hagar’s eyes and finds the water that was there all along.

Now a new group of refugees is gripping the headlines. 20,000 refugees arrived on the Austrian border just this past weekend. Germany has said if they are coming for economic reasons they will be sent back. The US is thinking of opening our borders to an additional 100,000 people. However, as Secretary of State Kerry pointed out, these refugees need to be vetted and we need to hire people to handle that vetting. That will cost money. This is a complicated, complex, nuanced problem as Deborah Lipstadt pointed out in her piece last week in the Forward. It doesn’t reduce to sound bites. And she, herself, the renowned Holocaust scholar, is not comfortable with her own four questions. So this will require study, much study, as well as humanitarian aide and compassion. Our tradition, the tradition outlined by our very readings this morning demands no less.

As we learned about moral courage on that balcony in Quetzeltango, we are at a behira point, a choice. We have a great social action/tikkun olam program here at CKI. We are involved in lots of things and we make the world a better place. We work with the Crisis Center, with PADs, with Food for Greater Elgin, with the Elgin Cooperative Ministries, with Habitat for Humanity and Heartland Blood Bank. The challenge is to kick it up a notch. To continue to partner. To learn why the need is so great. To do the hard work of advocacy, of systemic change, of justice so that we begin to see long term effects.

This is the moral courage of that Yom Kippur demands. This is the moral courage of Isaiah and Claudia, Santos Margarita and Ceci, Leocadio Juracan and Maria Louisa .

I promise I won’t be silent. I can’t be. That is my Kol Nidre promise.

It is tempting to use the line that a speechless Jon Stewart used so poignantly this year. “I’ve got nothing.” After the Charleston massacre, what else could you say? He continued, “All I have is sadness, at the depravity of what we do to one another and the gaping wound of the racism we pretend does not exist. I’m confident though that by acknowledging it, by staring into it, we still won’t do jack shit. That’s us. And that’s the part that blows my mind. What blows my mind is the disparity of response, between when we think someone foreign is going to kill us and when we kill ourselves. ”

I’ve got nothing, on what is supposed to be the most joyous days of the Jewish year and yet this year I have nothing. Yet, I too find I have got more to say. Tonight, our tradition says that life hangs in the balance. Tonight, we stood here, together as a community and chanted Kol Nidre. Our elders, our leaders, our men, women and children and the strangers amongst us, fellow travelers, friends. Tonight we stand here and recite our sins, all of our sins, together as a community. We make new promises…to not make the same mistakes that we made last year in the coming year.

Every year someone asks me if Yom Kippur is a sad holiday. Every year I answer that it is not. It is actually one of the most joyful holidays on the Jewish calendar. It is a night filled with hope, filled with possibilities, filled with potential—and therefore, filled with joy.

As Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson said, “The 10 days from Rosh Ha-Shana to Yom Kippur are days of transformation. Can we summon the strength to become the person we are at our best? These are days of possibility, days of magic! Time to dig deep.”

But what are we digging deep towards? Who do we want to become? What do we want to change? If we can figure that out, then that is the magic. That is the joy.

Tonight is about promises made and promises broken. Covenants made and covenants broken. The question becomes, how do we come back together as a community again?

G-d made a promise, a covenant, a contract. The first one was with Noah on behalf of the world—a promise that G-d will not destroy the world again by a flood. We say that the rainbow is a sign of that promise—when we see a rainbow we have a special blessing—zochair habrit, that G-d and we remember the covenant. And our promise to be partners to protect the earth, to not destroy the world. That all lives matter.

At Tashlich at Lords Park we saw a rainbow and remembered as we were cleaning the park. At the Botanic Garden yesterday I saw another one. And I remembered. This is a beautiful world. We have a responsibility to take care of it. And all lives matter.

God made another covenant, with Abraham That if Abraham believed in G-d, G-d would make him as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sands of the sea. Abraham was given two children, Ishmael and Isaac. Two children of two different mothers. Two children to he loved. But somehow his understanding went tragically wrong. He thought that maybe each child was to be sacrificed. He missed the point that there was enough love to go around for all people. That all lives matter. He didn’t seem to understand and so while both children survived their near miss with death, neither were quite whole again. Neither reconciled. Abraham did not seem to do teshuvah and so he died alone. But tonight there is hope. Jews are observing Yom Kippur. The pope is in Washington and Muslims are celebrating the Haj. Perhaps there can be peace as we remember: All lives matter

G-d tried again. God made yet another covenant. This time with the people of Israel. Shabbat is the sign of that covenant. If we promise to love G-d with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our might, then the years of our lives will be lengthened. At the very end of Deuteronomy when Moses is speaking in G-d’s name for the last time and sharing their vision with the people of Israel, those standing, all of the men, women and children, the woodchoppers and the water drawers, the young and the old, and the strangers within our gates. God begs us, Choose life that you and your children may live. All lives matter, even all those generations yet to come.

This is the legacy of the Jewish people. It is how we become a light unto the nations, a holy nation, a holy community. This is the covenant that we have chosen. That life is sacred. That life has hope. To proclaim that all lives matter. That we need to continue to choose life.

This was a summer that was painful. Difficult. Yet there were glimmers of hope. There are still possibilities if we remember the vision.

This year, as of last month, 24 unarmed black men have been shot and killed by police according to the Washington Post. I can never fully understand what it would be like to be a black male during a traffic stop. I can tell you even when I get stopped, thankfully not very often, that there is an automatic adrenaline rush. But I can tell you also that I am proud to be in Elgin, where long before Ferguson and the death of Michael Brown or the death of Freddie Gray we, the clergy, the police chief and the mayor, began a conversation about race and policing that continues here in Elgin.

I went to Ferguson this past Jewish year. For 4 hours and 32 minutes—I know because I stood outside in the pouring rain for that same length of time, Michael Brown lay on the pavement. Some people see Ferguson in black and white tones. I see it in orange and red. Orange for my friend who will be saying Mass tomorrow with the pope who dresses in Buddhist orange for peace and red for the large red umbrella that the Unitarians loaned Father Jack, Rabbi Gordon and me as we stood in the rain singing, Wade in the Water. It seemed like our own mikveh. Signs of hope.

Yet, there is a difference here in Elgin. Our police chief and our mayor would not have allowed anyone to lie on the pavement like that. Can a mistake be made? You bet. Our police officers have split seconds to make life or death decisions and they cannot always get it right. BUT the difference lies in the police’s belief that all lives matter—and that they will not signal out one ethnic or minority group. As Chief Sawboda said at the last community policing meeting, “I don’t want one bad apple here.” And as Deputy Chief Bill Wolf explained, almost too modestly, there were only 7 complaints last year about the Elgin Police Force out of 80,000 calls. Think about that math. That is remarkable. All lives matter here in Elgin.

That is not enough however. Police lives matter too. I grieve with members of the Elgin Police force that trained with Police Lieutenant Joseph Gliniwicz in Fox Lake. While this case has not been solved and the details are still guarded, I grieve with the widow, the children and people of Fox Lake. 18 police officers nationally have been shot in killed in the line of duty this year. All lives matter.

I grieve for the 9 members of the church in Charleston, including their senior pastor, who died when a person who had sat with them for an hour, studying the Bible and praying with them opened fire and murdered them. My first call that morning was to Pastor Nat Edmond. Mine was the first call he received. Together we reviewed each of our security plans. The survivors’ stories of their ability to forgive the shooter touches my heart and gives me pause on this Yom Kippur. I am not sure I am ready to forgive. And giving me pause are the Confederate flags that have gone up in South Elgin after this tragic shooting. I am not sure that my neighbors understand that All lives matter.

I grieve for the families of all victims of gun violence, everywhere and especially on the streets of Chicago. The figures are staggering. This past weekend was the second worst weekend this year with 8 fatalities, plus one more from a stabbing and 45 people wounded. That brings the total to 2213 shooting victims and 365 homicide victims. And I wonder where is the outcry. How do we teach that life is sacred? That sll lives Matter?

I grieve for a family in Jerusalem whose daughter Shira Banki was stabbed at the Gay Pride Parade in August. Her assailant, a Jew, had been released from prison just weeks before for stabbing people at the Gay Pride Parade in 2005 after serving a 10 year sentence for that crime. How did he miss the Jewish concept that All lives matter.

I grieve for the family and neighbors of Ali Dawabsheh, an 18 month old toddler on the West Bank, in the town of Duma, whose home was firebombed allegedly by Israeli extremists. Both his parents also succumbed to their injuries. Do Israeli lives, Jewish lives matter more than Palestinian lives? No. All lives matter.

I grieve for little Aylan Kurdi, the three year old in the red shirt, blue shorts and velco sneakers. Washed ashore on a Turkish beach. 4 million Syrians displaced. 3 million Iraqis. These lives matter too.

I grieve too with a family whose son was in the hospital yesterday as either a drug overdose or an attempted suicide. Alcohol, heroin, marijuana and zanax is a potent, lethal combination. It is only because of the skill of the Naperville police force, the Edwards Hospital team and the family that this kid is alive today. While the family is grateful, the young man is not yet. While he may not think his life matters, I do.

And I grieve for the families who are grieving for their loved ones they lost this year. For Delores, Harry, Louis, Sharon, Michael, Joseph.

We just chanted the Kol Nidre. The prayer that asks that we are absolved from promises that we make that we did not keep. Promises made and promises broken. Promises renewed and promises discarded.

I think that G-d sits on the heavenly throne and weeps. Weeps for us and with us. Wonders why make covenants with us when we seem incapable of keeping up our end of the bargain.

So tonight, we will recite the Al Cheit, the litany of our sins. And I add…

• We broke our promise to partner with God, to be caretakers of this earth.
• We broke our promise to value life. To choose life. To hold life sacred
• We broke our promise to welcome the widow, the orphan, the stranger. The most marginalized among us.
• We broke a promise to our children when we let students fall through the cracks, when we can’t find ways to reach them and when we run up student loan debt and made college educations difficult to achieve financially.
• We broke a promise to our seniors when we leave them isolated and alone, unsure of whether they can survive on fixed incomes and whether their health insurance will cover their pressing needs.
• We broke a promise to those with mental health issues when we stigmatize mental illness.
• We broke our promise to Shira and to Ali. To Michael Brown and Freddie Gray. To Joseph Glieniwicz.
• We broke a promise to this community when we engage in gossip and innuendo. When we dis the Jewish community, this community and each other.
• We broke a promise to the key people in our lives—to our husbands, our wives, our sons our daughters, our brothers, our sisters when we failed to live up to the best in us. When we yelled or were impatient. When work was more important than time with family. When our smart phones took over our lives.

But tonight is a night of possibilities. Of potential. Of rising to our own highest selves. Of returning to being the persons we were meant to be. Of renewing our covenant.

Tonight we are commanded to make new the promises. For the sake of our children—all of our children: tonight this is what I am prepared to promise. This is my covenant for the coming year:

• I promise that I will continue to uphold the principle of bal tashchit, to not destroy. To not cut down fruit trees, to buy locally grown produce, to group my errands and carpool when I can, to reduce my dependence on fossil fuels, to pursue alternative energies like solar and wind power.
• I promise that I will continue to recognize that all people are created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of G-d, whether they look like me or not. Whether they speak English or not. Whether they live in Elgin or Ferguson, Jerusalem or Guatemala. That I will treat people with respect and compassion, whether they are straight or gay, Jewish or Muslim, rich or poor, educated or illiterate.
• I promise that I will continue to welcome the widow, the orphan, the stranger because we were strangers in the land of Egypt. We as Jews know the pain of borders being closed. Or being persecuted. Marginalized.
• I promise to help those of you who want to become Jews who haven’t had a chance to meet your own goal. It is interesting that now one out of six Jews today in the world was not born Jewish. Judaism has much to offer the world.
• I promise to put down my phone and listen, really listen to what each of you is saying. And to try not to cut you off in my own enthusiasm and passion in a conversation.
• I promise to take my commitment to education seriously. I believe in life long learning. For our kids. All kids. For our adults. All adults. Look for announcements in October’s HaKol about new adult study possibilities. One is called Chai Mitzvah and it combines independent study, a monthly study session together as community, spiritual practice and tikkun olam. I am excited about this new program.
• I promise to take the range of Jewish observance seriously….that is part of our embracing diversity.
• I promise to take the partnership with lay leadership seriously. To take our vision and make it reality. To continue to grow this community.
• I promise that I will continue to repair the world, here in Elgin and around the world. If I am not for myself, who will be for me. If not now, when. It is not ours to finish the task, but neither are we free to ignore it.
• I promise that all lives matter.

May we continue to make promises that we can keep. Tonight and always. May we continue to choose life for us and our children. Always. May we be inscribed tonight in the book of life, tonight and always. Ken yehi ratzon.

Today’s guest, The Rev. Don Frye is the Episcopal priest in West Dundee. He and his partner have become good friends in a short period of time.

What does community mean to you? Why is it important? How have you felt connected? Where do you feel connected?

I have been a member of many communities in my lifetime.

My first community was of course my family. It is where I was loved, disciplined, taught lasting values and faith. It was not a perfect community but no community is perfect. But there was love. I still love my family, but my family has made my sexual orientation one that is hard for them to accept me and my partner because of their religious beliefs. So our community is strained and civil, but the love is not unconditional with them.

I have belonged to several religious communities within the Christian tradition. I learned my love for God through the stories of the Bible. I have been comforted, challenged and made to see myself in these stories of men and women of faith. Communities of faith like my family invested in me as much as I have participated in the life of these communities, but I had to walk away from most because of my sexual orientation. I found a community where I was fully accepted as a gay man. That community has confirmed my call to be an ordained leader among them and I serve a community where I teach that true religion, true community is based on loving God and others, especially doing to others as you would have want others to do to you.

So what is important about community for me is loving God and others. It is not always easy living in community. I have to stay connected to others so that I continue to grow, learn and live truth with my community and other communities.

I feel most connected in communities where I served homeless single men and women, welfare moms and their kids. I feel connected when I serve as a hospital chaplain serving patients and their families when they are dealing with their anxiety and fears in the midst of medical decisions. I feel connected when I celebrate with my faith community the joys and sorrows of life. I feel connected with my partner as we walk through life together. I feel connected to my friends of other faith traditions as we wrestle with what it means to be people of truth and love in a world where peace often eludes us due to fear, greed and mistrust.

I will always work to stay connected with various communities. I do not want to be defined by just one community because that would limit my personal growth and change in my life, as I seek to be an agent of change in my community and the world.
The Rev. Don Frye

In honor of the pope’s visit….written before he knew he was going….Our next guest blogger, Father Jack Lau, is a Catholic priest in Godfrey, IL. He is on his way to Washington DC to celebrate Mass with the Pope during the Pope’s historic visit to the United States chosen as one of the few. We have celebrated our holidays together, laughed together, cried together, worshipped together. For more than 25 years now. Once, when we were young, Jack would babysit Sarah for Kol Nidre. Now his ministry is preparing men to be priests. He lives in a novitiate and works 24×7. He is living community in a very profound, intentional, intense way. We were at the novitiate when the previous pope announced his retirement. We all have high hopes for this current pope as he continues to inspire tikkun olam, repair of the world, something Jack and I have worked together on for all of those 25+ years.

Community-“A sharing with all”, “Our Common Home”. Though we may not be aware of it, we are already ONE. We and all creation are one in our molecular make up, with carbon as our foundation coming from the great flaring forth some 13.8 billion years ago. We are One in the Holy One who calls us by name and calls us to till the earth and care for each other, and by the way, yes that means, we are our sister and brother’s keeper. (Gen 4:9)

This has been what the sages and saints have said; “The Lord of Love is hidden in the hearts of every creature, subtler than the subtlest, greater than the greatest. Through G-d’s grace one sheds all selfish desires and sorrow and become united with the Self. Shvetashvatara Upanishads 4:20).

Yet do we know this, sensing the divine in the core of our being, and if not, what are the blocks? Is it that we are too busy, is it our indifference, are we blind that our actions affect others in detrimental way. In a multi-national world have all become objects to use for my/our own aggrandizement rather than subjects to admire and be in relationship with? When we see all as One, we enter into an “integral ecology” where we enter into the heart of what it means to be human, and that means to be in a conscious and reflective relationship with all.

Papal Encyclical “Laudato Si”, 11 says: “If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs.” Is this the legacy we want to pass on to our children’s children or is there another way? (L.S. 12) “Rather than a problem to be solved, the world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise.”

Father Jack Lau, OMI

Our next guest, Dr. Amy Sussna Klein, is a member at CKI. She is a early education consultant with a graduate degree from Tufts (my alma mater, too!) and University of Massachusetts, Amherst. We both love reading and participating in the CKI book group. She and I share something else in common too, we each have a daughter named Sarah Klein.

Over 20 years ago, I was helping a friend put together a conference, and the featured speaker was Larry Brendtro. Brendtro blew me away. He talked about meeting the needs of youth by endowing them with four key strengths:

(1) independence,

(2) mastery (a feeling of being able to do something well),

(3) generosity (basically, tzedakah), and

(4) a sense of belonging (i.e., being part of a community). I would argue this lists applies to adults as well as children, and will focus on the last of these strengths: community.

Community has been the emphasis for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. To become part of community and feel a sense of belonging, you need to get to know people in a particular group. Being part of a community is an essential component of human well-being, but how is a community formed? Sometimes, this happens through osmosis, for instance to the people who live in a small, tight-knit town where everybody knows everybody else. In today’s modern world, however, this is much less common than it used to be. We may not even know our next-door neighbors.

But there are other ways that communities can form. In particular, you can take steps to interact with others in ways that lead to the group forming a community (or which leads to you becoming part of a community that has already formed).

The key is this: The more you and others share experiences and goals and backgrounds, the more you will feel like a community.

Sometimes the initial part of joining a community may feel awkward. For example what if you have just moved to a new town? The first months in a new home, although you live in proximity to others in your neighborhood, you may not feel like part of their community. If you meet a neighbor while walking around the neighborhood, what would you say? “Nice weather, or “What a cute dog?”

But, CKI is determined to build community, and provided pathways that make these first few steps less awkward. The book club is one example. The awkwardness of finding a commonality (something to talk about is gone).

I have counted SEVEN ways that the book club helps to pull members into the CKI community:

1. Month after month, CKI members are invited to join.
2. Once you do joint it’s easier to interact with people you don’t know well or may not know at all, since you have all read the same book and you are all there to talk about that book!
3. The books chose each month relate to Judaism, so they relate to you!
4. The members of the book clubs share something in common with you ,as they are all either Jewish or have Jewish family members.
5. Furthermore, they are all members of CKI, so you have something else in common with them.
6. (I call this the “Cheers factor” – after the old sitcom by that name.) The book club meetings are a place you can go where “everybody knows your name.”
7. (I call this the “Energizer Bunny factor.”) Once you start getting involved with the book club, your further involvement with CKI keeps going and going and going….. That’s because the book club members are also involved in other important Jewish and CKI organizations, such as Sisterhood and Hadassah, and you’ll find yourself invited and welcomed into these. [Editor’s Note: This factor is not to be confused with The Energizer Rabbi!}

Amy Sussna Klein

Laugh. But this is a story of pomegranates and the power of social media. Another way to build community.

Last week a colleague of mine in Winnipeg was lamenting on Facebook he couldn’t find any pomegranates north of the border. Pomegranates are traditional during Rosh Hashanah in some communities. There are 613 seeds in a pomegranate, the same number of mitzvot. Trust me on this one. I sat in Jerusalem counting pomegranate seeds one Rosh Hashanah afternoon. Multiple pomegranates. They each had 613 seeds.

So like looking at tzitzit on the tallit, eating a pomegranate during Rosh Hashanah reminds us to do the mitzvot. If you haven’t eaten one in a while, it provides the opportunity to say shehechianu on a new fruit the second day.

I had been looking for a pomegranate as well and said that we in Elgin would race Winnipeg. People in Elgin and Winnipeg started saying where they had seen them. I had offers from friends to drive one from the North Shore. I found some at Jewel—even with perfect crowns. Two pomegranates showed up on my desk. Then another four.

In the middle of this race, something remarkable happened. A friend from Massachusetts, Sharon Finberg, saw the post on Facebook. She has a friend in California who grows pomegranates. My new Facebook friend, Anne Pilgrim, shipped me four exquisite pomegranates from her own tree. They are now sitting on my desk, with the others that appeared, making me smile each time I see them.

People often talk about the Internet as community. It can be. And the pomegranates are an example. I think, however, it is a tool to strengthen community. Dick Johnson wrote about the running community. I belong to several Facebook groups for running. Because of this I have met people I would not ordinarily meet living in Elgin. I have been encouraged by them to run further, faster, to keep up with my training. I even had the opportunity to run in Guatemala with someone I had met through Facebook. Friends of mine, scattered all over the country, actually the world, have a chance to remain friends by checking in on Facebook. People have described me as the original Rabbi without Borders.

My congregation has a Facebook presence. The Torah School has a group on Facebook as well. A closed group, here they share ideas and discuss things amongst themselves.

Facebook is not the only social media. Pinterest gives people the opportunity to share ideas. I am trying to pin more things to boards for each of the holidays. Some congregations stream services. What a great idea for shut-ins. We used a web conferencing program last winter when we had a minyan scheduled for a yahrzeit and I didn’t think it was safe to drive.

When I was first in rabbinical school, I interned with the Jewish Appleseed Foundation as the Answer Rabbi. A Jewish apple is a pomegranate. The foundation’s mission was “to work with Jews and non-Jews who live away from the Jewish mainstream and were in need of mentoring and strategic planning.” The questions we were asked were interesting and varied. One question was a constant. “How can I become Jewish?” Many of those were people who were living in remote areas with no Jewish community near them. At the time, the director, would advise them that being Jewish is not something to be done alone. You need a community. It is a group process.

The world has changed some since 2007, There are now groups that will do online conversions. I still think people need a community and the support that they bring. Traditionally, a community needs a mikveh and a cemetery, even before building a synagogue or a school or buying a Torah. Or even hiring a rabbi.

I had an interesting conversation with Rabbi Ari Moffic, the Chicago director of Interfaith Family. She said that millenials are not looking for community. They think they have it on Facebook. There is a mom’s group of some 6000 people on the North Shore and you will see posts like, “Thank you to my community. I couldn’t have done x without you.” What they are looking for is a sense of belonging. I thought that was community.

I see that too in my running groups and with WeightWatchers. It is a place where you can be anonymous. Where you can share your hopes and dreams, frustrations and setbacks. But I am not sure it is community.

The tale of a pomegranate. The power of social media. One more tool to strengthen community. To build community. But not be community. Not yet.

Our next guest blogger, Sara Sitzer, is one of the cellists with the Elgin Symphony Orchestra. She and her husband recently bought a house in Elgin and are experiencing the joys of fixing it up. She is excited about becoming more involved with the Jewish community in Elgin and the wider community. And she understands community from playing in a orchestra and in chamber groups. She was inspired after Erev Rosh Hashanah services talking about Community and sent in this entry:

When people see me on the Metra with my cello, they ask, “do you play with the Chicago Symphony?” (these people being the ones who realize it’s not a guitar, that is) And when I kindly tell them, “alas, no,” their next question is, “oh, then what do you do for a living?”

Well, I make music for a living. I play in the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, I play with various other orchestras and small chamber ensembles in and around Chicago, I perform every July at a festival in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I founded a chamber music festival in St. Louis (my hometown), I founded a chamber music series right here in Elgin (chambermusiconthefox.org–check it out!), I write for music blogs, I coach chamber music–in short, I freelance, and yes, I make a living by it. So it might not surprise you to know that I am colleagues and likely friends with every classical musician who lives or plays in Elgin, as well as the majority of the musicians in the Chicagoland area. But in addition, there are probably only a couple of degrees of separation between me and any other professional classical musician in the country.

An example of this: after CKI’s Erev Rosh Hashanah services, I had a lovely conversation with a congregant who, upon hearing I was a cellist, proceeded to tell me about an old friend of hers who had passed away whose daughter is a violinist in the St. Louis Symphony. “Oh!” I said, “Debbie Bloom?” I was right.

The music world is tiny, and the sense of community within it is what inspired me to pursue it professionally. I first got a sense of this when I was 16 years old and was accepted to attend a small music camp in the hills of Vermont. It was an utterly magical summer: we were barefoot all day, we held hands singing madrigals every night before bed, we baked homemade bread in our free time, but we mostly soaked up the incredible experience of playing music together. Now, 16 years after that summer, I am still in touch with most of the musicians I met there, and I run into them constantly at gigs, at conferences, and online. We only become more interconnected as the years go by.

To play music together–particularly chamber music–is an intensely intimate experience, so it’s no surprise that musicians are a close-knit family. When you rehearse a piece of Beethoven or Schubert with colleagues, you experience an extreme range of human emotions together. And when you rehearse those pieces for hours upon hours at a time, you get a chance to learn more about your colleagues’ personalities than you ever thought you might. As they say, playing chamber music is more intimate than a marriage–just without the sex.

Because the music world at large is the community that I feel absolutely closest to, some of my best friends live thousands of miles away, yet we still feel utterly close. Because this community is the one I have always felt most at home with, I ended up marrying another cellist. And because this is the community that I know the best and feel the most comfortable in, it is my means of connection to other communities: I started the chamber music series in Elgin as a way of connecting to the Elgin community, I reached out to Rabbi Frisch Klein about Kol Nidrei music as a way of connecting to the Jewish community, and I use every performance I play as a way of connecting to anyone who is there to listen.

Our next guest, Suzy Zemel, is the Sisterhood president at Congregation Kneseth Israel. She spends many volunteer hours making CKI a better place and knows the value of community. These words she spoke on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. 

Almost 28 years ago, I was extremely unenthused about attending my first Sisterhood function. However, I felt obligated to attend. That and Marc’s nudging, I thought, I’ll go but I AM NOT joining. At the end of this function I joined Sisterhood. Why? The women were friendly. I realized my check would show my support of Sisterhood. I joined Sisterhood not expecting to become active, and certainly with no intention of becoming Sisterhood president. Later I started volunteering. One of my favorite memories was helping set tables for a holiday event. My youngest toddled around the social hall while I worked with someone with grown children. I enjoyed meeting her and working together. So here are a few more points about our community: people assist by  volunteering, aiding financially, and demonstrate support by becoming members, and attending various functions. I continued attending functions, enjoying the company of these women, the activities, and working together. So another point about community is we work for the common good of our synagogue and people.

Our own CKI Family supports, respects, and accepts that we come to CKI with different needs and desires. Community is about the day-to-day living, as well as life cycle events. We are there through illnesses and the loss of loved ones. We share happiness at each other’s simchas, joyous occasions, and celebrate with great joy, pride and happiness. This occurs because friendships have bloomed into beautiful bouquets. So another aspect to community is sharing happiness and laughter as well as support of each other during hard times. Community includes establishing relationships along with developing roots to this organizations.

So where does this leave us? Clearly community involves people. For me, CKI is a place I cherish and value. If you haven’t felt that you are plant of this community, it isn’t too late to start developing your roots. Try something new here at CKI. Share your ideas for our betterment. For those of you that are firmly set within this community, thank you for working together for the betterment of this wonderful place we fondly call CKI.

Our next guest blogger is Barbara Simon Njus, a retired literature professor, who is a life-long resident of Elgin and lifelong member of Congregation Kneseth Israel. She is one of several people who spoke on the topic of What is Community over the High Holidays at CKI. She is a very deep thinker which I appreciate and she is extraordinarily kind doing things behind the scenes to help the wider community. But she is extremely modest too, so while she appears as an angel, I can’t say more.

Community is belonging.   Our community is like an extended family.   We gain strength and comfort from our togetherness. From this comfort, we renew ourselves. From this strength, we help others.

We are a Jewish Community.   In its most basic form, this is the minion. Our Jewish identity is unique, but also universal, as we share our humanity with all people.

Our community is modern and ancient. The Torah is our guide, our source, our wisdom. There is the old adage: For generations, the Jews have kept Shabbat, but Shabbat has kept the Jews. Sabbath by Sabbath, High Holidays by High Holidays, we reaffirm our faith and our togetherness.

As a Jewish Community, we are also part of the greater Elgin community. While we help ourselves, we also help others, through projects and partnerships with other houses of worship and other community groups like the Crisis Center, PADS, and Food for Greater Elgin.  We Feed Greater Elgin, too, with the Sisterhood annual corned beef lunch.

Imaginative Bar and Bat Mitzvah projects: collecting art supplies for children at the Crisis Center, playing baseball to raise money for Alzheimer’s research, walking to raise money to fight ALS – – these projects show our young members learn the mitzvah of ,, tikkun olam, to repair and heal the world, at the same time as they assume their responsibilities as adults in our Jewish Community.

Some of you may remember The Jewish Catalogue from 1973, a “do-it-yourself “ guide to Judaism.   Towards the end, there’s chapter entitled, “How to bring Mashiah [the Messiah].”

May we strive to bring Mashiah by all we do, as individuals, and as a community. In all we do together, day by day, deed by deed, mitzvah by mitzvah, may we go from strength to strength for our next hundred and twenty years.