Our next guest, Gareth Sitz, is a retired theater and language teacher. She has acted extensively as well as directed, produced and written scripts. She has written many of her own songs. Currently she directs a troupe called Femmeprov. She is an active member of Congregation Kneseth Israel and enjoys singing in the choir. Her post made me chuckle. I remember being in Israel watching Woody Allen’s Bananas which includes the line “What do the Jews do when they get in trouble? They sing.” This morning I woke up singing some of the High Holiday liturgy and a song from Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. May all of your music for Yom Kippur bring you peace.

Singing is a meditative and peaceful act for me.   When I’m writing a song, I sing the words and melody over and over again. After I’m pretty happy with the lyrics, I’ll write them down, only to revise them over time. I’ll play with the melody as well, sometimes changing it completely. The process makes me unbearably happy and at peace.

Sometimes, a song I write makes me cry. I’ve been known to sing through my tears, like the time I wrote a soulful ballad about my childhood friend who was killed in a motorcycle accident when he was 17. I cried and I cried and I cried, cradling my guitar in my lap. Then, when the song was finally done and I typed the lyrics, I felt at peace.

At their very best, my songs reflect what’s in my heart, and in their very simplicity, they allow me to express my feelings on a deep level. Writing a song and singing it is one of the ways I take care of myself, a way I find peace.

In synagogue, while singing the prayers in a communal setting, I also find peace. No matter what’s going on in the world or in my personal life, I can let the familiar melodies carry me along, helping me to center myself in a peaceful place. I used to wonder why there was so much repetition in the services, until I was able to embrace the meditative aspect of the prayers and ritual. Each time I return to a familiar and comforting litany, it brings me peace to hear my own voice joining others, and I am filled with a sense of gratitude.

Gareth Sitz

Tishri 7: Seek Peace and Pursue It

From Rabbi Rachel Barenblatt, the Velveteen Rabbi. From a post of hers on August 22, 2014 She can be found at http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com and is the rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in North Adams, MA. Her ordination is from ALEPH and she considers herself part of Jewish Renewal movement. She is one of the early Jewish bloggers and I have long admired her work.

Lately I’ve been working on finding the right balance between paying attention to the world and its many injustices, and cultivating an internal sense of peacefulness and compassion. Against this backdrop, a friend recently shared with me a teaching from her Buddhist practice. According to this way of thinking, if one increases one’s own suffering, one adds to the suffering of the universe; if one increases one’s own peacefulness, one adds to the peacefulness of the universe.

My first reaction, upon hearing this, was that it’s a way of justifying contemplative practice. It’s easy (for some folks) to knock prayer and contemplative practice by saying that we who engage in prayer and contemplative practice aren’t “doing anything” to heal the broken world, and that therefore these spiritual practices are self-centered at best. But in this Buddhist way of thinking, if I can cultivate peace and compassion in my heart, I will add to the overall peace and compassion of the whole cosmos.

This makes some sense to me. If I can cultivate peace and compassion, I’m likelier to relate to others with those qualities instead of with impatience or anger. When I am feeling grounded and mindful and kind, I think I’m a better parent; I suspect I’m also a better partner, rabbi, and friend. That’s a small-scale change which might have a ripple effect. But can my acts of meditation and prayer shift the peacefulness in the cosmos in a bigger-picture way? When I work on myself, do I really change the universe?

The Zohar speaks of itaruta d’l’ila and itaruta d’l’tata, “arousal from above” and “arousal from below.” Sometimes God pours blessing, love, divine shefa down into creation entirely of God’s own accord, and that divinity streaming into creation further awakens us. That’s (what the Zohar calls) arousal from above. And other times it is we who initiate the connection — with our cries and prayers and contemplation, we stimulate the flow of blessing and abundance from on high. That’s arousal from below.

Contemplative practices — meditation, prayer, chant, even the internal work of teshuvah (repentance or return) which is the primary focus of the coming month of Elul and the holidays which follow — are practices designed to facilitate that arousal from below. When we cultivate peacefulness, or enter into teshuvah, or make a conscious effort to practice kindness, perhaps we awaken parallel qualities on high. At least, that’s how the Zohar understands it. Our prayers and meditations can awaken God.

The psalmist teaches “turn from evil and do good; seek shalom/peace and pursue it.” (psalm 34:14) We usually understand shalom to mean peace and wholeness in an external sense, between people(s). But I wonder whether we can also read it as an instruction to seek internal peacefulness. Maybe when I cultivate peace within myself, I stimulate the divine flow of more peace into the world. (Or, in the Buddhist framing with which this post began, I add to the net peacefulness of the universe.)

“Seek peace and pursue it” seems at first to be repetitive. If I’m seeking it, surely that means I’m pursuing it too, right? But our sages teach that there are no extraneous words in Torah — or at least that we can find or make meaning even in the most apparently repetitive of phrases. Ergo there must be a difference between “seeking” peace and “pursuing” it. All well and good, but what might that difference be? Here’s one traditional answer, from the collection of midrash called Vayikra Rabbah:

Great is shalom, peace, because about all of the mitzvot in the Torah it is written, “If you happen upon,” “If it should occur,” “If you see,” which implies that if the opportunity to do the mitzvah comes upon you, then you must do it, and if not, you are not bound to do it. But in the case of peace, it is written, Seek peace, and pursue it—seek it in the place where you are, and pursue after it in another place. (Vayikra Rabbah 9:9)

In other words: the other mitzvot ask us to make certain choices when opportunity presents itself. But in the case of peace, we have to be proactive. We have to cultivate peace not only where we are, but also in the places where we haven’t been yet (or where peace hasn’t been yet). We have to cultivate external peace, and internal peacefulness, precisely in the places — and the hearts and minds and souls — which aren’t yet peaceful. And when we do this work, we can hope that we awaken God on high to do the same.

Our next guest, Leonard Kofkin, is a retired attorney with expertise in transportation law. He is widely traveled and enjoys finding relatives wherever he goes. He is one of our usual Shabbat morning attenders, when he isn’t globe-trotting. Here are his reflections:

War, we understand, is the state of open conflicts, general hostilities, armed antagonisms, and offensive struggles among states and forces. These common definitions describe a series of events extrinsic to the ordinary individual and usually beyond his or her influence.

But what is Peace? Can peace coexist with war or are they mutually exclusive conditions? Is it beyond peradventure that in war, there can be no peace, and in peace, there can be no war?   In contrast, my view of this dichotomy is that in war one can find peace and there are those who, even absent war, cannot find their own peace.

I see peace as an intrinsic state, the essential attribute or goal of a thoughtful, religious person exposed to the ghastly events of a war in which one has no culpability, where one can find solace and quietude.

I believe this is shown in the many stories of heroism in war.   Is it not an inner peace that permits martyrs to suffer vicious crimes against their mortal bodies, as they await the inevitable death of their bodies? Was it not the inner peace of the victims of the Holocaust which carried them to their deaths with few words beyond their recitation of the Sh’ma and the certainty that God will reward their lifetimes of devotion? For me, these examples demonstrate that at the end of one’s life under dire circumstances, one can find such peace.

But in the end, the peace that one finds amid war must be based upon an inner religious strength and a love of God. As it is said often, there are no atheists in foxholes. That which frightens them, including the fear of death, can only be dispelled by finding inner peace emerging from the sense that God cares for us, providing we have earned His respect by deeds of loving kindness during life and at our death.

This is the season to seek and to find that inner peace despite the turmoil in the world around us.

Yesterday we heard about how the Groton Interfaith Council visits each others’ religious services and how Amy hopes for more than tolerance. She wants acceptance. I agree. For more than 30 years I have participated in various interfaith dialogue exercises. At Tufts as an undergraduate I taught a class in Jewish Christian relations to freshman. I did an internship with American Jewish Committee helping the local logistics for the National Workshop on Christian Jewish Relations that was held in Boston the spring of my senior year. I wrote a senior honor thesis on the topic of Elder and Younger Brothers in Conversation: Jewish Christian Relations Post 1948.

When I started doing all of this I think I believed that promoting interfaith understanding would help prevent another Holocaust. It was the subject of many arguments with my father.

What I have learned is that participating in dialogue has increased my own understanding of Judaism. Having to explain the nuanced answers to complex theological questions to non-Jews, helps me explain them to Jews. It deepens my own engagement. Along the way I have found tolerance, acceptance, respect and understanding. Along the way I have found partners in social justice issues. Working on a Habitat for Humanity house, writing letters to preserve emergency oil subsidies, providing an interfaith kids camp so that kids could have lunch during the summer, keeping pools open so that kids have a safe place to play in the summer have been rewarding and lead to peace. Having partners in prayer to express gratitude at Thanksgiving or to respond to local or national tragedies have stretched my understanding of the Divine. Speaking at various conferences like Faith in an Age of NASA at University of Massachusetts Lowell help me realize how similar the religions are. There is much to unite us rather than divide us.

When a synagogue I worked in had anti-Semitic graffiti spray painted on it, I called the police, then I called an Episcopal priest and a Catholic director of religious education. They arrived before the police.

Through the years we have laughed together, cried together, celebrated together, mourned together, played volleyball and studied together.

Along the way I found life long friends.

Our next guest lives in Groton, MA. She is a Hebrew School teacher specializing in Holocaust education and has been trained by Facing History and Ourselves both in Brookline and in Israel. She brought the movie and its producers Paper Clips to her small town and built a Holocaust memorial there. She is one of the most optimistic people I know and she works tirelessly for peace.

So I have been avoiding writing about this because what do I know about World Peace and how to achieve it? But today something happened that made me realize why it wasn’t the time to write until tonight.

I believe that “tolerance” doesn’t go far enough. I want ACCEPTANCE. Accept that someone is different than you are and just move on. Don’t judge, don’t be condescending, don’t think “your way is the only way.” To really walk the talk I have become involved in interfaith work.

I truly believe interfaith work is the answer to understanding, learning and accepting others’ religions I am on the board of the Groton Interfaith Council and together we have provide education to the community about Islam, Judaism and Christianity and what we have in common. We are attending each other’s worship services. Today I attended the Universalist Unitarian Sunday service. The service was about Yom Kippur and they included two Hebrew songs in their service. I was particularly struck by their choir singing in a round “Eli Eli”. How powerful to hear the words sung around the room (the choir sings by standing around at the end of the pews) and feeling embraced by the words. To me this is how we will achieve World Peace.

What else can I do in a little New England town in Massachusetts? Ten years ago, a middle school teacher started an after school club called “The Bookmakers and Dreamers Club” . After much discussion with the kids, they decided to make the World’s Largest Book. After the teacher attended a Jimmy Cliff concert where he said at the end of the concert “what are you doing to teach your kids about peace?” the teacher suggested to the kids they make a book about Peace. For the past 10 yrs., this club as it evolves each year with new students, have tackled obstacles concerning the printing, layout, obtaining letters and financing this project. I volunteered for a few years to help in any way I could by fundraising, obtaining letters and promoting the book. In October 2014 the book will make its first Museum visit to the Kennedy Library in South Boston, MA where pages will be displayed. For more info, you can go to their website at www.pagesforpeace.org

This Peace book just happened to be in my town’s middle school. What else could I be involved in to help promote World Peace? I recently joined the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom which is starting chapters around the Country for Muslim and Jewish women to get together and become friends. I look forward to not only understanding each other’s customs but eventually be able to see what it is like to step into each other’s’ shoes. I am attending a retreat in Philadelphia on November 1st where Muslim and Jewish Women will be getting together to discuss conflict resolution.

I recently heard a NPR interview with a Muslim man who was taught to hate the “other”. When he left home he became close friends with Jews and some homosexual men who he was taught to hate. He returned home and told his mom and her reaction was relief because she was exhausted from hating. She was proud of him and felt released from the chains of hate.

World Peace is an overwhelming task. Sometimes working person to person, community by community is a way we can make a difference. As the Ethics of Our Fathers’ says “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it (2:21).”

Our next guest is Rabbi Linda Shriner-Cahn, the first person I met when I entered the Academy for Jewish Religion. She became my chevruta partner. She is the rabbi of Tehila in Riverdale, NY where she is involved in many peace building activities. After a recent event she penned this poem:

Building bridges
Across the abyss of hate and mistrust
Lies believed
Truths untold

What does it take?
One step following another, then another  and another still

All the world paying close attention
That the bridge does not collapse
As we build slowly and carefully
getting to know one another
Building trust,
friendship and peace along the way

That is our prayer; that is our hope

That is my prayer too. It reminds me. On Rosh Hashanah morning I used this quote as a meditation before the Amidah: “Prayer cannot mend a broken bridge, rebuild a ruined city or bring water to parched fields. Prayer can mend a broken heart, lift up a discouraged soul and strengthen a weakened will. Those who rise from prayer better persons, their prayers are answered.” Let’s take those first steps together.

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.

This is what I started Wednesday afternoon…and then waited for after Shabbat, needing to still run around and prepare.

Girl Scouts, and Boy Scouts too, have a motto, “Be Prepared”. No matter how early I begin preparing for Rosh Hashanah I never feel ready. Oh sure…The choir has practiced. The cantorial soloist and I have rehearsed. The sermons are written. The linens have been changed to white. The silver polished. The prayer books swapped to High Holiday ones. The chairs set up.

I have done Selichot (the penitential prayers on the Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah. I have been to the mikveh. I have shopped for brisket and chicken and chopped liver. We have apples and honey. And a pomegranate for the second night. I have a new white dress.

Preparing for yuntif happens on many levels. Preparation for the congregation. Preparation for our own families. Preparation for ourselves. The last preparation is the hardest—and perhaps the most important.

When I stand in front of the congregation, facing the ark, the words above the ark say, “Da lifney mi atah omad. Know before whom you stand.” There is a sense of awesome dread. It is humbling. Can I ever be the bridge between the congregation and G-d? Can my words be inspiring enough? Can my voice be good enough? Can I be pure enough? Can I ever be clean enough? Can I ever be good enough?

At Mayyim Hayyim, the community mikveh in Boston, they use a different translation of tameh and tahor. Instead of impure and pure, or unclean and clean, they use ritually unready to ritually ready.

Rachel Naomi Remen in her book, Kitchen Table Wisdom quotes Carl Rogers: “Before every session, I take a moment to remember my humanity. There is no experience that this man has that I cannot share with him, no fear that I cannot understand, no suffering that I cannot care about, because I too am human. No matter how deep his wound, he does not need to be ashamed in front of me. I too am vulnerable. And because of this, I am enough. Whatever his story, he no longer needs to be alone with it. This is what will allow his healing to begin.

While leading prayer and sitting with someone in a counseling session are different, understanding that what we have to offer is our own vulnerability and our own humanity is important. Remembering it is humbling.

I tell this to students who are leading services. I tell this to the choir. I tell this to the house band. Leading prayer is not a performance. It is worship. It is about connecting with the Divine. It is about being a messenger, the shliach tzibbur, of the congregation.

I had two powerful experiences today that bring me hope that I am ready, that I have found my own sense of peace. Usually I go to Weight Watchers on Fridays. Obviously not doing that this week. So I went today. I have been disappointed in my weight loss but thought I might be down this week, so I went. I was. It seems trivial. But what happened next was not. I hit a milestone number and that led me to have a new insight. “I am not a bad person.” This type of insight is what the holidays are all about.

Later when I went to deliver a challah to one of our older members, I blew shofar for her. Not as well as some, but good enough. This 98 year old had never touched a shofar before. Never held one. When she heard it, she asked, “Did you just say baruch, blessed, through the shofar?” Wow!

Between those two experiences, I guess I am ready. And if not, there is still time. Yom Kippur is 10 days away.

Ready or not here I come. Hineini. Here I am. As fully present as I can be. May it be a sweet, new year, one filled with peace. Join with me as we continue to prepare to meet the Divine!

Our next guest is a clinical psychologist specializing in grief therapy. .She was a great consultant to the Hebrew School I was directing, where I taught her boys. She worries about living in such a non-Jewish environment She can tell you every good gluten free cupcake around.

I experience the most peace when I am swimming. I don’t mean swimming laps but when I let myself, swim underwater for a few seconds. It is this moment that I feel total  peace-free from any worry or concerns. I discovered this, as a child at summer camp but returned to it while raising my two sons. Swimming underwater is a favorite pastime of mine. Being submerged underwater I don’t see or hear anything.
 Dr. Nancy Cohn

Last night I went to the mikveh. It is part of how I prepare personally for the chaggim, the holidays. For me there is a sense of at-one-ment and peace. It is a place of healing and calm. I never understand why it works, but it always does. I leave feeling renewed, refreshed, energized. It recharges my batteries and makes me feel whole. Unlike Nancy, I am not sure when I realized that floating in the water was one place I could feel peace. But I remember a poem I wrote after living in Israel about floating in the Sea of Gallilee, Yam Kineret.

The Summer Before the Lebanese War

Bouncing on a red Egged bus
Through Upper Galillee,
We are returning from a tiyul
to the Good Fence
the bridge between
Israel and Lebanon

We pass through Kiryat Sh’mona,
Streets still deserted
From last night’s ketushya raids.

We pause. . .

Yam Kinneret
The Sea of Galillee
Where Jesus is said to have
Walked on water
and fed the multitudes with
Two loaves and five fish.

“Swim break,” the madrich calls out
“Everybody out, lishdot, lishdot, lishdot”
I am sick of drinking tepid water from hot canteens
But I do as I’m told.
You must drink here, in the desert.
We tumble down the stairs of the bus
Anxious to be the first to reach
The cool, soothing waters.

Israeli jets stream overhead
Shining silver against the cloudless sky
Splitting the sky in two
Adding a straight streak of white smoke
That melts into the Michigan blue sky

Heading to and from
Lebanon
Answering every Russian-made Ketushya
With a bomb of their own

Boum!
Another sonic boom.

The water is calm today
And reflects the Golan Mountains
As if they haven’t a care
As if they haven’t seen forty years of fighting
And we pretend not to be afraid
As we race each other
To the water’s edge

I swim out a bit
Loosing sight of the shore
And flip over to my back

For a while I watch the mountains
On the other side
As they meet the water.

Once the Heights were Syrian and a threat
Every night the PLO would bomb the kibbutzim
Killing kibbutzniks, destroying schools,
Shattering a night’s sleep, every night.

Now the hills are Israeli and no longer feared.
But it is a fear I know.
Now there are new threats.
We spent last night in a bomb shelter,
Waiting and listening and praying and hoping,

Ketushiyot sound like thunder from afar.

We were amazed at how calm the Israelis were
They have been through this
For four wars and thirty years
Life must continue normally
They must not know we are afraid.

And I wonder

What would it have been like
To float here
Two thousand years ago
In this ageless sea

Before there was fear?

As I continue to float
I forget about
politics and war and bombers overhead

The water gently caresses my body,

Supports me, holds me,
Makes me trust it
It eases my fear
Nothing seems separate
Everything seems to be a part of the whole

The water, the sky, the hills
All look close enough to touch
Even G-d is touchable
As I melt into the sea
And become one
with it all.

Summer 1986 for Deborah Diggs poetry class at Tufts University as part of my masters in education

Melting into the sea maybe that’s what it will take to bring peace.

Tonight, well actually Sunday, two congregations came together to observe Selichot. This is the official start of the penetenial season. We begin to say again the words out loud that God taught to Moses. Adonai, Adonai El Rachum v’chanun. Erech Apayim v’rav chesed v’emet. Nose chesed l’alaphim, nose avon v’pesha, v’taka’a v’nakeh…The Lord, The Lord, God Merciful and gracious, slow to anger, full of lovingkindness and truth, extending lovingkindness to the thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin.

After Kol Nidre, said on Yom Kippur night, God answers, “Selachti kidvarecha, I have pardoned according to your word.”

That is what selichot is about. Beginning to say you are sorry. In fact, if you bump into someone on the street in Jerusalem, that is exactly what you say, “selicha” Pardon me, excuse me, I am sorry.

But saying you are sorry isn’t always easy. Not to God, not to your friends and families, not to yourself. It can’t be done overnight. It takes time to do it right. So we enter into this slowly.

Tonight we began with snacks—always good to have snacks—and havdalah. Then we showed a movie, Dancing in Jaffa. It is a good documentary—perhaps a little long something a good editor could fix—with an interesting premise. A Palestinian refugee who left Jaffa when he was four has become a world class ballroom dancer. He has returned to build bridges between Palestinian and Israeli youth living in Jaffa. Peace through dance. I like it. It has been tried before. Peace through soccer, through circus, through theater. Seeds of Peace, the camp in Maine. All of these have had some success.

But we are seeing this movie now. After the summer that Israel and Gaza just endured. I had watched the movie before the program to feel prepared. It felt a little naïve. On the other hand, having written about this topic for my thesis, I cannot think of another group where the Palestinian has been the initiator. Let’s see how this plays out, I think.

He has more to overcome than fear of the other. First he has to get boys to dance with girls. To actually touch them. But he makes the point that dance brings respect. “May I have this dance, please.” Eventually they do dance. Boys with girls. Jews with Muslims. And the program as well as the movie does a good job of breaking down stereotypes, of breaking down fear.

When we began the evening, one congregation sat on one side of the room and we sat on the other. By the time we were discussing the movies, the groups were a little more integrated. The conversation was intense. The question of how you can make peace—or even just dance—with your enemy or with someone who you believe wants you dead is a big question. I am glad we created a safe space to voice those deep concerns.

Rabbi Amy Eilberg in her book From Enemy to Friend cites a list of rules from Johnson, Johnson and Tyosvold, for rhetorical opponents to conduct their disagreements in fruitful ways.” It is worth repeating here:

• I am critical of ideas, not people. I challenge and refute the ideas of the other participants, while confirming their competence as individuals. I do not indicate that I personally reject them.
• I separate my personal worth from criticism of my ideas.
• I remember that we are all in this together, sink or swim. I focus on coming to the best decision possible, not on winning.
• I encourage everyone to participate and to master all the relevant information.
• I listen to everyone’s ideas, even if I don’t agree.
• I restate what someone has said if it is not clear.
• I differentiate before I try to integrate…
• I try to understand both sides of the issue.
• I change my mind when the evidence clearly indicates that I should do so.
• I emphasize rationality in seeking the best possible answer, given the available data.
• I follow the golden rule of conflict: act toward opponents as you would have them act toward you.

These are good rules—for engagement with a spouse, for check-in meetings at retreats (at the Academy for Jewish Religion we call them mishpacha, family meetings), in business meetings, at synagogue boards. Perhaps they work for geo-political meetings as well.

Or perhaps, we need a man with a vision, who was willing to think outside the box and teach dance and respect to children. My enemy becomes my friend. I feel safe. I build trust. Peace begins to grow. Slowly, like a waltz.

Or perhaps, building peace is saying that word selichot. You have to be willing to say, “Selicha, I’m sorry. I made a mistake.” Then teshuva begins. If I have done anything this past year, intentionally or not, knowingly or not, to cause hurt, then selicha. I am sorry.