Tonight is Shabbat Sukkot. Continuing our theme of connections, I am thinking about the lulav and the etrog, the four species. The lulav, a palm, the etrog, a citron, the aravot, willow and the hadas, myrtle. 

Why these?  

Etrog — because it is written (Psalms 104: 1): ‘You are clothed in glory and majesty.’ (The word translated as majesty is hadar. In the Torah (Leviticus 23:40), the etrog is called the fruit of the goodly tree.  The same Hebrew word, hadar, is used in that context to mean goodly.) 

Palm — because it is written (Psalms 92:13): ‘The righteous bloom like a date palm.’ 

Myrtle — because it is written (Zechariah 1:8): ‘And he stood among the myrtle-trees.’ 

Willow — because it is written (Psalms 68:5): ‘Extol Him who rides on the clouds [aravot], the Lord is His name.’ 

Each of the four relates to a particular limb through which man is to serve God (cf. Sefer ha-Hinukh, #285): 

Taken together, they represent many things. One interpretation is they can be seen as the Name of G-d. Yud—as the etrog, Vuv as the lulav, and the willow and myrtle as the arms and legs of hey.  

This is a whole body experience. It is very concrete. Each part can represent another part of our own bodies.  

The Etrog is the heart, the place of understanding and wisdom. 

The Lulav is the backbone, uprightness. 

The Myrtle corresponds to the eyes, enlightenment. 

The Willow represents the lips, the service of the lips (prayer). 

Another interpretation suggests that these are each one of the four species represents one of the four types of habitats in Israel. 
1) Lulav-Palm branch = desert
2) Hadas-Myrtle = mountains
3) Aravot-Willow = rivers and streams
4) Etrog-Citron = lowlands, agricultural land 

Each one needs the most water of all the species that grow in its region. Between them, they make a kind of ecological map of Israel, and they represent last year’s rainfall. And we use them to ask for this year’s rain. (Rabbi David Seidenberg, known as the neo hasid) 

 But even more than those interpretations is the idea that these four species represent learning and good deeds. The etrog has both taste and learning. The lulav had taste but not fragrance. The myrtle has smell but no taste. The willow has neither. Each is a different kind of person. Some have learning and good deeds. Some have one but not the other. Some have neither. Real community is only found in acknowledging this truth and bringing all, welcoming all into the big tent. That is the real challenge of the shaking the lulav. 

There is a tradition of inviting guests, ushpizin, to our sukkah, just like Abraham and Sarah invited guests into their tent. Each night is for a different historical guest. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and David. And these days we invite the matriarchs too: Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca, Leah, Miriam, Abigail, and Esther.

I invite to my meal the exalted guests, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and David. May it please you, Abraham, my exalted guest, that all the other exalted guests dwell with me and with you – Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and David.”

I love this reading. It represents how we as a community are connected in different ways.

“May the door of this synagogue be wide enough to receive all who hunger for love,
all who are lonely for fellowship.
May it welcome all who have cares to unburden, thanks to express, hopes to nurture.
May the door of this synagogue be narrow enough to shut out pettiness and pride,
envy and enmity.
May its threshold be no stumbling block to young or straying feet.
May it be too high to admit complacency, selfishness, and harshness.
May this synagogue be, for all who enter, the doorway to a richer and more meaningful life.” 

Rabbi Sydney Greenberg 

Back in July, I was asked to contribute to a book for the High Holidays that would be a supplement in light of October 7th. In Israel there are still Sukkot that are standing, a year after the atrocities. The poem I submitted for this supplement sadly still seems relevent.

Ufros Aleinu Sukkat Shlomecha 

Try this:
Ufros Aleinu Sukkat Shlomecha,
Spread over us the shelter of Your peace
That very fragile shelter
That fragile sukkah
Open on all its sides
Like Abraham and Sarah’s tent
Roof open to the sky
To the stars
Yet it can blow over
In the slightest wind.
Four simple words
And if that is too hard
Sing it
La, la, la.
Anyone can do that.
Do it now.
Please.
Demand it.
Command it.
Beg it. 

That fragile peace was shattered
As we danced.
Will we ever dance again?
How can we? 

Or try this:
Oseh shalom bimromav
Hu Ya’aseh shalom
May the G-d who makes peace
In the high heavens
Make peace here,
Speedily, here, now.
In our time.

We need G-d to do it.
Because apparently,
We can’t.
We don’t know how.
We lack the will
Shalom. Sa’alam.
We are all created
B’tzelem elohim.
In Your image.
Shalom. Sa’alam.
Sa’alam. Shalom.
Demand.
Command.
Beg.
Now.

Or try this:
Do not hide Your face
From us.
Once we thought:
Nothing could shake our security.
But it did.

Once we said:
Your love is lifelong.
Tears may linger for a night.
Joy comes with the dawn.

Once we danced:
We danced with abandon.
Now how can we?
How can we not?
This is zeman simchateinu
The time of our great joy!
Where is the joy?

Once we asked:
What profit is there
If we are silenced?
If the music stops?
If the dancing stops?

Tears will linger.
We will not forget.
We cannot forget.
We will not be silent.
We will tell their stories.
What benefit was there
To all those who went to their graves?

Help us to find our voices.
Help us to hear the music again.
Help us to find joy again.
Help us to turn our mourning into dancing,
Again.
Speedily and in our time. 

Don’t hide Your face from us!
Demand it.
Command it.
Beg it. 

Ufros Aleinu Sukkat Shlomecha
Spread over us
That fragile sukkah of Your peace
So we can dance again. 

We will dance again.
Amen.  

Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein 

Zeh hayom asah adonai, nagila v’nismecha bo. This is the day G-d has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. On Yom Kippur? Really? Yes, really. 

Soon we will recite the words of Yizkor. Much has been written about yizkor this year in light of October 7th. I want to pause to do something else.  

People come to services for the High Holy Days for a number of reasons. Some come to pray, to talk to G-d. Some come to talk to their friends. Some come to eat. Yes, break-the-fast is coming. Really. Some come to stare out the stained glass windows and reflect. Some come to hear the music. Thank you, Stephanie and Stew and the choir, Some come to hear the words of the rabbi. Yes, really. They expect them to be inspiring, uplifting, funny, entertaining.  And some come to feel connected to all the generations that came before.  

Connected to all the generations that came before. That’s right. We survived. We are here. That brings me joy and hope.  

You, each of you, is a chain in that tradition. A link. A connection. Deep, deep connections. Some of you have experienced recent losses, within the year or even within the last month. Some of you have experienced more distant losses.  

Many of you sitting in this room have memories of other people sitting in this very room. You know just where Peretz sat, or the Bursteins. You may know the story of how this congregation came to have “mixed seating”, men and women sitting together. Thank you Adeline Kohlhegan, who my husband called the original Rosa Parks. 

You may be missing your spouse. You may be missing Perry and Wanda, Paul and Lynn, Marc and Suzy, Sherry, people who have moved away but still feel connected to CKI and to each of you. After the last hurricane, I reached out to each of them to make sure they were still OK, whatever OK means. Many of you did as well. And that meant the world to them. Synagogue friendships often last a lifetime, even across the miles. I reached out again this week as the hurricane loomed large in Florida, offering home hospitality to those who might need a Florida break. 

Paul and Lynn are now in Northbrook, safe, although without water in Asheville, which is why they are here in Illinois. Water may not be returned to Asheville for months. Paul may come out tomorrow to help build the sukkah that he recommended that the Men’s Club purchase. That’s connected. Even before the hurricane, people have stayed connected. Opportunities like Zoom and Facebook make that much easier.  

These walls and especially the stained glass seem like they share these memories. They have watched and they have listened. In addition, we chant Sh’ma Koleinu, begging G-d to hear our voice. To me when Stephanie chants the haunting tune it sounds like a gurgling bubbling brook.  

Just after the Torah service, here at CKI we add Yizkor. Some people come to Yom Kippur specifically for Yizkor, to feel that connection through the ages.  

Yizkor was a brief prayer added to Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is seen as the most joyous holiday on the Jewish calendar. All the way back to the Talmud, which teaches that Yom Kippur is one of the happiest days. (Ta’anit 30b). While many may see this time period, the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as being full of fear and trepidation. We tremble thinking about the ancient liturgy proclaiming that who shall live and who shall die. Instead, we need to find a way to see it as a time of joy. 

Why? It is a chance to feel forgiveness and start fresh, free of the burdens of bad feelings, resentments and regrets. A midrash teaches that G-d gave Yom Kippur to the Jewish people with “great love and joy.” It is a chance to change and become a better person. It is a day set aside to not focus, to disconnect from the material world. At the end of the day, we leave refreshed and renewed. 

And yet, even at our most joyous times, we remember those who came before. That is one of the reasons we smash a glass at a wedding. We remember the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. We miss those who could not be at the wedding.  

At some point we extended the recitation of Yizkor from Yom Kippur alone to the three pilgrimage festivals: Sukkot, Passover and Shavuot. It is based on a verse from Deuteronomy, which tells us that when we make our pilgrimage to Jerusalem we are to remember and to not appear empty handed. Each person was to make a donation according to his (or her) ability. (Deut 16:15-18) 

Four times a year, essentially at the turning of the seasons, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Pesach and Shavuot, we stop and pause and remember. We have three other days of remembrance. Tisha B’av in the heat of the summer. Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day and Yom Hazikron, Israeli Memorial Day that then leads immediately into Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, 

Zachor. Remember. Zikraon. Remember. Remember not to forget. 

There is not a fully fixed liturgy for Yizkor or even a “correct” place in the service. Too recent for that in our long Jewish history. Some do it when the Torahs are still out and the Torahs become the witness. Some do it as part of musaf in the early afternoon. Some do it just before the afternoon service.  Some link the Avodah service to the martyrology and then to yizkor.   

These days there seem to be four parts to Yizkor 

1. Some readings and prayers that set the tone for this solemn part of the service.
2. Paragraphs that you recite personally remembering your own beloved family members. Specifically in our book you will find ones for father, mother, husband, wife, son daughter and other relatives and friends. And Jewish martyrs.  
3. El Male Rachamin, the memorial prayer that is also recited at Jewish funerals. It begins G-d Full of Mercy.  
4. A special prayer, Av HaRahamim (Ancestor of Mercies), probably composed as a eulogy for communities destroyed in the Crusades of 1096, is recited by the congregation as a memorial for all Jewish martyrs.  

 Some congregations, including ours also recite Psalm 23. And while Yizkor surpisingly doesn’t specifically require Kaddish many congregations end on that note. This means, however, that you do not need a minyan for Yizkor and it could be recited at home alone.  

The prayer that intrigues me the most is that personal prayer.
May G-d remember the soul of avi mori, my father, my teacher, (name here) who has gone on to his world, because, without making a vow, I shall give to charity on his behalf. 

As reward for this, may his soul be bound in the Bond of Life, together with the souls of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah; and together with the other righteous men and women in the Garden of Eden. 

Acknowledging that our parents were our teachers, our very first teachers seems especially poignant. The idea that I would give tzedakah in my parents’ names seems equally important, especially on this day of Yom Kippur. In my case I might choose to give to the Nature Conservancy, The Literary Council or some other organization that my parents supported heavily. The idea that they would be rewarded in the world to come and that I would be rewarded here based on their merits is _________________ 

What is that reward? It is taught in the Talmud that we should repent the day before we die. The rabbis quickly ask then, but we don’t know when we will die. The answer, we should repent every day. That seems especially appropriate on this Yom Kippur morning. 

 Teshuvah is not just for Yom Kippur. It is for every day. It is even included in our daily Amidah prayers and in the full night time Sh’ma.  

Yet, sometimes the relationships we have with our parents are not “healthy” They need healing. Or in some instances are beyond healing. Do you still need to recite Kaddish for someone like that? Rabbi Harold Kushner of blessed memory would say yes. Here is a yizkor meditation in memory of a parent who hurt by Rabbi Robert Saks: 

 “Dear God, You know my heart.  Indeed, You know me better than I know myself, so I turn to You before I rise for Kaddish.  My emotions swirl as I say this prayer. The parent I remember was not kind to me. His/her death left me with a legacy of unhealed wounds, of anger and of dismay that a parent could hurt a child as I was hurt. I do not want to pretend to love, or to grief that I do not feel, but I do want to do what is right as a Jew and as a child.” 

These feelings are real. And complicated. And it is not appropriate for me to talk you out of them or to say that you are wrong or that your feelings are not your feelings.  

For many of you sitting here, you may be missing a parent, a spouse, a child, a dear friend. Those feelings can be complicated as well. But there is something in choosing to remember that actually brings us closer to joy.  Grief and Joy live together. Maybe that feeling is nostalgia, or pleasure or comfort at remembering those good times. Maybe it is that sense of connecting across the ages and being a chain in that long tradition. Maybe there is no perfect word in English or Hebrew. But we are here. Together. Remembering, Connecting. 

The psalmist understood this as we see in Psalm 30: 

Weeping may last for the night. But joy comes with the dawn. You turned my mourning  into dancing, 

my sackcloth into robes of joy, We will dance again, We will dance for them. Even if that means I still have to learn to dance.  

In the Amen Effect, the copies of which are on the back table as part of our community read,  

“the community of survivors, as the horror of the Roman conquest and all that was lost began to sink in. Many survivors and their children became ascetics. “How could we possibly eat meat,” they reasoned, “which used to be sacrificed on the Temple altar, or drink wine, which was poured as libation, when every bite and sip reminds us of the destruction?” What they were really asking: How could one even live in light of all that we’ve lost? That thinking may sound extreme, but it was increasingly normative in their time. One of the prominent rabbis in the survivor community even decreed that Jews should no longer marry. How could they think of bringing children into a world of so much pain and persecution? His view was rejected—it would have ensured the end of the Jewish people!—but his thinking persists to this day. During the past decade, I’ve heard from many young people a reluctance to bring children into the world in light of climate devastation. These conversations are painful. believe strongly that we need not to give up on the world but to invest in a healthy, resilient future. And even still, I both respect and resonate to the impulse to preempt human suffering at all costs. I really do understand. But listen to the rebuke those ascetics received from the great Rabbi Yehoshua: “Okay, no meat or wine,” he said. “But then you really ought to stop eating bread, too, because the meal offering can no longer be made after the destruction.” “That’s fine,” they said. “We can live on produce.” “Well, but you really shouldn’t eat fruit either,” Rabbi Yehoshua said. “Because the first-fruits can no longer be brought as an offering. And by the way, you really should also stop drinking water, now that water-libations have ceased.” And to this they could find no answer. Checkmate. “We’re listening,” they said. So Rabbi Yehoshua taught them, and us, a lesson about loss and life: “My children,” he said, “hear me out. You must mourn. The devastation deserves our attention and commemoration. But to mourn too much, to live in perpetual deprivation, is simply wrong. Instead, the challenge is to find a way to grieve and live.” How, though? How can we hold that tension? Rabbi Yehoshua offered some very practical guidelines: When we paint our homes, he advised, we should leave a little patch bare, unfinished. When we prepare a feast, we must leave out one delicacy. When we get dressed up, leave off one piece of jewelry. We remain always mindful of what we’ve lost, even as we build houses and eat good food, get dressed up and go dancing, fall in love and maybe even make art and babies. The moral of this story: even in the deepest suffering, there is still joy. To be alive is to see that this world overflows with blessings. Even here, even now. You grieve, and you live.”

— The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World by Sharon Brous 

This leaves me, all of us, deeply, deeply connected. This is what community does. It lightens our burden of suffering and that leads to joy. That is what this community does. This brings me hope and joy. We will dance again. We will dance for them.  

I have known this for a long time. There is a running community. I participate in a number of online groups and am connected throughout the country (and beyond) to runners. One highlight was running in Guatemala with someone I met in a RunDisney group. I thought I was pushing really hard and couldn’t figure out what my problem was. Turned out she is a national champion. That was the fastest 2 miles I had run since high school!  I introduced that community to today’s contributor, who as we write this is out pounding the pavement. We wish him luck and pixie dust at the Chicago Marathon today,

In the early morning hours of an October Sunday, thousands of people walk the streets of Chicago. Hundreds of different languages are being spoken. Police cars sit in each intersection. A voice over a loud speaker repeatedly welcomes the throng of runners from around the world to the Chicago Marathon. Some have ambitions of finishing near the lead pack, while others know that they will be struggling for six or more hours. But this group has a couple common connections. They are runners, and they are here to participate in this race together. Their homeland, home state, age, and language doesn’t matter. All barriers are broken down by what they have in common on this one day. They smile at each other, exchange high fives and handshakes, and wish everyone around them well. The connection is stronger than the competition. The connection is stronger than their differences. They are a family, if just for today. Which is exactly how God sees us every day. If only we could see ourselves in this light on our most mundane days as well, for God’s desire is relationship more than anything else.
     -Rev Jeffrey G Mikyska 

Tonight, long ago I promised, that’s a vow, that I would talk about Israel. The title was “Promised Made, Promises Broken: Connecting with Israel. And I decided I could not write it until this week. Because who knows where we would be. 

I stand here tonight knowing that I really need to quote the Israeli expression. Ain Milim. There are no words. I have used that phrase frequently this year. And in other moments. After mass causality events like Sandy Hook or Tree of Life. After natural disasters. Since there are no words, I am always grateful to our cellist and our cantorial soloist and our choir because they put into music what I feel but can’t say. I am aware like Peter Paul and Mary sang that Music speaks louder than words. 

Music speaks louder than words
It’s the only thing that the whole world listens to.
Music speaks louder than words,
When you sing, people understand. 

Sometimes the love that you feel inside
Gets lost between your heart and your mind
And the words don’t really say the things you wanted them to.
But then you feel in someone’s song
What you’d been trying to say all along
And somehow with the magic of music the message comes through. 

(Chorus) 

The longer I live the more I find that people seldom take the time
To really get to know a stranger and make him a friend.
But the power of a simple song can make everybody feel they belong.
Maybe singin’ and playin’ can bring us together again.
Singin’ and playin’ can bring us together again. 

So we’ve had music. Now I will try to provide some context. I will repeat what I said on Erev Rosh Hashanah just after Iran attacked Israel. 

I am still connected to Israel. To the land. To the people. To the State. It is a complicated relationship. But I am deeply connected. To the land that I have hiked. To the people, all of you, the stories I have learned from my earliest days, to the ethics that those stories and the thousands of years of commentary that it teaches, to each of you, to the Jewish people around the world.  to the country that I once lived in, to the dream of a place where Jews could live in freedom, without fear, without hatred.  

This past year has been impossibly difficult. This past week has been impossibly difficult. I am still connected to all of those things, I still believe in the dream. I still believe in the hope that Israel offers, I still believe.  

Some of you may feel connected to Israel. Some of you may not. Some of you may be sitting here tonight with a range of emotions, or no emotions at all. Some of you may wonder how we will ever find joy. How can we possibly celebrate the High Holy Days this year when time seemed to stop on Simchat Torah last year. Yet, as the saying goes “We will dance again.” Or as I read this week, “We will dance for them.” 

CKI has always been a political free zone. What that really means is a partizan free zone. It is hard to talk about Israel without talking about politics. We are not going to discuss the merits of either US candidate for president. But in the strongest possible terms I urge you to vote. Nor will we discuss the current prime minister of Israel. I am not a policy wonk. I do have opinions, but I will not express them here. If I could have solved peace in the Middle East, a problem for 3000 years, I would have gone to the Kennedy School or the Fletcher School and we’d be done. Instead, I am a small town rabbi who believes in peace. It is a very high value in Judaism. Tonight is not the time for that discussion either. The answer is really quite simple. Put down your arms. All of them. Return the hostages. Now. It is exactly what our friend Alden Solovy said this week. 

Year Two Day One 

No,
Just no.
No, No. No.
No more.
Please G-d.
No More. 

Alden Solovy 

Let me be clear.  

1. Israel needs to exist. Full stop. From the earliest times. All the way back to the promise the G-d made to Abraham.  

There is a modern case for Israel. Our young people may not fully understand the history. They may not feel connected. Modern Zionism, started by Theodor Herzl wanted a safe place for Jews in the late 1800s. He famously said, Im tirtzu ain zo agadah. If you will it, it is no dream. I paid for my first trip in high school to Israel by singing that song and raking leaves and delivering papers. (Remember those early jobs?) I am not going to do a survey course here, but I am happy to provide a list of reading material on Israel. Borders were not open to Jewish immigrants across the globe prior to what became known as the Holocaust. That included the US that turned away the SS St. Louis. After the Holocaust, countries didn’t want their Jews back and Displaced Person Camps were created throughout Europe. We have one member who was born in a DP camp. The United Nations knew it had to do something. They created the Modern State of Israel by dividing up British Mandate Palestine. After 2000 years of dreaming of a return to Israel, it was becoming a reality. Part of the dream. Make the desert bloom. Israel excels at agricultural, inventing drip irrigation, at technology developments, medical research and so much more.  

I am concerned about rising anti-semitism, on the left and the right. The numbers remain shocking. Anti-semitism and hate crimes are up some 67% whether you are looking at ADL stats or FBI stats. I think many of us thought we were past all of this. We are not. But that doesn’t mean we should not be proud of being Jewish. We need to be proud…I am still convinced that is our best method for combatting anti-semitism. I am concerned about protesters, be they in downtown Chicago or on any number of college campuses, who don’t fully understand the context and the nuance. From the river to the sea is a great sound bite but if you ask what it means, many have no idea what river and which sea or that it calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews everywhere. The use of the word genocide which was created after the Holocaust is not what was happening in Gaza. Great Britain was really the colonizers. I have reached out to each of our college students and their families to see how they need our support.  I am concerned not only about our college kids but our middle schoolers and high schoolers. All of whom report some anti-semetic iinciddent. Often just a joke, but still those jokes can lead to other things.

2. Israel has the right to defend itself. Full stop. It needs to protect its citizens. And it does. We as a Jewish people need Israel. The current loss of life is tragic. Traumatic. 

And yet…as Sarah Tuttle Singer said recently, “But alongside our rage and grief, there is something more—something that pulls at the edges of our soul. We know there are innocent people, too, those who live in Gaza, whose lives are crushed beneath the weight of this war, families in Lebanon who are also terrified. Their death toll rises, and it is a terrible thing to hold in our hearts at the same time as we mourn our own. This isn’t a call for us not to defend ourselves—we must. We have no choice. But within this fight for survival, we are also reckoning with the pain and the loss on both sides, knowing that war spares no one.” 

 So how does one create peace or hope in this climate. It isn’t easy. But it is necessary. For all involved. Earlier this month I received a text from Rabbi Melaine Landau who is a rabbi and a therapist in Jerusalem. She offers blessings for the new year. She is as she said, “starting to be involved with an inspiring group of women, initiated by Palestinian women, inspired by non violent communication who are setting up a space- Satyam- in the West Bank where all people – Israelis, Palestinians and Internationals can safely meet and hold the seeds of common humanity at this very difficult and charged time. If you would like to find out more, if you would like to share this seed of hope with your community in some way let me know. Options include supporting projects, learning non violent communication, having a presentation from the ground or of course, visiting in person.” She adds she I knows people are struggling in different ways around how to address the situation here, how to hold opposing values, how to hold the grief, wondering where hope or light is and I thought this project can speak to some of those concerns.” 

There are other such groups emerging. And that gives me hope. She raises an important point. How do we hold opposing views or values. There is a story that is important to consider tonight. Each of us has two truths in our pockets. One says “You are but dust and ashes.” the other one says, “For my sake the world was created.” How do you hold both at the same time. Both are true. 

Similarly, May 14, 1948 was Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel Independence Day. For Jew around the world it was and is celebrated with much fanfare. For people displaced by the division, it became known as the Nakba. Both are true. At the same time.  

There is a lovely story told. The Legend of the Two Brothers. Or Brothers A Hebrew LeggendLong ago, in the land of Israel, two brothers each have a field of wheat. Their father told them that they needed to be friends and help each other. And so they did. Each night the one with no children would get up and deliver wheat to the one with lots of children. The one with lots of children would get up each night and deliver wheat to the one with no children. The wheat exchange went on for years. The legend, shrouded in mystery, is attributed to the midrash, to Legends of the Jews, to Palestinian Arabs in the Arab market in Jerusalem, to Indian Muslims. In the Jewish telling it is the origin of the Holy Temple being built in Jerusalem, the City of Peace. I love the message of this story and it is the basis of the song from Psalms, Hiney Ma Tov, How good and how pleasant it is for brothers, (and sisters) to live together.  

https://outorah.org/p/33322/  

 But as I learned about the different sources for this story I was reminded of the necessity to check multiple sources. I read the following sources, religiously, one might say: Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Ha’aretz, the Chicago Trib, the Boston Globe and the New York Times. I also read occasional articles in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the Atlantic. I watch NBC, CNN and some Fox. (Mostly after football games but I do watch) I listen to NPR, mostly while driving. I listen to briefings from the ADL, JUF and SCN. It is not exhaustive and it can be exhausting. I limit my news coverage. That is important too. Last week when NPR was covering Lebanon from Kiryat Sh’mona I had to turn it off. The sound of the air raid sirens was too much. I spent a week in a bomb shelter in Kiryat Shmona. 

3. While we cannot vote in Israel, criticizing Israel, for instance for not allowing  full access to women at the Walll, or not taking care of the 70,000 displaced persons from the north now living in hotels is not anti-semetic. In fact it is very Jewish. Calllling for the destruction of Israel ll is anti-semetic.

So here are my promises tonight, ‘bli neder,” without a vow. 

• I promise to continue to teach the complicated history of Israel from its earliest times to right up to the minute. At CKI, At U-46 or other local school systems and whenever I get the chance. 

• I promise to source material appropriately and to stay informed as best as I can. 

I promise to make Israel relevant and important to our students and their families. 

• I promise to continue to build bridges, here in Elgin and around the world, in order to work for peace. 

• I promise to decry anti-semitism in all its forms. 

• I promise to invest in Israel. In Hadassah. In technology. In organizations like Leket, Yad L’kashish, Women of the Wall, Parents Circle, organizations I have supported for decades and need our support now more than ever. 

• I promise to seek peace and pursue it. 

When I was putting together the program for our observance of October 7th. I was reminded of an Israeli song.
Ani mavtiach lach. I promise you my little girl that this will be the last war. Written after the Yom Kippur War, it is a promise, a vow that has not been achieved. I remember crying down the Merrit Parkway in CT listening to it. I made that promise to Sarah, I will not tonight make that vow tonight. 

I grew up on Peter Paul and Mary songs. Ask Simon later about one of our first dates. One of the songs that got me through the death of my first fiance, my first love killed by a terrorist bomb in Lebanon in 1983 was another Peter Paul and Mary song. Carry on sweet survivor.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTBxndWfZ3w 

You have asked me why the days fly by so quickly
And why each one feels no different from the last
And you say that you are fearful for the future
And you have grown suspicious of the past
And you wonder if the dreams we shared together
Have abandoned us or we abandoned them
And you cast about and try to find new meaning
So that you can feel that closeness once again. 

Carry on my sweet survivor, carry on my lonely friend
Don’t give up on the dream, and don’t you let it end.
Carry on my sweet survivor,
Though you know that something’s gone
For everything that matters carry on. 

You remember when you felt each person mattered
When we all had to care or all was lost
But now you see believers turn to cynics
And you wonder was the struggle worth the cost
Then you see someone too young to know the difference
And a veil of isolation in their eyes
And inside you know you’ve got to leave them something
Or the hope for something better slowly dies. 

Carry on my sweet survivor, carry on my lonely friend
Don’t give up on the dream, and don’t you let it end.
Carry on my sweet survivor, you’ve carried it so long
So it may come again, carry on
Carry on, carry on. 

That’s our obligation. That is our vow. That is our promise. That is our  hope. This song, in between my tears, still give me hope. It still connects me.  It still connects allll of us. To the land of Israel, eterz yisrall, to the people of Israel, am yisrale and even the state of Israel, medinate yisrael. Am yisrael chai. 

At the back of the room I provided a list of resources:

Resources on Israel and Anti-Semitism: 

• Noa Tishby’s Israel, A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth 

•  Martin Fletcher’s Walking Israel, written by NBC’s former chief Isarel correspondent   

• Ari Shavit, My Promised Land  

• Yossi Klein Halivni, Letter to My Palestinian neighbor  

• Tolan’s Lemon Tree (also exists as a movie)  

• Friedman’s From Beirut to Jerusalem (I was once told if I only had one book to read that year it should be this one but may be dated)  

• Dershowitz, The Case for Israel 

• 100 Years War on Palestine. 

• Israel/Palestine,   

• The Netanyahus 

• Rabbi Evan Moffic’s First the Jews  

• Bari Weiss’s How to Fight Anti-Semitism. 

• Jonathan Greenblatt’s It Could Happen Here 

Sometimes it feels like services, especially High Holy Day ones happen despite other things, serious things that compete for our attention. I have had a long standing relationship with the Community Crisis Center in Elgin, our domestic violence shelter. (and so much more). Every October, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, they host a Partner in Peace breakfast. This year I wasn’t even going to go even though it is one of my favorite events of the whole year. But they needed me to do the invocation, so I said yes, as long as I finished writing at least two sermons.

I have also been working with one of our families to help a four year old, essentially non-verbal child. I will always prioritize a child in potential danger over my sermons. Apparently I am not alone.

Here is a story that really, really resonates this year.

The great Rabbi Israel Salanter was missing from a synagogue on the Eve of Atonement, during the Kol Nidre, the holiest night of the Jewish calendar. The elders of the synagogue went out searching for him and they found him. There were two versions: One, he was taking care of a wounded calf, the other, he was helping some sick child. And they said to him, “Rabbi, why aren’t you in the synagogue.” He said, “Do you see what I am doing?” “But Rabbi, it is your duty to be in the synagogue praying.” He said, “I am praying. Every act of kindness is a prayer—a prayer that walks, moves, breathes and lives.”   Rabbi William Silverman

Invocation at Partners in Peace Breakfast 

Tonight, Jews all over the world will gather to recite the ancient words of Kol Nidre. It is a prayer, really a contract that helps us release us from our vows. Shalom Bayit, peace of the bouse is a big value in Judaism, but it can fail. That’s where all of you come in. And I am grateful for your presence here this morning, and for the work you do beyond this beautiful setting.  

So as we move into 5785, the Jewish year that begin just last week, here are my vows, my prayers for 5785. I hope you will echo with Amen, a Hebrew word that means , “May it be true.” 

I vow to listen to the voices of women. To hear them and believe them. 

I vow to hold shaking hands, give hugs when needed and be a shoulder to cry on. 

I vow to cry out and to cry with victims and survivors.  

I vow to help protect women and children, and men and children from family violence. 

I vow to support the work of the Community Crisis Center, their staff and their partners  

I vow to advocate for women everywhere so that one day we won’t need to have these breakfasts, as lovely as they are.  

I vow to not lose hope. To find joy in little moments. To see the smiles of those we serve. 

Ufros Aleinu Sukkat Shlomecha, Spread over us the sukkah, that fragile shelter of Your peace. Amen.  

Yesterday we talked about connecting parents to children and children to parents. Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, a friend, has written many books. One of her books is Nurture the Wow which outlines how parents can bring spirituality, especially, Judaism into their parenting. It is about creating positive lasting Jewish memories. It is about connecting their children to something they can connect to, something they can lean on.  Judaism can be fun, meaningful, a source of comfort in hard times.  

As a Jewish educator, it gives me hope. Giving our kids tools to respond to life’s challenges is important. Teaching them about gratitude, about love, about WOW give me hope, 

But as we saw in our parsha yesterday and today, it doesn’t always go well. What happens when there is a split between parents and children or children and parents. How do we repair the breech? How do we get reconnected?  

Sadly, this isn’t just an issue for Abraham and his children Isaac and Ishmael. It is a modern issue as well. 

Psychology Today gives us some tools, some steps. 

1. Examine why you want to reconnect. The reasons parents pursue reconciliation are as various as the reasons adult children estrange to begin with. A parent’s motivation is undoubtedly the key because it will determine pretty much how you will act and react. Do you actually miss your child and really want an opportunity to have a relationship with her or him? Do you regret the missed opportunities you had to know him or her? Or, alternatively, are you embarrassed by this very public fissure and what it says about your parenting? Or are you trying to get access to a grandchild or grandchildren whom you believe you have a “right” to see? Or do you need something from your adult child that you didn’t before? Or do you want an opportunity to “set the record straight?” If you are motivated by any of these, you can trust that it won’t work. You might as well stop reading now. 

2. Let go of your defenses and “reasons.” It is understandable that you feel defensive—rejection hurts as does estrangement—but you have to be able to somehow shift onto neutral ground and begin with acceptance. Any defensiveness or rationalizations you bring to the table—that you weren’t as bad as all that, that you did the best you could, that you had your reasons for parenting as you did, and more—will only solidify your adult child’s conviction that you are not capable of listening, much less changing.
3. Be prepared to actually hear what your adult child has to say. Now that parental estrangement is actually being talked about more, one of the persistent myths is that of the adult child who cuts contact without saying a word; this scenario—of a fit of pique presumably over something minor—gets repeated over and over again in public forums and elsewhere. Or that the adult child was co-opted by a therapist who encouraged the rupture. It’s a big world out there and, yes, perhaps there is an adult child who cut off during a hissy fit or was convinced by a rogue therapist but these are usually myths, not truths. Daughters and sons usually take years, if not decades, to decide on estrangement and, yes, they generally confront their parents about their treatment before reaching a decision. The problem is that they are usually brushed off defensively, told that they are “too sensitive” or that they are making things up or have faulty, flawed memories. For an adult child who already feels unseen and unheard, these pushbacks are sometimes the final straw and, indeed, at that point, they may “ghost” their parent or parents because talk seems pointless.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/tech-support/202402/estranged-parent-6-tips-for-reconciling-with-an-adult-child 

Judaism has much to say about teshuvah, repair, repentance, reconciliation. In the old days, the rabbis would give two sermons a year. One on Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat which begins tonight, the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, teaching us how to do teshuvah. The other on the Shabbat before Passover, teaching us how to prepare for Passover and remove the chametz from our houses, from our lives. They are not unrelated.  

Danya Ruttenberg’s most recent book, On Repentance and Repair is a book that is filled with wisdom on how to do precisely that. She answers the question, “How do we make amends?”  She is looking at it through a national and global lens. She relies heavily on Jewish tradition. There is plenty in our world that needs to heal.  

Our divided nation. The Middle East. Ukraine. Anti-semitism and Racism. Our very planet. It can be overwhelming. I don’t have all the answers. Neither does Danya.  

Before we get to the national and international healing, teshuvah, we need to look at things closer to home. Shalom Bayit, peace of the house is a big value in Judaism. And it doesn’t always happen. We are now in October which is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. One out of four women will experience violence in their lifetimes, often at the hand of their partners. Next week is The Community Crisis Center’s Partner in Peace breakfast, acknowledging those in our community who do the hard work to repair the trauma that too many experience, while also acknowledging that sometimes the breach is too big and it is not safe to return. We publicly thank Maureen Manning for all the work she does in her role as Executive Director of the Crisis Center. 

In our lead up to the election, we need to return to civil discourse. There have to be ways that friends and families can continue to have conversations together. This is not a new problem. It is just exacerbated. For as long as I can remember almost every women’s magazine had an article on this topic in their November issue. How to have a meaningful and peaceful Thanksgiving dinner. Topics to avoid included: 

• When are you getting married? 

• When are you having babies? 

• When are you changing jobs? 

• How are your finances? It can be stressful year round and lead to heated arguments. 

• Lack of accomplishments: Don’t remind someone why they haven’t done more with their life. 

• Relationships: This topic can lead to a lot of pressure and stress.  

• Weight: Weight gain or loss is another sensitive issue for some.  

• Sarcasm: Sarcasm serves no purpose other than to give you a moment’s satisfaction and take a piece out of the person you’re dishing it on.  

• Religion: This can be a sensitive subject for many people, especially if your beliefs go against your family’s social norms. 

• Who did you vote for? Politics: This can be a touchy subject, especially if there are differing opinions at the table. It can lead to heated arguments and people feeling picked on.   

 I  was always taught to not talk about religion and politics in public. It seems to be an occupational hazard. But my mother lacked tack when it came to weight. There are two stories that cut to the core. Typical Jewish mother, Eat, eat I bought all your favorite food, Don’t eat you are too fat. And once when I was leading a havdalah service, we sang the same song we sang last week. A good week, a week of peace, may gladness reign and joy increase. My mom, not in a stage whisper said, “I certainly hope not,” again with the implication that I, middle name Joy, should not gain more weight. I smile now thinking of it. At the time I was mortified and my face turned bright crimson with embarrassment, shame and anger.  

The illustration is important, and it goes to why this topic is so relevant for this High Holy Day season. I no longer have the opportunity to heal the relationship I had with my mother. Although I have worked on it plenty, 

Next week our kids will hear the story the Hardest Word.  

There is a recent commercial for “He Gets Us” from a conservative Christian group, aiming to teach us about Jesus. It comes to the same conclusion. Talking to a bunch of immigrants learning to speak English, they try to pronounce some really tough English words. But those are not the toughest. Try I love you. I forgive you. I’m sorry. 

  https://www.ispot.tv/ad/5QRj/he-gets-us-the-hardest-thing-to-say  

Judaism teaches us how to do this. How to do teshuvah. Moses Maimonides, also known as the Rambam codified it into steps.  

1. Recognize and discontinue the improper action.
2. Verbally confess the action, thus giving the action a concrete form in your own mind.
3. Regret the action. Evaluate the negative impact this action may have had on yourself or on others.
4. Determine never to repeat the action. Picture a better way to handle it. There are two different types of transgressions: those between a person and God and those between one person and another.

We heard the words of Rabbi Harold Kushner, of blessed memory, talking about this yesterday. Traditionally, from the Talmud: 

Teshuva for a sin between a person and God: When one has transgressed a mitzvah that does not affect another person, the teshuva is purely between the person and God; and the four steps listed above are all that are necessary for the repentance process. 

Teshuva for a sin between one person and another: When one has caused harm to others, whether by stealing from them, embarrassing them or anything else, then teshuva requires that restitution and reconciliation be arranged between the parties involved. The damaged party must forgive the perpetrator before Divine forgiveness is granted. 

However, a person is only obligated to ask for forgiveness three times. After three refusals, the person is no longer held accountable for that action, as he/she has proven their true regret. The person who will not accept a sincere apology after three requests for forgiveness, however, is guilty of bearing a grudge. 

What then is a sincere apology, My daughter says I never get it quite right. These steps mirror those of Rambam.  

• Acknowledge: Be the first to admit you did something wrong.  

• Take responsibility: Accept responsibility for your actions without making excuses.  

• Explain: Show that you understand why your actions were harmful and how they affected the other person.  

• Make amends: Offer to fix what’s broken and take action to prevent the same mistake from happening again.  

• Request forgiveness: Ask the person you wronged if they can forgive you.  

• Choose your timing: Apologize in a timely manner and in the right place and way.  

• Be respectful: Use respectful and sincere language, and avoid sarcasm, humor, or aggression.  

• Consider delivery: Many people prefer a verbal, in-person apology.  
• Listen: Listen to the other person’s experience and emotions.  

It is important in our communal life right here at CKI. Did any of you see the movie Keeping the Faith. Ben Stiller plays the rabbi. Spoiler alert: by the end he gives a Kol Nidre Sermon, one of the best I have ever heard, asking for forgiveness from the congregation. So taking a page from that sermon, and like yesterday’s tashlich,  

• I am sorry that sometimes I don’t manage my own emotions well enough 
• I am sorry that sometimes I lack patience. This is particularly true if I am tired or am moving too fast (see that’s not right, that’s an excuse) This is particularly hard on Peg and Heather. I’m sorry. 
• I am sorry that sometimes I talk more than I listen.  
• I am sorry that sometimes I don’t eat the right foods or at the right time. This can be especially hard if I didn’t do it right for evening meetings and I run out of energy 
• I am sorry that I haven’t quite figured out how to balance the Zoom room with the people in the room all of whom want to talk to me at the end of a service. 
• I am sorry I haven’t quite figured out balance. Especially true as I say I am sorry to Simon. 
• I will try to do better. But I will not promise I will never do those things again.  

Together, we can do teshuvah. Together we can return. Together we can reconcile. This is part of how we stay connected.  

Our Torah portions about Abraham and Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael this morning and then Abraham and Isaac tomorrow are amongst the scariest in the Torah. Many a rabbi has asked why are these the portions that we read year after year for Rosh Hashanah? Where is the joy? Where is the hope? Where is the promise?  

I have a new insight this year. Perhaps that’s why we read them year after year. Every year we confront these texts, and we learn something new.  

First, what is the challenge here? Abraham listens to his wife, and seemingly at G-d’s command, he throws Hagar and their son out of the camp with only a skein of water and a loaf of bread. They run out of water.  She’s scared. So scared she cries out, “Don’t let me look on and watch the death of the lad.” Not by name. Some lad. G-d hears the cry of that child, not Hagar, opens Hagar’s eyes and she sees the water that was there all along.  

In tomorrow’s portion, called the Akeda, the binding of Isaac. Again, seeming at the direction of G-d, Abraham is willing to sacrifice his son, his only son, the one he loves, Isaac. But again, an angel stops the action. Abraham opens his eyes and sees the ram instead.  

Abraham and Hagar are far from perfect parents. Yet, Hagar and Abraham both open their eyes, and they find another way.  

These days we talk a lot about trauma informed care and ACEs. Adverse Childhood Experiences. Isaac and Ishmael both experienced trauma. Both lived with the aftereffects of adverse childhood experiences. 

Yet, both cases are about finding another way. The message is simple. Don’t sacrifice your kids.  Again and again we need to find another way. Don’t give up.  

After these traumas, Abraham lost contact with both of his children. Isaac and Ishmael didn’t come back together until they buried their father. While it was too late for Abraham, the story gives me hope that we can come back together.  

Parenting can be difficult. Being a child can be difficult. Internet, electronics, social media, school shootings, work-life balance, extra curriculars, ACE,  

And yet, that little powerful word, yet.  It can be the joyful. Rewarding. Worthwhile. Meaningful. Hannah longed for a child. Cried for a child. Prayed for a child. Promised she would dedicate a child to G-d. Eventually she was rewarded for her earnestness and Samual arrived.  

Every week we sing about L’dor v’dor. From generation to generation. But in many generations the young ones seem to reject what the older people have done. Maybe, but maybe not. 

Yet we want them to learn something from us, some sense of connectedness, some sense of community, of values. 

We recently ran four workshops on Death and Dyning in the Jewish community. As part of the last session we talked about ethical wills. Those things we want to hand down to our children and grandchildren. As practice we wrote group ethical will for our own descendants. 

We hope. We encourage you to: 

•  Cherish your family and learn about the family you come from Work to keep your family together 
• Learn your family’s special recipe for things like Challah or chopped liver 
• Be courageous 
• Do your best 
• Treat others as you would like to be treated 
• Above all, be kind 

It’s like the song Forever Young:
May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you

May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
And may you stay forever young

Chorus:
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the light surrounding you

May you always be courageous
Stand up right and be as strong
And may you stay forever young

(Chorus X2)
May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift

May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
And may you stay forever young

(Chorus X2)
May you grow up righteous and true
See the light surrounding you
May you grow up righteous and true
See the light surrounding you
 

As educators and rabbis what we hope what we are doing is creating lifelong Jewish memories. This past Sunday was no exception. Much of Judaism is very concrete. We use all our senses. We heard the sound of the shofar. We baked cinnamon challah and tasted pomegranate seeds. The building smelled divine.  And we wrote: 

 At Yom Kippur we chant an alef bet list of sins. This year, our students wrote an alef bet list of blessings that we hope for, that we wish for in our new year 5785. You will hear it later. These are the kinds of things that connect us, one generation to the next. 

 When the Israelites were standing at Sinai, we learn two midrashim. The first, before G-d gives us, we all stood at Sinai, the 10 Commandments, we are told that “our children are our guarantors.” The second that G-d created a voice just for young children. 

I tell this next story from the Talmud, usually at Tu B’shevat, the New Year of the Trees, but it is appropriate here on this Rosh Hashanah: 

One day, Honi the Circle Drawer was walking along the road when he saw a man planting a carob tree. Ḥoni said to him: This tree, after how many years will it bear fruit? The man said to him: It will not produce fruit until seventy years have passed. Ḥoni said to him: Wow, and you will live seventy years? You will wait that long to eat from this tree? The man said to him, just as my ancestors planted trees for me, I too am planting trees for my descendants. 

In Rachel Cowan’s Wise Aging, dedicated to the possibility of living the years ahead with joy, resilience and spirit, we learn that “becoming a grandparent means seeing one’s own children step into their positions as custodians of the future. But there is a cautionary note. “If we are wise and humble we will ask ourselves what we can do to support their growth and wellbeing without imposing our own sense of what their futures should look like.” 

This applies not just to our role as parents and grandparents, but also our role as synagogue leadership. 

We need to listen to our children, and their parents. They too are wise. Incredibly wise. When I asked people what they wanted to hear this Rosh Hashanah, the question came up 

“In a changing world of less synagogues and traditional communities, how can we make meaningful and unique experiences and traditions for the next generations?” 

It’s a good question. Look, we are still here. For thousands of years. We have outlived the Greeks, the Romans, the Assyrians and then some. For my father, it was less about the ritual ins and out, though for some, including me, those provide meaning, structure, stability. For my father it was about the ethics of Judaism, our commitment to education, and our very survival. 

That’s what we do at CKI, make meaningful, unique experiences.  

And yet…In every generation we sing a new song. The Psalms tell us so. Sing a new song to the Lord. We sing on Shabbat, “Or chadash. Cause a new light to shine.”  

It’s OK. That’s expected. That’s better than OK—it’s good. Every generation needs new experiences that represent them. New experiences. Nee music. New understandings. 

 We can’t do it for them or to them. We need to listen to them and find a way to provide the seeds. We need to help them find a way that this meaningful to them.  

Rabbi Harold Kushner in his book, How Good Do We Have to Be? Has a whole chapter on the love of Fathers and Sons, Mothers and Daughters. He begin the chapter saying that like many of us he was taught on Yom Kippur we have to atone for those things we had done to hurt other people before we could atone for our offenses against G-d. And that G-d would forgive us only when we had forgiven those who had hurt and disappointed us. That is exactly what it says in the Talmud. But as he grew older he learned that while the first half may be correct the second half may have it wrong. The whole chapter is worth reading. The whole book really. But his conclusion, “I don’t find it necessary to forgive my parents for the mistakes they made. It is no sin to be human. They were amateurs in a demanding game where even the experts can’t always get it right. Beyond forgiveness I love and admire them for all the good things they did, and I hope I have shown that love and admiration in the way they would have wanted me to, by passing on many of the those good qualities to my own daughter, eho I pray will find herself included to understand and to admire me.  

The conclusion of his entire book is that there is enough love to go around. Parents to children, children to parents, siblings, spouses. Those are those deep connections.  

The prophet Malachai, the last book of a prophet promises, yes, still promises,  

“Lo, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the coming of the awesome, fearful day of GOD.  He shall reconcile parents with children and children with their parents, so that, when I come, I do not strike the whole land with utter destruction.” 

This gives me hope. The hearts of the children will be reconciled to their parents and the hearts of the parents will be reconciled with their children.” We can find another way. This is how we connect parents to children and children to parents. That’s what Rosh Hashanah is about. Easy? Maybe not. But doable. That gives me hope. 

From Wishes, Dreams, Blessings from our Youth:
We hope for:

Apples
The Best Year ever with balls and bananas
Courage and cookies and cats and dogs
Everything, especially exploring the environment
Fun, friends and frogs
Goodness in a good year
Hope, homes and Hebrew
Israel
Joy and Kindness
Love, light and life
Miracles and magic
Nicenes
Openness
Peace and 
Quiet
Rest and rainbows
Self respect and strength
Time
Understanding
Valor and values
Water
Xrays
Youthfulness and years
Zeal and Zen

I have a d’var Torah, a sermon written for tonight. However, before I can deliver it, there needs to be a new introduction. 

Tonight, we are going to talk about connections. Community. Relationships. We will. But first we need to pause. I am connected to Israel. To the land. To the people. To the State. It is a complicated relationship. But I am deeply connected. To the land that I have hiked. To the people, all of you, the stories I have learned from my earliest days, to the ethics that those stories and the thousands of years of commentary that it teaches, to each of you, to the Jewish people around the world.  to the country that I once lived in, to the dream of a place where Jews could live in freedom, without fear, without hatred.  

This past year has been impossibly difficult. This past week has been impossibly difficult. I am still connected to all of those things, I still believe in the dream. I still believe in the hope that Israel offers, I still believe.  

Some of you may feel connected to Israel. Some of you may not. Some of you may be sitting here tonight with a range of emotions, or no emotions at all. Some of you may wonder how we will ever find joy. How can we possibly celebrate Rosh Hashanah this year when time seemed to stop on Simchat Torah last year. Yet, as the saying goes “We will dance again.” Or as I read this week, “We will dance for them.”  

I hope you join me and will come back on Oct 6th for a Memorial for October 7th and all the lives lost and to remember the hostages. Then again on Kol Nidre to hear more formed thoughts. Tonight however, we pray for  a renewed commitment, connection to Israel. safety, for peace,  

And as always, we thank the Elgin Police Department for stepping up their coverage as Jewish institutions around the world have increased their security.  

Now for the real sermon: 

Imagine my surprise when I was at the grocery store and the newest Oprah magazine is called “The Power of Connection, Your guide to living joyfully. Building community, and finding deeper meaning in your life.” Wow! I bought the magazine without even thinking twice. Call it an impulse purchase. Or not. 

It is part of what we do here at CKI. We build community and create meaning. Hopefully we are joyful. After all, the Psalms teach us, “Ze hayom asah adonai. Nagila v’simcha bo. This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. So today, especially todayy, we say: Shanah Tovah. Happy New Year! The hope is it will be filled with joy. The reality as we have seen all too painfully, is that each year is filled with joy and pain. 

The joys include the little moments like watching our kids taste pomegranates for the first time or the dog practicing David Melech with me. Or the big moments, the baby namings, B-Mitzvah, graduations,  aufrufs, weddings. Pains can include health challenges, job losses, even deaths. Too many of those this year.  

That’s where community comes in. Together we celebrate. Together we support one another.  We laugh together and we cry together. 

For the next 10 days, and the rest of the year, we will learn about the Power of Connection. 

The beginning of this topic of connection at CKI came all the way back in April when the Torah School parents suggested it. Sitting around those round tables waiting for their students to be done with school and schmoozing about this new year they remarked that community is really about connection. And so, the yearly topic was born, long before Oprah’s magazine was on the market.  

It seems that what people want from/with community is connection. During the pandemic we were more isolated.  It has been hard to get that sense of connection and community back. Here and many other places. Yet, it was there then. It is here now.  Really. Come hang out with us on a Sunday morning. Join the Men’s Club for a Bears game or pizza. Say hello to someone you don’t know. Say hello to someone you haven’t seen in a while. And come to a shiva minyan. Hopefully not too many.  

We’re going to try that now. Introduce yourself to someone. Tell them something unique about you. That is how we are connected to each other. One to another. Understanding each other’s stories. Later you will get a bingo card. If you collect enough stickers, there will be a prize.  

The dictionary defines connection this way:
“Connection: a relationship in which a person, thing, or idea is linked or associated with something else.” 

Connections are important. They provide emotional support. They can offer comfort, validation and understanding in times of crisis or uncertainty, but really at any point. They foster a sense of belonging, purpose and happiness. Recently I participated in the first part of the strategic plan for U-46 going forward. One of the most important things U 46 wants for the kids, and the students themselves named it is a sense of belonging and safety. 

Connections provide a safe space to share joys, challenges and vulnerabilities. They can offer celebration, support and comfort. People want to be seen and heard. We need to meet people where they are.  

Connections can reduce isolation and can improve a friend’s sense of self-worth and confidence.  

Connections can provide an opportunity for shared experience creating lasting bonds and life long memories.  

Connections can provide loyalty. A friend who will stick by you through thick and thin and will provide emotional support. 

Connections can provide fun and laughter. We have member who always answers her work phone, “Can I help you plan some fun.” That always makes me smile. Fun and laughter can have therapeutic mental health benefits.  

The Jewish people understood the power of connection long before Oprah. 

If you are looking for Biblical sources, from the very beginning, G-d said, “It is not good for Adam, for man, to be alone.”  

Martin Buber talks about it when he talks about I-thou relationships. We are at our best when we have I-Thou relationships. In the I-Thou encounter, we relate to each other as authentic beings, without judgment, qualification, or objectification. I meet you as you are, and you meet me as who I am. In the I-Thou relationship, what is key is how I am with you in my own heart and mind. Conversely, it is the opposite in an I-It encounter, when we relate to another as object, completely outside of ourselves. 

Ron Wolfson took that concept and wrote a powerful book for our more modern times, Relational Judaism, where he argues that we don’t need more programming in synagogues, we need to find ways to better foster connections and community in our synagogues. He continues, It’s not about programs. It’s not about marketing.It’s not about branding, labels, logos, clever titles, website or smartphone apps. It’s not even about institutions. It’s about relationships. (page 2-3) He is a master storyteller and the book is well worth reading.  

What people desire in synagogues are relationships, friends.  

Maybe here is where I tell that old joke. Goldman comes to synagogue to talk to G-d. Goldberg comes to synagogue to talk to Goldman. That’s why we have things like Apples and Honey, Thank you Nikki and Gene and  Ellen and Risa. And Break-the-fast, Thank you, Barb Razowsky. That’s why there is book group, and Torah Study and Torah School. Choir. Sure, they are about lifelong learning, but they also build lifelong friends.  

That’s why we deliver goody bags to those who cannot get here. It helps connect people to their community. It helps them know that people here care and remember them. 

The studies all show that the isolation and loneliness are an epidemic. In 2018 only 16% of Americans felt very attached to their local community. Yet that sense of belonging and acceptance is what we crave. 

 https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf 

“Each of us can start now, in our own lives, by strengthening our connections and relationships.” Vivek H. Murthy, M.D., M.B.A 

  Congregation Kneseth Israel helps break that cycle. This gives me hope.  

One of the things we need to work on as a society, as a community, is mental health. Across the board, our children, our adolescents and our adults. After our Unity on Division block party, designed to foster connections, community and fun, Pastor Dave Daubert and I were sitting quietly talking, we had just moved traffic cones and garbage cans because that’s what rabbis and ministers do these days. We were talking about mental health and he pointed out that he is most concerned about senior mental health, because the research shows that as we age not only our bodies age but our brains age causing increased mental health issues and increased isolation, and loneliness.   

The pandemic has been hard. Rising anti-semitism. The war in Israel. The personal losses and health challenges.  The ongoing sense of isolation and loneliness.  

“Today was a Difficult Day,” said Pooh.
There was a pause.
“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Piglet.
“No,” said Pooh after a bit. “No, I don’t think I do.”
“That’s okay,” said Piglet, and he came and sat beside his friend.
“What are you doing?” asked Pooh.
“Nothing, really,” said Piglet. “Only, I know what Difficult Days are like. I quite often don’t feel like talking about it on my Difficult Days either.
“But goodness,” continued Piglet, “Difficult Days are so much easier when you know you’ve got someone there for you. And I’ll always be here for you, Pooh.”
And as Pooh sat there, working through in his head his Difficult Day, while the solid, reliable Piglet sat next to him quietly, swinging his little legs…he thought that his best friend had never been more right.”
A.A. Milne 

What Piglet does is create a safe, non-judgmental space where Pooh can just be. That is part of what we do here at CKI.  

Soon you will hear more and more about a book I fell in love with, The Amen Effect, by Rabbi Sharon Brous.  

As a way to deepen the connections between people right here, we are going to try something new. Like many communities and cities, often driven by the library, we will do a One Book One Community Read. We will kick that off in November for National Jewish Book Month by reading as a whole community, The Amen Effect. There will be a program at Gail Borden in November. There will be other ways to participate. And taking a page from Oprah, every family will get a book. (But you have to wait until Yom Kippur. It takes a while to ship from Milwaukee.) 

Shortly after I finished it, Tish Calhamer from the Gail Borden Public Library, a dear friend and a significant partner with CKI called. She knew what our November Book Group Book should be. The Amen Effect. (Of course she says AMEN). Later Judi Tepe sent an email from Jonathan Shively who is the Executive Director of Fox Valley Hands of Hope, He had been referred to the book by Chaplain Ed Hunter, who heard about the book from me. The book has lots to say about connections. If I could sum it up quickly, she urges us, all of us to just show up. And so you have.   

There is a power in connection. Just ask Oprah. Connection and the community that comes with it brings me hope. Shana tova.  

Today’s writing comes from Carol Levine. A dear friend for decades from Massachusetts. She and Simon both worked at Wang. Remember Wang. She was a member of Temple Emanuel of the Merrimack Valley. Since we both have February birthdays we share a love of the water. Oceans in particular. She collects friends. All over the world. For a lifetime as her writing will show. But today, today, she saw that my daughter was at our favorite ice cream stand in our home town and she went to meet her. Just like that. This is what deep life long connections and friendships are about. 

In the fall of 1968, I fell in love with Carole King’s “Tapestry” album and especially with the title song. “My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue…”. When Margaret asked me to write, for her Elul blog, something about connections, my mind instantly went to that song, with all the rich imagery inherent in tapestries. A tapestry artist places strands of color into the warp, slowly creating tapestry images in a symphony of threads, shapes, colors, and textures. In some ways we are all tapestry artists, creating the unique tapestries of our lives through a pictorial symphony of threads, shapes, colors, and textures that bind us to so many people in our lives. You might say “One Tapestry To Bind Them All”. 

There’s a profound relationship between connections and gratitude. I am grateful every day for the myriad connections that have enriched my life. I am grateful every day that I am still connected to most of the people—family and friends—who have played meaningful roles in my life, in my development as a human being, from late teens to now. 

As a college freshman I had a crush on a junior. All the girls wanted to go out with him. He invited me to Winter Carnival, and I was so excited. Then he took me back to the dorm that night and ended the relationship. But the connection did not break that night. We stayed friends and, thanks to years of visits and correspondence, we are still friends, learning from one another. That thread between us is an important part of the tapestry. I learned to live with my broken heart and create a new friendship. I am grateful for that living connection. 

I spent my sophomore year in Israel, at the Institute for Jewish Youth Leaders from Abroad. 110 of us from all over the world participated. I fell in love with a young man. He gave me a pearl ring. We ‘plighted our troth’ to one another. Back home, he returned to Toronto, and I returned to college at UMASS. We phoned. We wrote. And then one day he drove non-stop to see me at UMASS. Oh, how I loved that exotic bit of thread in my tapestry! Years passed and there was a falling out; the thread was still there but faded, the connection tenuous. Then one day, while visiting Kathy, a friend from the Israel year, the phone rang. It was my old friend, calling Kathy to apologize for any way he had not treated her well. She told him that I was with her, and he asked to speak to me, too, so that he could apologize. Thus began a new connection with him; for years now, we have been building a new friendship through email, letters, and phone calls. I have learned much from him, and I am grateful for that living connection. 

After college I lived in England for several years. There I met a Scottish woman who has now been my friend for 55 years. The thread of that friendship has always been thick, bright, and colorful, as we traveled through life’s stages together – work, travel, motherhood, bar mitzvah of my son, weddings (my son, her son), and milestone birthdays. Over the years she has become family, and friends with my friends, and I have become family, and friends with her friends. I am grateful for that living connection. 

In 1979 I took a night school class in accounting. I eventually connected with the teacher through a mutual love of photography. We became close friends until the spring when we both started feeling a whole different connection—17 years later he is family, and friends with my friends, and I have become family, and friends with his friends. I am grateful for that living connection. 

There are so many more people who have been important threads in the tapestry of my life. I am grateful for all those connections that sustain me in trying times and bring me joy over and over. 

Carol Levine 

Yesterday I wrote about connecting through books. Today’s words come from Tish Calhamer, the Community Engagement Librarian for the Gail Borden Public Library. Of course we connect through books And so much more. Music. She has been instrumental (pun intended) in Chamber Music on the Fox, and the amazing Violins of Hope program and display here in Elgin last year. Cooking. Restaurants. Gardening. Making the world a better place with things like the Martin Luther King Commission, the YWCA, Women on the Brink and so much more.

Here are her words about connections:

Not everyone is a big fan of Facebook, but I am. Facebook is seen as the invasion of privacy, the domain of trolls, Mark Z’s moneymaker. I love Facebook for one reason, one word: connection. Facebook has allowed me to connect with old high school friends that I didn’t even realize I wanted to connect with. I have connected with my cousins in the Dominican Republic that I lost touch with when our mothers were no longer around to keep family communication up and open. I have connected with people I don’t know but share things in common: people who like cats, grew up in Chicagoland, females born between 1965-1980 and weary of your crap; who love Johnny Cash and Scandinavian artists; looking for healthy recipes, looking for baby goats wearing pajamas, and looking for used bookshelves in decent condition (to be picked up safely in front of the police station.) 

I remember talking and giggling with my best friend on the way to school, during school, and walking home from school. Then I’d stretch the cord of our putty-colored rotary phone from the kitchen into the hallway and talk and giggle until my dad would yell that I was going to yank the phone off the wall. The connection I had with my friend was stronger than the phone’s connection to the wall! Decades later, Liking a post or sharing a video of baby goats wearing pajamas brings me that same feeling of connection. A word or two tapped out on a friend’s page uplifts my spirits—I’ve reached out and now we’re not alone. We share a thought for a moment. We know that we are in each other’s thoughts and hearts. We abide in our connection even after clicking on the X on the screen. 

Tish Calhamer