Tonight 40 people gathered at Congregation Kneseth Israel for a celebration. We talked about the Thirteen Attributes of the Divine, so important to the Selichot (forgiveness prayers) we are about to say, so important to this time between Rosh Hodesh Elul and Yom Kippur. It is said that when Moses saw the people dancing around the golden calf, he was so angry he smashed the 10 Commandments. G-d challenged Moses to resume his leadership. Moses said that the people were G-d’s people, not Moses’s and besides they were a stiff-necked stubborn people. G-d said that G-d would go with Moses and give him rest. Moses agreed to keep climbing. He was hidden in the cleft of the rock and saw the goodness of God passed before him. He was reassured.

And maybe that is what this edition of the Elul period is about. Reassurance. The world is a scary place right now. Maybe more so than ever. Maybe it has always been a scary place. Tonight the threats are real: Hamas, ISIS, rising anti-semitism in Europe and even in the United States, racism in places like Ferguson and our own backyards, Russia, the Ukraine, ebola, conflicts throughout the world. How can we not be afraid.

And yet, our people, the Jewish people have always prayed for peace. Have been taught to “Seek peace and pursue it.” To actively run after it. To make the world a better place–in our small places right at home and in a larger context.

So for the next 40 days, this blog will be dedicated to peace, to shalom, to salaam, to pax. We will explore what peace means to each of us. Once again, I have asked others to write about peace from their own perspective. Once again we will hear from Jews, Christians, Muslims, men and women, young and old, clergy and non-clergy. In the process, in the dialogue, maybe, just maybe, our own corner of the world will be a little more peaceful. That brings me reassurance.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav said, “The world is a very narrow bridge. The most important thing is to not be afraid.”

The gathering tonight, Jews and Christians, clergy and non-clergy, men and women, willing to meet on common ground, brings me hope. I will not give in to fear. I will continue to pray for and work for peace.

When you drive down the hill, you see it. That first glimpse of Lake Michigan sparkling, dazzling in the sunlight, blue ripples peaking out beyond the green lawn and the white cottages. You hear it, the waves lapping the shore. You roll down the windows and you breathe deeply. There is no other smell like it.

Jolli Lodge is a place like no other. I have tried to describe it. It is an inn on 700 feet of Lake Michigan that was built as a summer retreat in 1928. It still has most of the original furniture. No air conditioning. Don’t need it with the breeze off the lake. No phones in the rooms and cottages. That is a good thing. A mangle to press the sheets (look it up!) Marshmallow roasts on Monday nights (it used to be Sunday), tennis court, pool table, ping pong, a teen room, soccer, horseshoes, tether ball, boats on beach, bicycles for all ages to borrow on the drive.

They were all here when I first started coming–40 years ago this week. I am sure of it. Our first year we stayed here was the year Nixon resigned and we watched him take off from the White House lawn on a grainy TV in the lodge lobby. That year we stayed in the lodge. Other years we rented a cottage for a week or two.

There are so many memories. Playing soccer at dusk and being kicked in the shin (ouch) by the son of the proprietor, a kid my brother’s age, now the proprietor himself. The year(s) we ran the Fish Hook road race. The year(s) we helped build the 4th of July float. All the years we celebrated my parents’ birthdays. The years we watched Wimbleton and then tried our own hand at tennis. The year we watched the final match of the World Cup after coming here direct from Germany. The year I swam out to rescue an inner tube. The year of the paintball wars. The year I stayed in Jim Harrison’s room and thought I had to pen (yes, still pen) the next great American novel. No pressure to do that this year! The year I first brought Simon up here and we lay on the hill and watched the meteor shower. The year we couldn’t afford to come but my parents were in the lodge. We camped down the road in a tent and it rained every night. I threatened to sleep on the porch. The year I first brought my daughter here and measured her against The Tree. A birch tree. A signal tree, pointing the way, according to the Native Americans.

That tree is gone now. So are both my parents and Keith Jolliffe. Some new growth is sprouting from the base of the stump.

But the stars. Oh wow, the stars. And those sunsets, glass of Leelenau Cellars Summer Sunset wine in hand.

This is the first trip up here without my parents, without my now grown-up daughter. It seemed odd at first. Someone played a guitar version of “Tears in Heaven,” softly on the porch. I cried watching the sunset. My mother and my daughter have been here all week–in a sandhill crane, in a chubby Mary, in a bottle of Witches Brew.

There is a (newer) zip line and four or five kayaks. Now there is wifi in the lobby of the lodge. I am not entirely sure that is a good thing. But I am using it.

What is a good thing, beyond the stunning beauty, is that this place is timeless. It is a place where you can kick back and relax. It is a place where no one cares who you are or what you accomplished this year. It is a place to just be. That is the real beauty of Jolli Lodge.

I am on vacation–and predictably I am breaking my own rules. Oh, to be sure I slept a little later (7AM) and I had a massage before dinner last night. I sat outside on my deck, something I had dreamed of enjoying all summer, and ate my breakfast. And I read.

And that is why I am writing. I finished reading Rabbi Kerry Olitsky’s Playlist Judaism. I have heard him lecture before, most recently when he was at the Chicago Board of Rabbis. I own any number of his books including Preparing Your Heart for the High Holidays (which is probably the book that inspired me to write my own book!). Two of my congregants and I had a very enjoyable lunch with him in February when he was in Chicago. I have participated in two workshops that Big Tent Judaism has done–one on warm and welcoming congregations sponsored by JUF and one more recently on interfaith families. You might say I am a groupie!

So why did I decide I needed to write today? Because, even though there is little in the book I disagree with (if anything), there is much that is challenging. The book has nine chapters. In fact, the book is pretty short. But I think it is radical. It recognizes what I have been saying–that Judaism, particularly what I call American suburban Judaism, is  experiencing a seismic shift. This is not your grandparents’ 1960s suburban synagogue. It can’t be. The world is fundamentally different. What isn’t clear is what will emerge in its place.

At first I saw a tension between what Olitzky says in this book and what Ron Wolfson says in Relational Judaism. Ironically Wolfson, who worked together with Olitzky in the Syngogue 2000 project, wrote the forward for this book. Olitzky says that Jews have gotten accustomed to picking in choosing what parts of the synagogue programming they want to buy. He uses Apple’s iTunes as the metaphor. We only need to buy the song we want, not the whole album. I think this was probably always true. Another generation might have called it, (especially on Christmas day) a Chinese menu. With six you get egg rolls. Wolfson talks about the idea that it is not individual programming that people want–they want a deepening of the relationship, with the community, with each other, with G-d. An I-Thou relationship.

On the surface that seems contradictory. But I think what it really is complimentary. People want to feel they belong. That they matter. That they count. They want to be listened to and they want to be heard. They want to know that others will be there with them to celebrate. And to mourn. They want to have meaning in their lives. They want to make the world a better place. These are all about being in a relationship. A deep, committed, caring relationship.

And yet we are a nation of rugged individualists. This is a term coined by Herbert Hoover during and about the Great Depression, but it remains true in a wider context. We want what we want when we want it and we don’t want to wait. That is back to our ability to instantly download a song and play it now. It is about how and where we experience spirituality. I am just as likely to have a powerful spiritual moment watching a Lake Michigan sunset and waiting for the green flash or a Cadillac Mountain sunrise than in the four walls of the synagogue I lead. I can have a spiritual moment by myself on a run or with a minyan. I don’t want to be fenced in. Neither do my congregants.

What is so important about Olitzky’s book is that not only does he lay out what I have been saying (and agreeing with) but he adds a section to the end of each chapter, thought questions and implications. These are where the wrestling begins. These are what will enable synagogues, my own I hope, to navigate the churning waters today.

Chapter One has a list of the 10 principles of Playlist Judaism. They are worth repeating here:

1. People want to control their own religious life.
2. The center of their Jewish life is built around them as individuals, rather than around an institution, especially a singular one.
3. There is no intrinsic value in membership.
4. People want to shape their own participation in religious life.
5. People want their Jewish life to be voluntary rather than obligatory.
6. Free does not imply that the object or service that is free has no value or investment. Instead, free access is a positive value.
7. People want to choose (and pay for) only those things that speak to them.
8. People do not want the things that meet their needs bundled with other things that they don’t think meet their needs and thereby are forced to buy the entire package.
9. Synagogues have to be flexible enough to welcome such personal choices and offer individuals a panoply of options to engage in Jewish life.
10. Options for participation must emerge from the interest of individuals rather than the needs of the synagogue so that individuals can freely create their own Playlist Judaism.

Wow!

Chapter Two talks about turning the synagogue inside out. In Elgin, there are people who do not know there is a synagogue here. Even though our synagogue just celebrated its 120th anniversary. Some of our leadership through the years were afraid to tell people we are there. For instance, there is no sign on the front of the building! Better not to rock the boat too much. And there are plenty of Jews who felt burned by previous synagogues, rabbis and leaders and do not want to be in the building–but want Judaism. My approach, long before reading this book, is to be “out there”: at coffee shops, on non-profit boards, writing articles, blogs, books, anything to make people aware that we are there, we are welcoming and accessible. I need to do more of it–particularly as Olitzky calls it, “Public Space Judaism.” That is why events like the I-Fest where we will exhibit our Congregation and play Israeli games as part of celebrating Elgin’s ethnic diversity are so important.

He talks about the market place of ideas. I remember a class I took with Rabbi David Gordis at Hebrew College on pluralism (yes, that was his word). He said that if Judaism is not meaningful, we should fold up our tents and go home. Judaism has to be more about meaning and less about obligation. As tragic as the Holocaust was, it is not enough to continue to be Jews in memory of the victims. That alone is not enough to sustain us. Judaism has to survive in the marketplace of ideas. In the 60s, Judaism lost many young people to eastern religions. They were looking for a deep sense of spirituality and they did not find it in their home synagogues. They found meditation and yoga and tai chi without realizing that some of those things exist within the 5000 year tradition we call Judaism. That is sad. Similarly, there are many people who have found Judaism appealing. Its theology, its philosophy, its moral values, its culture. There are many entry points to Judaism and yet we tend to push people away. Judaism has to be able to stand on its own in the market place of ideas. We need to warm and welcoming and encouraging of all who want to enter. We need to lower the barriers of entry–for Jew and non-Jew alike.

In our congregation we have a number of people who either have converted or would like to. Tradition dictates that you should refuse someone three times. Being a Jew, even in today’s world, carries with it risk. You must be sure that the person understands that risk and that the feelings to join are real. But once someone has converted, it is inappropriate to refer to him, to her as a convert. Once a Jew, you are a Jew. Sounds simple, no? The question continues to come up, who is a Jew? Will your conversion be recognized by Israel, by all rabbinic authorities, by individuals within your own community. This topic is anathema to me–and concerns me greatly–but is a subject for an entire blog.

It leads perfectly into his next chapter about intermarriage. I agree that this is an opportunity–not a disaster. We have to find ways to be more welcoming and accepting. Period. More on that one later too–except as many of you know I’ve been leading up to it. Think about Zipporah, Ruth, Maneshe.

At some point, Judaism became pediatric Judaism. Let’s educate the children even if we don’t know much ourselves. Let’s get them through Bar Mitzvah (or Confirmation). Even though I hated Hebrew School (I did not!), I expect my child too. But let’s show up for Purim, a child centered celebration. Olitzky is right–we cannot ignore the baby boomers (wait, I resemble that remark!). I was glad to participate in Me’ah at Hebrew College, a 100 (Me’ah) hours of serious adult Jewish learning. Limmud, NewCAJE, Elat Chayyim (Now at Isabella Friedman) have all provided ways for boomers through the years to engage deeply in Judaism on their terms. We need more, not less, depending on individual interest. Love hiking, try the Adventure Rabbi. Care passionately about environmental issues, check out Hazon or Ma’yan Tikvah. Want to feed the hungry–look at Mazon or Pushing the Envelope Farm. Care about women’s issues, try Women of the Wall. The list is limitless.

And then there is Israel. What can we say about Israel, especially this summer. Again, that could be an entire blog post or book. Me, I care passionately about Israel. And I worry about Israel. I worry about the friends that I have that live there. I worry about rockets and sirens. I worry about a nation that has never known peace. I worry and I hope. I pray for peace–every single day and I work for peace. I try to create an environment of, as Olitzky said, civil discourse.  A place, that even if it is, and it is, polarized, it is still permissible to express your views in a safe, non-judgmental way. That requires patience. It is a balancing act. One that I am willing to risk–especially now. And still I dream. I dream of day when Israel can live with her neighbors in peace. When everyone can sit under their vine and fig tree and none shall make them afraid.

Ultimately Olitzky is right. He is asking the same question Rabbi Gordis asked in class. The same question that I decided to ask as the shell of my high holiday sermons. Why be Jewish? We are all Jews by choice. There is so much that competes for our attention in the marketplace of ideas. Why does this matter so much? What do we want to pass down to our children and grandchildren. Read the book.

Olitzky has a great model, that has yet to be fully proven. One question he leaves hanging becomes how do we pay for it. Congregations are wrestling with bold dues models. Some with success. Others, like the congregation in which I met my husband, never had high holiday tickets. My current one does not either but that is still a new experiment for them. It is working thus far. If I read the recently presented end of year numbers we took in more last year for High Holidays than we did when there were tickets. But it still feels risky and it still takes courage.

So what is on my dream list. Opportunities for people to engage deeply with Judaism, to wrestle with text, to celebrate together, to davven (pray) together, to hike together. To explore Judaism in a way that in non-judgmental. To meet people where they are. To build bridges between peoples.

To provide meaningful observance, opportunities for lifelong learning, embracing diversity and building community. Then we will have deepened relationships and engaged in Playlist Judaism–a big tent for all, open to all–young and old, born Jewish and not, handicapped, gay or straight, multi-racial, cultural, secular, religious. Maybe my president is right–we are all–Just Jews.

Recently my husband has said that I am the most negative person he knows. He may be right. I know that am difficult to live with—and for that I am sorry. I will admit it. I have been depressed lately. Usually I see my job as being a cheerleader. OK without the body of a University of Michigan cheerleader but by being optimistic, positive. By championing Judaism, by making it relevant and meaningful and joyful and fun. By thinking anything is possible.

But now I am not so sure. How can we be anything but depressed? How can we not be? Missing, kidnapped girls, planes shot out of the sky, the trip to Kenya now officially cancelled. The Pew Study. And then there is Israel.

I checked in with a friend. An eighty something. He was surprised. “You’re too young. The world has been bad before. World War II, Korea. Vietnam. This is not new.” How can we be repeating this again? How can it seem to be every continent?

How? How? How?

In Hebrew the word is Eicha. It is the opening word of the book of Lamentations which we will read on Monday night as part of Tisha B’av, the saddest day of the Jewish year. Maybe my mood just reflects the impending fast day.

It is in today’s Torah portion. You will have to listen carefully for it. “How can I bear this alone?”

Eicha is also the question G-d asked Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Here the question sounds more like “Where” Where are you? How are you being?

Today’s Torah portion talks about Caleb and Joshua. Only they will be allowed to go into the land of Israel. Caleb was a faithful friend. A loyal friend. Caleb recognized what others did not—that the land was a good land, with good fruit. He was an optimist. The kind of person I want to be. We have Moses’s record. All of Deuteronomy that we begin reading today is his reflections. We have Joshua’s. What would Caleb’s scroll sound like. A colleague, Rabbi Zoe Klein, does precisely that. She begins to answer the question “Why Caleb?”

I am you. Yes, I, Caleb son of Jephunneh, am you, you in the business suit, you in the summer dress. I am you when you were in the desert hundreds or thousands of years ago. And I am you now. I am you when you look at yourself and see not the long shadows of the past but the blossoming future. I am you when you look at your neighbor and see no ugliness there, but God’s radiant image.

For three weeks I have studying with Rabbi Michael Balinsky, the executive director of the Chicago Board of Rabbis. He is a master teacher. In the middle of my depression, studying has brought me pleasure.

We looked at some traditional texts from Berachot, the first tractate of Talmud I ever studied. It too begins with a question. From when may you say the Sh’ma? It asks other questions too—who is obligated to say the Sh’ma. And then where? Can you pray on the road? Can you pray in a ruin?

This week, our congregation looked at that very text. And in the process we found hope. Our synagogue building is not a ruin. In fact, it is a very nice building. So we have no issue. We can pray in our building. That is a relief.

But we also decided that it is permissible to pray in a ruin—because G-d is everywhere and we can hear the voice of G-d anywhere—even in a ruin. We talked about the recent study from NASA, sounds of space. Is this possibly the Bat Kol? http://deadstate.org/listen-nasa-probe-records-sounds-from-space-and-its-absolutely-terrifying/. If so, I find it comforting, not terrifying.

Last week with Rabbi Balinsky we studied a text from Rabbi Nathan Zevi Ben Moses Finkel. (1849-1927) Finkel was a leader of the mussar movement and had his own independent yeshivah, Kneseth Israel. In addition to being a rabbi, he was a store owner. I identified immediately with him. He too, was looking for hope out of the ruins. He went back to a midrash about the creation of the world.

“When God created man, he formed him in His image, the image of God, so that he would not be forced to fulfill the command of God like other creatures. Rather, inherent in him is free will, and he is able to act in any way he desires, similar to God, and he has the capacity to destroy and build. We find, therefore, that just as God came to the knowledge of the establishing the earth through, if one dare say thus, the destruction of 974 worlds that He created and destroyed, similarly through the aspect of hava aminah (I would have thought) and maskanah (conclusion). All of this is created in the image of God, and it is this wisdom which is greater than the angels who were not created in this way.”

That is a complicated piece of text. Let’s break it apart.

We know this idea that we are all created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of God. That means that each of us—even our enemies have that Divine Spark within them. Sometimes it can be very difficult to see it, but the very idea should give us hope.

The idea that we have free will is not new either. And since we have free will, we have the ability to choose good. We have the ability to return to good. That is what Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, what t’shuvah, return, repentance is about. That too fills me with hope.

What may be surprising to some is the idea that God seems to have made mistakes and created other worlds before this one. He bases this idea on Genesis 6:5-7. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord repented that he had made man on the earth and it grieved Him at his heat. And the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man and beast, and the creeping thing and the birds of the air for I repent that I have made them.”

So God repents. And God destroys. And God tries again. Just like us. God is like us and we are like God. It is both scary and comforting. The text from Berachot says it was God that destroyed the Temple and it was God who exiled the Israelites. And the voice of God, the bat kol, wept.

I can picture God like a small child, building with Legos and then smashing His design, His creation and building again.

Or maybe it is like a forest fire. If you have ever been to a National Park immediately after a forest fire, it is very sad. It looks so desolate. But out of that fire, out of ruin, almost immediately, little sprigs grow. The destroyed world becomes green again.  This too brings me hope.

Then for me the hidden part and the complicated part was the one about Talmudic arguments. Finkel seems to compare Talmudic argumentation, putting up a hypothesis and then knocking it down until you come up with a conclusion to either the scientific method or to God creating and destroying. Immediately I was transported back to a time with my father—the Jewish atheist, the Jewish scientist. The Northwestern professor. How I was drilled in the scientific method and the Socratic method too. I never won an argument with him about God. But he always loved a good Talmudic debate. Maybe now I understand why.

This too brings me hope.

I reminded the group at the Chicago Board of Rabbis about the midrash that is in Siddur Sim Shalom about Rabban Yohanan Ben Zakkai. Yohanan Ben Zakkai and Rabbi Joshua were walking in the ruins of the Temple. Rabbi Joshua said, “Woe to us that the place where the atonement for the sins of Israel was made has been destroyed!” But Rabban Yohanan Ben Zakkai replied, “Do not be grieved, my son. Do you not know that we have a means of making atonement that is as good as this? And what is it? Gemilut hassadim – acts of loving-kindness, as it is said, ‘For I desire hesed – loving-kindness – and not sacrifice!'” (Hosea 6:6). Avot d’Rabbi Natan 4:21.

Rabban Yohanan knew that the world as he knew it was fundamentally changed. The Temple was no more. People were still mourning. People did not know how to carry on. Judaism would have to change or just die out like any number of other civilizations. This was a huge paradigm shift.

But out of the ashes, like after the forest fire, there was hope. Gemilut chasadim are those sprigs of new growth that bring us hope.

Judaism is on the edge of a paradigm shift again. The numbers from the Pew Study show us precisely that. I don’t, on this Shabbat Hazon, the Sabbath of Vision, have enough vision. I do have some clarity. The synagogue, what replaced the Temple, is changing.

Gone is the need for the synagogue as community center as a social outlet. We are not living in the 1950s anymore where we needed big buildings to prove that we have made it in America. We have. We don’t need large dance floors because we can’t join the local country club. We can. We don’t need the same kind of classroom space, so much of learning is now done online.

What we do need is gemilut chasadim—acts of love and kindness, inside the building and outside the building. By doing acts of love and kindness we overcome the despair and depression. When we reach out to others we build community. We become like Caleb, filled with optimism and hope. We fulfill the demands of this week’s haftarah. 

 “‘Learn to do good, seek justice; relieve the oppressed. Uphold the orphan’s rights; take up the widow’s cause. Come now,’ says the Eternal One, ‘let us reason together'” (Isaiah 1:17–18)

When we take care of each other, when we visit people in the hospital, when we call one of our seniors or reach out to someone who has family in Israel, when we plant vegetables for Food for Greater Elgin or help build a house with Habitat for Humanity, we are doing what Yohanan Ben Zakkai was advocating for. It answers the question, “How are you being?”

And…going back to the Torah portion, “How can I bear this alone?” I can’t. I need friends. I need colleagues. I need like-minded people. I need partners. I need community. We all do. For me, that is what all of these texts are teaching.

Rabbi Zoe Klein, providing the voice of Caleb:

And you, too, will reach your promise, when you are true to your highest self. You are as worthy as I, and you need not be afraid of your potential. You were created for a reason. No creature big or small is superfluous in this abundant garden. Just as I, from Egypt, reached the Promised Land, you, from whatever low place you think you are, can reach your promise, fulfill it, and enter the living dream.

Out of the ruins, there is new growth, sprigs of green. Community. Kneseth Israel. Hope.

There will be other accounts of today’s events, I am sure. But I started life as a journalist and recording events as I see them is part of what I do.

Simon and I got up early, walked the dog and drove to Elgin to take the Metra Commuter Rail. It seemed earlier than we wanted but we really wanted to try this method, especially after it took so long last week to drive into Chicago. We barely made the train but once on, it was a pleasure. As a first, it could be a Shehechianu moment. It was fun to be able to check email and Facebook and know that others were with us, at least in spirit and still others were attending rallies, especially New York.

We got in early enough to have coffee at Union Station and then walk leisurely to the Thompson Center. I spent that walk trying to figure out why I felt so compelled to go. It is Monday, my “day off”. Did my congregants expect me to be there, even if they could not? Especially if they could not? Maybe. Did I feel I owed it to someone like Rabbi Michael Balinsky, head of the Chicago Board of Rabbis, from whom I received the initial announcement? Maybe. What about my Israeli friends or my other rabbinic colleagues? Perhaps. Ultimately, this is one of those moments where we need to stand up and be counted. Even if we don’t agree with every Israeli policies. Ultimately, I decided I owed it to myself. There was no place else I could be.

While I read that there was heavy security and sharpshooters on rooftops, it seemed pretty tame. Yes, police. Yes, security with dogs. Yes, barricades. But no bag checks. We walked right onto the plaza.

We were given Israeli and American flags. There were signs. On one side, Chicago Stands with Israel. On the other, something for everyone. I chose “Build Hope Not Hatred.” It fits my peacenik side and made me feel welcome and included.  Other options included “Stop Hamas Terror” “Shield Humans not Human Shields.”

My overwhelming thought was “This is sad. Sad that we need to do this at all.” But right across the street was the counter-demonstration. I had about last week’s counter demonstration in Chicago. Thousands of people had shown up. I had read about a counter demonstration in Toulouse earlier in the day where the synagogue had been firebombed. I had seen the photo of a car in Westchester, NY that had been spray painted with swastikas. That can’t be allowed to happen here.

We saw a few people we knew, including Rabbi Balinsky. Despite the crowds they were fairly easy to spot. There was a real mix of people–young, frequently wrapped in Israeli flags or with flags stenciled on their cheeks. Babes in arms, lots of strollers. Old–with canes and walkers, sitting on the planter walls. Rabbis, Cantors, Laypeople. Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Chabad. Peaceniks and hawks. Singing Am Yisrael Chai. Singing Hava Nagila, which seemed like an odd choice. Pausing to hear the names of the IDF soldiers killed, the names read by this summer’s JUF interns–likely the same age as those killed, followed by El Maleh Rachamim. The crowd grew quiet. Drowned out by the crowd across the street.

There were painful moments, take your breath away moments. The story of riding up the elevator with the parents of a lone soldier killed. The story of calling a young family friend and asking how he is. “Not so good.” His friend, named Yuval, had just been killed. I thought I might just crumple right there. I thought I might burst into tears or scream. Or have to leave. Why did I think coming was a good thing?

Hearing the consul address the counter-demonstration in Arabic wishing them a happy Eid. Watching the American and Israeli flags fluttering in the breeze. They look so pretty in the bright, noon sunshine. We ended singing the Star Spangled Banner and Hatikvah back to back. Have you ever noticed the line, “the bombs bursting in air” and then sung about hope? The contrast was too much.

I cried. I don’t know what else we can do.

Last night I had the privilege of going to Ravinia with Simon’s cousins. We sat outside and listened to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Joshua Bell play the Bruch Violin Concerto #1 in G Major.

It is no secret that I love to go to an outdoor summer concert–Tanglewood, the Boston Pops on the Esplanade, a band concert on Chelmsford Common. All of those would remind me of Ravinia and hearing Aaron Copeland conduct Copeland when I was a child and we lived in Evanston.

Last night I closed my eyes and listened. I could hear the birds and the crickets blend with the music. Occasionally there was the giggle of a child. I could hear echoes of another Bruch piece. Kol Nidre. The sky was blue with fluffy clouds. A plane flew far overhead, not on its way to O’Hare. Slowly the sky turned to purple and the stars came out. For 25 minutes I was transported away. For 25 minutes I experienced peace.

The world seems simple. The world, at least my little corner of it, sitting in my beach chair, was at peace.

Listening to CNN, that peace seems elusive. Today is Rosh Hodesh Av. Our mourning intensifies in the summer heat as we remember the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Jews from Israel on Tisha B’av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. The world was not at peace in 586 BCE or 70CE or 1492 CE or 1942. It is still not today.

Rosh Hodesh Av means that we are just 60 days away from Rosh Hashanah. The preparations have begun. The choir has started rehearsals.  The honors list has been drafted. I am working on Selichot, Kever Avot, Tashlich, Yizkor, to provide more meaning.

But what about peace? Can it be as simple as sitting at Ravinia? Maybe.

For several years I have asked you, my congregants, readers and friends, to write something during the month of Elul. One year it was about forgiveness. One year it was about the 13 Attributes of the Divine. This year we will write about peace.
We will culminate this project on Yom Kippur, 40 days later. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, of at one ment. Maybe that is peace. Being at one.

What is peace to you? Maybe it is lighting Shabbat candles. Maybe it is sitting on the beach watching a sunset. Maybe it is curled up with the dog (or the cat?). Maybe it is driving on the open road or watching a baseball game. Maybe it is a piece of music or piece of art. Whatever it is–tell us.

Send me your writings by August 15st to be included. Pick one aspect of peace. Tell us why it is important to you. Include a personal story of how you understand peace or what peace means to you. Make it 250-750 words. In this way you will help enrich all our understanding and the celebration of Rosh Hashanah.

May this be the New Year of Peace

L’shalom,

Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein
Congregation Kneseth Israel
330 Division Street
Elgin, IL 60120

www.theengerizerrabbi.org

I got a call from one of my chevruta partners today. She has just returned from Israel. What can I possibly say to her. She just spent several weeks in Israel, in Jerusalem studying, in Tel Aviv and in Haifa, the city she was born in and where family still lives. In each city she spent time in safe rooms and shelters. She said never had sirens gone off in Haifa and it was disorienting. She was haunted by memories of her childhood and other wars.

I, too, am haunted.

I am too young to remember 1948 or 1956. By 1967 I was beginning to understand the optimism that occurred after the 6 Day War. We–and I use that term deliberately–won and we were David to the Arab world’s Goliath. Jerusalem was ours again. All was right with the world. Of course, I was still young and I could sing Hebrew songs for peace as well as I could sing Girl Scout Day Camp songs. The bigger question was which good deed was enough to turn my Brownie pin right side up.

In 1972 we moved to Grand Rapids. That first summer I spent high jumping in the back yard and watching Mark Spitz in the Olympics. One day I too would be an Olympian. Then the world stopped. We watched the hostage crisis live. Who could forget Jim McKay broadcasting live for ABC Sports. The PLO held a press conference. I remember thinking with all the cameras in the room shooting photographs someone should shoot Arafat–with a gun, a real gun. And I couldn’t believe I could even harbor such thoughts. They didn’t fit with Oseh Shalom, Sim Shalom and Hiney Ma Tov!

In 1973 I was in temple when the Yom Kippur War started. I remember shortly thereafter going to Ahavas Israel for a fundraiser for the Jewish National Fund. I was amazed at my young age how peer pressure upped the amount of the pledges. I also remember a song that came out after the war, “Ani Mavtiach Lach. Yalda shell katanah. Sh’zot Yehiyeh hamilchama ha’achronah. I promise you my little girl that this shall be the last war.” And I believed it.

In 1977 I went with my Confirmation class to Israel. I raised half the needed fund by delivering papers, raking lawns and babysitting. With every lawn I sang, “Im tirtzu, ayn zo agadah.” Herzl’s words, “If you will it it is no dream.” The trip to Israel was wonderful. Six wonderful weeks. We toured the country, celebrated Shabbat and Tisha B’av, worked on a kibbutz, climbed Masada and Mount Sinai, sang Eli, Eli on the coast of Caesaria where it had been written. So much of what I do as a rabbi came out of that trip. And I met my first boy friend. He would be coming to Grand Rapids as an exchange program in the fall.

In 1981 I lived in Israel and reconnected with that boyfriend. It was a complicated time. But I learned the standard Israeli philosophy that Israel can’t give into terror. We must continue living normal lives. I spent some time teaching all those camp songs to kids stuck in the bomb shelter with me. I worked on a kibbutz where in the plastics factory we made two things: high chairs and practice bombs. I argued that it didn’t make sense to sell these bombs to Argentina and Chile, two of the most anti-Semitic countries in the world. I was told I didn’t know anything. I was the victim of a violent crime and yet still I loved Israel.

In 1982 Israel entered the first incursion into Lebanon. My boyfriend called on Yom Kippur afternoon to tell me he hadn’t been involved in Sabra and Shitilla, the massacre in southern Lebanon. On my birthday in 1983 my mother called at 7:30AM. I assumed to wish me happy birthday.  She had called to inform me that Yuval had been killed. She had no details. Today there was a picture posted from the IDF of the girlfriend of Tal Yifrah lying on his grave, curled in a fetal position. It is heart wrenching.

And it could be me. How does she ever go on? How can she not? Only time will tell. There are two ways (at least) to respond to tragedies of this magnitude–on the personal level and on a global level. We can curl up–and that is appropriate. We can grow bitter. We can become afraid. We can hate all Arabs. And some do that.

Or, we can realize that this fighting has not worked. It doesn’t even matter who started it and why. It doesn’t matter how many have been killed on each side and what they stood for and whether they are civilian deaths or military. All you need to do is look at the pain of this girl friend. When will her life return to “normal?” It has been 34 years since Yuval died. You tell me.

My approach was different. In the semester before Yuval was killed, Brandeis published an article I wrote explaining how the incursion into Lebanon was justifiable under traditional Jewish halacha. I stand by that paper. I stand by Israel’s right to defend itself. I don’t want friends to live in constant fear of running to shelters. I was moved to tears when I read about the little boy who woke up with a bloody nose who thought he had been bombed and the one who heard phantom sirens who woke his mother up to take them to the shelter. Hamas cannot be allowed to build tunnels and rain missiles down. They should be held accountable for using their own civilian populations as human shields and using money for weapons while keeping their own citizens in poverty.

But no one needs to experience that pain again. Ever. Yesterday I asked someone how to carry on. I was echoing a song of Peter, Paul and Mary’s.

“Carry on sweet survivor
Carry on my lonely friend
Don’t give up on the dream
Don’t you let it end.”

I first heard these words at a rally for Soviet Jews. My youth groupers, now adults with children of their own remember holding the banner for Peter and Mary. I remember crying at these words as I was trying to live them out.

I am crying again. How do we live out the optimism of 1967? How do we live out the dream of Herzl? How do we pray our ancient words for peace? Perhaps Golda Meir had it right. It has been quoted recently in the last few weeks.

“We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”

During the second incursion into Lebanon, I was in Germany. I was writing my rabbinic thesis which included a chapter on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. My question, based on the Thirteen Attributes of the Divine which includes God will visit the sins of the fathers on the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation, could the cycle of violence be stopped. I looked at many groups doing the work of peace. I concluded that unless people feel safe there cannot be peace.

Then I heard an interview on CNN–it was the only news broadcast I could understand well enough in Germany. It stopped me in my tracks. A young father was standing in front of his recently bombed apartment building holding his two month old daughter. He said he hadn’t had a problem with the Israelis. But he feared for his daughter. He feared that he and his country had just lost twenty years–a whole generation.

I am writing on that topic again tonight. My book about the Thirteen Attributes will be published next month. I spent part of the day looking at photos of Mount Sinai that I took on that first trip to Israel in 1977. I still believe that God is a God full of lovingkindness. And maybe we ourselves are responsible for visiting the sins of the ancestors on the next generations. How many generations, O God?

After every surge of violence. After wave of terror. During every incursion. During every intifada I would read this poem at services:

THE YOUNG DEAD SOLDIERS DO NOT SPEAK
Nevertheless they are heard in the still houses: who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when the clock counts.
They say, We were young. We have died. Remember us.
They say, We have done what we could but until it is finished it is not done.
They say, We have given our lives but until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave.
They say, Our deaths are not ours: they are yours: they will mean what you make them.
They say, Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say: it is you who must say this.
They say, We leave you our deaths: give them their meaning: give them an end to the war and a true peace: give them a victory that ends the war and a peace afterwards: give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died. Remember us.
(Archibald MacLeish)

When my daughter went to Brandeis for a high school summer program, she met Israelis, some of whom upon their return, went into the army. Some of the kids on that program responded, good, go kill some Arabs. My daughter wondered where her voice was. What could she say to her friends? Where was the voice of peace?

I cried driving down the Merritt Parkway listening to Ani Mavtiach Lach. I promise you, my little girl, that this will be the last war. I hadn’t heard it in years. It wasn’t the last war in 1973. It wasn’t the last war (sorry incursion) in 1982. It wasn’t in 2006. I fear that this will not be the last war either. I no longer feel I can make that promise to my little girl who has friends who are fighting in this war.

Perhaps I am just a child of the sixties, raised on peace rallies in Evanston. I hear echoes of Blowing in the Wind. “How many deaths will it take ’til we know that too many people have died?”

Are we there yet? O God? Are we there yet? Because we cannot go on this way. There must be another way.

Tonight I am not speaking as a rabbi. I don’t have answers to large geo-political questions. I speak as someone who has loved and lost. I speak as someone who has mourned for too long. I speak as a mother.  It is so painful to see these images. I cannot answer the haunting question of MacLeish’s poem. The young soldiers have died, and now died again. Did their deaths have meaning? I don’t know.

I do know we cannot sacrifice another generation. We cannot afford to.  I fear we already have.

Immediately after 911, it was Rosh Hashanah. Most rabbis changed their sermons. Mine was about Hagar. She was desperate. She put her child under a bush and cried out, “Do not let me look on while the child dies.” I wondered how desperate a mother is when the prayer is “I don’t want to watch” rather than “Save my child.” But God opens her eyes and she find the water that was already there, allowing her to save her child. She found another way. We have to find another way. We have to find the people who want to make peace. Who want to save their children. And ours.

I can’t promise you that this will be the last war. There needs to be safety. On both sides.

Tonight we mourn. For the Yuvals. For the Tals. For Tal’s girlfriend. For the Sarahs. For Hagar and Ishmael. For Abraham and Isaac. For all the children who wake up to the sound of sirens. And those who wake up to the sound of bombs and no sirens. For the death of innocence. For the death of the dream.

I promise you, that in Yuval’s name, I will continue to work for peace. Not just pray for peace. Actively work for peace. Pursue peace. Run after peace. We have to find another way. It is the only response that makes sense to me. No one needs to go through this pain again. Ever. Period.

Truah, Rabbis for Human Rights, published my D’var Torah for this week. http://truah.org/resources-91356/divrei-torah/583-sanctuary-cities-no-walk-in-the-dog-park.html

It is remarkable how current and timely Torah can be. This week we read about setting up ir miklat–cities of refuge, shelter. The very word miklat is the word in modern Israel for a bomb shelter. While most of my thoughts are on Israel and the continuing tragedy there, I cannot forget what is happening on our southern border either. Think this is just about Tucson and San Diego and Texas? No so. There are implications for all of us. Here in Elgin, where 40% of our population is Hispanic. For Lowell, a city of immigrants.

In preparing the D’var Torah, I learned much–much more than could be put in a short, online D’Var Torah. I challenge each of you to learn more about this topic–from a halachic standpoint and from a humanitarian crisis standpoint. Then let’s figure out what each of us can do.