Yom Kippur Morning Sermon: The Day After

The 10^th of Av, the year 70.  April 5, 1968.  September 12, 2001.  These are the days after the days that define us.  The days after a great wound.  The days after a seemingly incomprehensible act.  The days when we feel we cannot go on, because how could we, or why should we.  The truth is, the days after may define us even more than the days of tragedy themselves.  Everyone likes to ask and talk about where they were on the day that the Towers came down, but do we ever consider where we were the day after.  How many of us might have gone to donate blood?  How many of us were glued to our television sets, clutching at loved ones?  How many of us turned to the Temple to seek comfort, solace or some sense of understanding, even though we knew that it would most likely be impossible to come by?

How do we treat the day after an important and defining day?  How do we live and survive in the aftermath of history?  How do we continue to live when it seems like our lives are turned upside down?  When everything we thought we understood has been questioned and challenged?

Let me tell you about another day after tragedy.  The 8^th of Tishre, Year one of Creation.  This was just two days ago, a mere 5774 years ago.  The day after God ceased from the work of creation.  The day after God rested.  Everything is done, but things are not necessarily as God intended.  On the 6^th day, God created Adam; and from Adam, God created Eve.  God placed them in the Garden of Eden to live.  But on that 6^th day, in the late afternoon, almost the evening, in fact, at twilight, bein hashmashot, right before that first Shabbat, just before that first day of rest, Adam and Eve eat from the fruit of the forbidden tree and are expelled from Paradise.  וַיְגָרֶשׁ, אֶת-הָאָדָם; וַיַּשְׁכֵּן מִקֶּדֶם לְגַן-עֵדֶן אֶת-הַכְּרֻבִים, וְאֵת לַהַט הַחֶרֶב הַמִּתְהַפֶּכֶת, לִשְׁמֹר, אֶת-דֶּרֶךְ עֵץ הַחַיִּים^[1]

According to the Aggadic Midrash Pirke De Rebbe Eliezer,^[2]  Adam spends the 7^th day, that first Shabbat on Mount Moriah, the future site of the Temple in Jerusalem, the land just outside Eden.  He touches the adamah, the land, from which he, Adam, had been formed.  The expulsion from Eden sends Adam to his roots, rocks him to his core, looking for answers.  The midrash goes on to teach that just as God celebrated the first Shabbat on high, Adam did so below. And it is only by grace of Shabbat that Adam is saved from harm outside the gates of Eden, on that 7^th day, on that first Shabbat.

On that Shabbat, Adam takes time to reflect.  He has the time and space to consider this defining moment in his very young life and try to come to terms with it.  In a way, that is the purpose of Shabbat for all of us b’nai adam, all of us children of Adam, we human beings.  We pause, we rest, we reflect.  Adam does; and the midrash teaches that he is changed because of it.  Adam comes to understand what he did and tries to make up for it.  Adam is experiencing Teshuvah, for the tragedy that defines his lifetime is his fault.  Yet, he does not want the expulsion to define him.  The time of Shabbat allows him to think about where he is, how he got there and how he’s going to turn and move forward.

We all need time after a difficult situation.  We need time to acclimate to our new reality.  We need time to get used to our new skin, our new clothes, our new status.  We need time.  It is said that time heals all wounds.  Well, just ask Cain if that is true.  Time may not heal all wounds, but with time, our wounds become less noticeable.  They become a recognized part of who we are.  We carry them with us.  We grow accustomed to them.  They no longer surprise us in the mirror.  But sometimes, they sneak back up upon us, as if they were opened anew.

Adam can never go back to Eden.  This he will carry with him his entire life.  But with time, he starts a family and the blemish of the past, though never fully washed away, blends into who he is and what he is made of.

Adam’s first true test comes the next day.  The 8^th day.  The day after creation is completed.  The day after Shabbat.  The day after the wings of the Shechinah shielded Adam from the evils outside the Garden.  On the eve of that 8^th day, as darkness descends, Adam begins to worry.  His heart flutters as he has visions of the snake coming back and biting at his heels.  That snake, that advice, that moment of awakening: all those memories, painful and prideful, come flooding back to him at once.  What is he to do?  Everything is different.  Though he ate from the tree of knowledge, he feels as if nothing is known.

Another Midrash, Bereishit Rabbah, teaches that at this point, Adam uses two flint stones to create fire to keep himself warm and bring some light into this foreign darkness.  Pirke De Rebbe Eliezer, however, teaches that it is a pillar of fire which is given to Adam by God.  Rebbe Eliezer wants us to know that God is with Adam, even in the darkness.  In this defining moment, his first moment of fear, his first sense of: “Oh My God, I don’t know what to do!”  God is with him. 

Adam recognizes this and so Adam does what we have continued to do: Adam looks for the holiness in the divine and in his surroundings.  Adam creates the Havdalah by blessing God for creating the fire.  Adam then blesses the division of holy and profane, using the knowledge he gained from that one bite of fruit to do what only God had done before, and recognize distinction.  And so, in a Godly act, Adam senses the holiness of the moment and blesses his new situation.  Adam joins with God in sanctifying, creating blessing.  As God blessed the Sabbath day and declared it Holy, so, too does Adam bless the 8^th day.  On the 8^th day of year one of creation, Adam recognized that elements of the divine dwell within him.  This is our heritage.

Over the last year, we have experienced much together as a community.  Much joy and much tragedy.  We gained new family members and we lost loved ones.  The terrors of violence and war ravaged our hearts and our minds.   The winds of Sandy whipped at our homes and our neighborhoods.  And what did our Temple community do, the day after the storm?  The day after Sandy struck, as our refrigerators were struggling to keep the milk cold, and our freezers thawing.  As our televisions remained dark and our computers and phones lost their charges, how did we respond?  We responded by displaying the best of community and joining as one community.  Our humble Temple may not have had phones or internet, but we did have power, and we used it to recharge our devices alongside ourselves.  We gathered together as individuals, information spreading by word of mouth and emails sent and received by smartphone.  The day after, we came together as a Temple; we opened our doors and made coffee and put out power strips.  We came together as a family, to our home, and we supported each other.  We sat with each other.  How good and pleasant it was to sit alongside one another. 

And then the most wonderful thing happened, amidst the angst over when the LIPA trucks might come, and the concern for our friends and neighbors, while we were hoping that our Temple structure had not been severely damaged, seemingly out of nowhere someone donated lunch for everyone.  Their house had been spared the brunt of the wind damage and they still had power, and so they opened their hearts and their pockets like the synagogue opened its doors.  The truth is, this lunch did not appear out of nowhere; it was out of a sincere generosity of spirit: a good deed simply because it had to be done.  And when one person opened his heart, along came another person, buying dinner for everyone.  These may have been modest gestures, but they prove the axiom that one mitzvah begets another one: Mitzvah goreret mitzvah.  And because we were together in the presence of community on that day after the storm, it was all the easier to see the good deeds, the gemilut chassadim, the acts of lovingkindness, have such a profound effect.  It was as if a pillar of light from the Eternal had come down from heaven to illuminate our community and our home.

Because Religion and being a part of a religious community—yes, it is about tribe and it is about custom.  It is about acting a certain way, eating a certain way, not eating a certain way, dressing a certain way…  But it is also about coming together.  A synagogue has many different purposes and many different names.  On the one hand, it is a Beit Tefillah, a house of prayer.  For many of us, this space and our sanctuary serve a primary purpose, communing with God and trying to answer the seemingly unanswerable questions of life and love and existence.  A synagogue is also a Beit Midrash: a house of study.  As we come together to learn words of Torah, in all their variations, we create memories and connections as a cohort of Adult B’nei Mitzvah students or confirmands or HS graduates.  A Synagogue is also Beit Kenesset: a house of gathering.  We come together to make ourselves a community.  When God calls the people or speaks to them through Moses, most often it is as a community.  Gather the people: Hakhel et ha’am. 

A synagogue has one more name, a Kehillah Kedoshah: a holy community.  What does it mean to be holy?  The Torah reading for Yom Kippur afternoon is known as the Holiness Code.  It begins with God addressing Moses: “Speak to the Israelite community and tell them: You shall be holy, for I the Eternal your God am holy.”[3]  Well, this doesn’t really explain what holiness means.  But the chapter continues with more detail.  Honor your parents.  Keep the Sabbath.  Do not make false idols.  Leave the corners of your field for the poor and the stranger.  Do not steal.  Do not take the name of the Eternal in vain.  Do not rob.  Treat your workers fairly.  Treat people without prejudice.  Do not hate your kinsman.

What it means to be holy is to revere the past and recognize the holiness and the Godliness in everyone and everything around.  Holiness can mean set aside, special.  When we band together the day after our community is rocked, or even after one of the members of our community is shaken by a personal tragedy we transform this building into a holy community.  When we open our doors, and open our hearts and look with kindness upon each other in our time of need, we define what it means to be a holy community.  When we share in the joys of our friends, and comfort their sorrows, we define holy community.  When we come together to learn and bring the spirit of God between us, we define our holy community.  When we reach outside our walls to try and make the world a better place, we define holy community.  Of all the different names, purposes and attributes of this synagogue, the moniker of Kehillah Kedoshah is perhaps the most important, and for sure the one which will leave the most lasting impression.  When we come together and recognize the holiness in each other and in ourselves, we move to a new spiritual level as individuals and as a group.  All of these: the study, the care, the comfort, the lovingkindness – these are the benefit of being part of a synagogue community.  We have somewhere to go the day after.

Like Adam, we have knowledge.  Like Adam, we have the opportunity to mark our defining moments, big and small, because, like Adam, we are people of faith.  Adam was not a Jew.  There was no Judaism.  But Adam knew God.  We have the divine spark within us to see the world: good, evil, hard, easy, paradise, exile, to see all these things and to recognize the holiness inherent in them.  Unlike Adam, we are not alone.  We can lean on each other, confident in the holiness of togetherness and the holiness of community.

We cannot think it will ever be as easy for us as it was for Adam.  None of us awaits an actual pillar of fire to come from the heavens.  We cannot expect to instantly sense God’s presence in our pain and despair, in those days after.  What Adam does is look for the holiness and remember.  It is up to us as well look for God in our defining moments.  To look for God in the people around us.  To see the holiness in one another and in coming together, particularly in times of distress. 

Between this Yom Kippur and next, let us strive to continue to see the holiness in our community.  Let us make every effort to imbue our lives and our Synagogue with the qualities of a true Kehillah Kedoshah.  Let us celebrate with one another and grieve with one another.  Let us all be there for the days after, the weeks after, the months after.

Surviving Yom Kippur is like making it through a difficult ordeal.  Not just because of the fasting and the long hours at prayer.  Not just because we remember our loved ones most vividly, but because on this day, God’s judgment is passed.  This evening, as the gates are closing, we may all say that we have made it through the trial of Yom Kippur together.  And as we light the twisted wicks of the Havdallah candle as Adam did those 5774 years ago, and smell the sweet aromas of the spices, may we all sense the holiness inherent in this day.  And the day after.

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[1] Genesis 3 :24

[2] Pirke de Rebbe Eliezer Chapter 20

[3] Leviticus 19:2

Kol Nidre Sermon: Hunger

            The first day of rabbinical school in New York City is a whirlwind.  A group of students arrive, having just spent 10 months together in Israel and looking forward to four more years of learning.  On those first days, some, who have never lived in New York before seem a little taken aback by the power of the energy in the city.  Some, whose lives before Israel existed in New York, take pride in their insider status.  
            Students in their 4^th or 5^th year, experienced, and passionate with all-knowing sensibilities about them arrive to clue the new students into the ways of the New York Campus.  Where are the good places to eat?  What happens when the subways are delayed?  Are the professors caring?  Each of these questions, answered in turn, with kindness and grace.  And all these questions boiling down to one meta-question: what are the customs of the institution that we need to learn so that we can become an integrated part of this seminary?  It was on that first day of my second year of Rabbinical School that I learned about our community’s ongoing social action and education project, the HUC-JIR Soup Kitchen, where I would spend almost 3 years as a cook and volunteer.

Some 21 years earlier students at the seminary felt compelled to do something when they noticed that the streets they traversed through the West Village were riddled with homeless people, hungry people, and people needing help.  What is a seminary to do?  What are seminarians to do?  How can students, living on a tight budget themselves, help?  The idea was to create a kind of haven for anyone in need.  The college had a kitchen, and had storage space.  First came the desire to make a difference, then the effort to make something happen.  And so, now almost 26 years ago, the soup kitchen was founded.   The ethos behind the program is that it is run by students, with community volunteers, who cook, organize a closet with goods and clothing, and serve the guests.  There is no line for food, only tables set with tablecloths where anyone needing a meal can come in on a Monday evening and eat something warm, have a hot cup of coffee, make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the road, and take a break from the streets.

In the years since its founding, the neighborhood, as many in New York City, has changed.  NYU’s continuing growth and expansion raised property values.  The homeless in New York City have been helped or moved on to other neighborhoods, and yet there is still a need, evidenced by the almost 100 people who show up every week.

The need over the years has changed.  Yes, there continue to be homeless people who come in, but more and more over the years the soup kitchen at HUC has become a haven for the working poor: those who work and maybe make too much money for government assistance.  Or those who get government assistance but know that what the government provides in terms of food aid is never sufficient.  As the end of the month nears, the number of guests grows, because food aid arrives on the first of the month, and by the end, there is often nothing left.  Every meal that isn’t paid for is a help.  Hunger, an issue that was solved a generation ago in this nation, is back and is a growing issue.  More and more, however, it is understood less as hunger, and more by the term food insecurity: not knowing where your next meal might come from, being unsure that you will be able to acquire the food, most often due to poverty.

As Jews, we are not strangers to hunger and food insecurity.  Our forefathers and foremothers often suffered from food insecurity.  Our Torah and our history are riddled with examples of the impact of hunger.  When we first meet Abram, before he is even Abraham, no sooner is he promised the land by God, than a famine strikes and he and Sarai must leave for Egypt to find refuge and food.[1]  Abram’s food insecurity is so severe that he has no choice but to leave his newly acquired home to try and survive.  This story repeats with Abraham’s son, Issac, who experiences a famine in the land.[2]  In Isaac’s case, God blesses him, saving him from the famine and causing his crops to multiply and, even in the midst of the famine, Isaac to profit and grow in stature.  Every Passover we read the story of how Jacob and his sons dealt with a famine.  The famine in the land in Jacob’s generation causes Jacob’s sons and their tribes to make their way to Egypt where they grow into a great nation, and are eventually put to slavery.  Every generation of our ancestors dealt with food insecurity.

But, that was a long time ago, something like 4500 years ago, surely we have made progress, particularly in a nation as wealthy and powerful as the United States.  The truth is we have made progress, and we have both the ability and the supply to feed everyone, but do we have the will?  And, do enough people know about the issues are care enough to try to make a difference?

This past year, the documentary and companion book called A Place at the Table explored the modern phenomena of hunger and food insecurity in America in the 21^st century.  In the documentary, the ebb and flow of hunger and food insecurity are put on full display, and it is shocking to realize that in this nation, up to 50 million people are hungry or food insecure.  That number includes 17 million children, representing 1 in 4 children in this nation whose next meal is not guaranteed.  What is even more shocking is the knowledge that one generation ago, hunger as an issue of concern in this nation was almost completely solved through government intervention and media spotlight on the plight of the hungry.  What has happened in the last generation is an increase in wage inequality and a stagnation of wages, particularly the minimum wage.  What this means is that as food costs, energy costs, transportation costs and rents have all increased, the amount of income for a low-wage earner has not kept the pace.
            Now, there is a lot of cheap food out there, you see it every time you go to the store; but the cheap food that low-income earners can afford is often packed with empty calories – fats, sugars, and starches – leading to a new commingling of effects.  In the areas where food insecurity is highest, so are rates of obesity, particularly among children.  Obesity leads to diseases like type 2 Diabetes which ultimately become chronic conditions and have led to skyrocketing healthcare costs.  Everything comes back to food and nutrition.  When the only food that can be afforded is not nutritious, what is a family supposed to do?

Included in this issue is the fact that government assistance, which was largely responsible for eradicating hunger in the last generation, has been drastically cut.  Between compromises on budgets to sequestrations government assistance barely keeps a family fed for a month, and as is shown in A Place at the Table, once you find a job with a better salary, suddenly you make too much money to qualify for aid.   Often this means more food insecurity than when you were making less money.  This is not how people in this nation should be living.  
            No person, no child, should have to deal with what Rosie, one of the subjects of the documentary, has to deal with when she says, “Sometimes my tummy growls, but I don’t know what to do.”  Rosie’s story is sadly not unique, she represents the approximately 1 in 4 children in America whose next meal is not guaranteed.  Because of Rosie’s hunger and the stress of living with hunger, her performance at school suffers.  Imagine what it would mean for our nation to have 25% of our students unable to concentrate, unable to learn, unable to succeed and participate in the American dream because they were hungry.  What will that mean for us a generation from now?  We cannot afford not to do something.

As Jews we understand hunger.  Our holiest day of the year, the day more people come to Synagogue than any other, this day, Yom Kippur, is, for many of us, about hunger.  It is about recognizing that ache in your belly, and reminding yourself what it is that we have done over the past year.  It is about refraining from eating and drinking to show our devotion to God and to the process of return, of teshuvah.  And this is not the only fast day.  Depriving ourselves for our faith happens on other days of the Jewish year as well.  We fast to commemorate the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem.  We fast in solidarity with Esther.  There are a handful of fast days on our calendar, when our bellies growl, and our mouths are parched.  Hunger is not a foreign concept to Judaism. 

But our prophets teach us that the Yom Kippur brand of fasting is only part of the solution.  Isaiah cries out to us in the Yom Kippur Morning Haftarah to teach us where our focus should truly lie.

“They ask me the right way, Isaiah proclaims, “as though eager for the nearness of God.  ‘When we fast, why does God pay no heed?’ we say.  ‘When we afflict ourselves, why does God take no notice?’ we demand of the prophet.”  Isaiah responds to the people’s requests with God’s words: “Because on your fast day you think only of your business! … Is this the fast that I look for!?  A day of self-affliction?  Bowing your head like a reed, and covering yourself with sackcloth and ashes?!  Is this what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Eternal?!  Is not this the fast that I look for: to unlock the shackles of injustice, to undo the fetters of bondage, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every cruel chain!  Is it not to SHARE YOUR BREAD WITH THE HUNGRY, and to bring the homeless poor into your house?  When you see the naked, to clothe them, and never to hide yourself from your own kin!”[3]

Share your bread with the hungry, Isaiah commands us.  God would rather we feed the hungry than feign piety by fasting.  True piety, according to Isaiah, true commitment to God and to teshuvah is achieved by acting like God.  By doing what we can to bring God into the world.  In our prayer, we recognize many of God’s kindnesses and generosities.  “The eyes of all look in hope to you and you give them food in its season, opening your hand and sating to their pleasure all living things.”[4]  God gives food with an open hand, according to the Psalmist, and Isaiah tells us that we are to share our bread willingly.  Isaiah is commanding us to find the Godliness in ourselves and take care of those less fortunate.

Isaiah’s message has been heard by some, but it is time for us all to take heed.  Food security is a human right, and we should do whatever we can to ensure that right for every person on Long Island, in America and in the world.  We are not strangers to feeding the hungry.  Our Torah and Jewish legal codes implore us to leave the corners of our fields and the gleanings of our harvests for the poor.

As government assistance continues to decrease for those in need, those suffering from food insecurity, faith and community based initiatives to feed the hungry have taken on much of the burden.  Whether we believe government should be doing more or not is not at issue.  The fact is that right now, the government’s assistance is not enough.  One of the programs that has provided much success is the school lunch program.  Students whose families qualify are fed lunch, and sometimes breakfast at school, so at least they know that they get those 10 meals a week.  Unfortunately, students who are on subsidized lunch and breakfast programs while at school must scrape by on weekends and during the summer.   And this is where innovation comes in.  Organizations like Island Harvest see a need, and do whatever they can to fill in the gaps and provide food for those who need it. 

I recently had the opportunity to visit the Island Harvest distribution center in Hauppaugue and learn about some of the great work that they do.  What is so special about their program is how innovative and agile it is.  When a gap in services is spotted, Island Harvest attempts to fill that gap.  For example, in the school lunch programs.  Every week, students who are on subsidized lunch would plan to go home for a weekend of food insecurity.  Island harvest devised a program which gives food for the weekend to make up for the gaps in government assistance.  The backpack program feeds 1600 students a week amounting to over 50000 meals.  The summer food program provides over 24,000 lunches over the summer to students.  And these programs make a difference.  Students who are not worried about their next meal, or distracted by hunger pangs perform better.  
            One student, Iyana, a 4^th grader, wrote the following to Island Harvest:

Thank you for giving my family food every Friday.  It helps my mom and sisters not to be hungry. When my family was in the motel and we didn't have anything to eat, we could count on Island Harvest.  My sister loves the chocolate milk.  My sister loves the applesauce.  My mom loves the mac and cheese.  Also my cousins love the juice.  And I just want to thank Island Harvest for all they have done for me and my family.[5]

What this letter shows is that the food given for one child actually helps and feeds a family.  Iyana’s entire family eats the food, and not because they want or prefer a handout, but because they have no alternatives.  For whatever reason, Iyana’s family is dependent on the generosity of organizations like Island Harvest and Island Harvest is dependent on the generosity of people like us.

At Rosh HaShanah, I asked, as did Stefan and Jamie Rosner, that you consider bringing in food to donate to Island Harvest.  I suggested that you think about what you might normally eat on Yom Kippur, and, even if you are not fasting, fill the bags provided in the lobby and bring them back here during Yom Kippur.  If you have not yet done so, there is still time, for just as the gates don’t close until tomorrow at sundown, the boxes ready for your donation of non-perishable foods will be in our lobby all day tomorrow and through Sukkot, our festival of harvest.  And there will be more opportunities for us to give.  We all know how difficult times are.  Sometimes we may struggle to make it as well.  But, if there is anything we should take away from these 27 hours of food-free atonement and the joy at our break fast gatherings, we cannot sit by while our neighbors are hungry.

In this New Year, let us resolve to do more to combat hunger in our community.  This Yom Kippur, let Isaiah’s words ring in our ears, so that we may reenergize our commitment to tzedakah, to righteousness and justice.  Let us resolve to find our passion for social justice and social action and rejuvenate our community’s commitment to making our world better by being bearers of the Light of God, and doing God’s work here on earth.  We may not be able to feed every child, and it will take much advocacy and a firm voice in the voting booth to systemically eradicate hunger and food insecurity in our times, but that does not mean we are free to desist from doing the work.

G’mar Chatimah Tovah.  May you be inscribed in the book of life.

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[1] Genesis 12

[2] Genesis 26

[3] After Isaiah 58

[4] Psalm 145 Alter, Robert, trans.

[5] Provided by Island Harvest

Rosh Hashanah Morning Sermon: A Call to Prayer

This sermon is based on the sermon I delivered at HUC-JIR in my 4th year.

           Across Jerusalem, a city built for spiritual seeking, calls to prayer are sounded to the faithful.  All preparation must be completed as the city glows golden in the setting sun.  All projects postponed as the stars are arranged in their places.  All work put aside before the siren calls, low and dull, across valleys and high places…and into souls.  Hearing the call to prayer, communities make their way.  Compelled.  Some, called to have a personal conversation with God.  Some, called to communal obligations. Some, called to continue ancient traditions.  Others do not hear the call to prayer or do not heed it.

Do we hear a call to prayer?  One evening not that long ago, as I walked through a mostly empty parking lot, I was caught off guard by a brightness gleaming above me.  I looked up and found myself staring at a full moon, partially covered by clouds, its shine hardly a “lesser light” as it lent its silvery radiance to the night sky.  I stood amazed, struck by the majesty and the beauty.  Awed by the kedushah, the holiness, of that moment, I said aloud: “How can you not believe in God when you look up at something like that?”

At that moment, I recognized God.  I felt holiness and needed to say so.  Looking back, I see how this spontaneous prayer imbued simple words with deep personal meaning.   

Meditating on the kedushah of the moment and embracing the presence of Adonai, I experienced a call to prayer: a moment of solitary kedushah.  I believe many of us have experienced moments like this, whether out in nature, helping feed those in need, watching as our child or our grandchild plays or smiles when she sees your face.

Individual prayer has always been a hallmark of the Jewish experience.  And our texts tell us as much.  In our morning blessings, we recite words about our individual souls: “The soul that you have given me, O God, is a pure one…you breathed it into me and within me you sustain it.”  This blessing we recite each morning, thanking God for our soul’s return is a personal prayer.  The morning blessings we recite, thanking God for giving us sight, and giving us freedom among other attributes, are all personal prayers to God.  Every morning, we are called to thank God and praise God for our individual lives, souls, bodies and minds.

But it is not only when we arise in the mornings or when we are taken aback by a sight in nature or our lives that we are accustomed to praying to God as individuals.  Sometimes, we need something and the only one to turn to is God.  In the Haftarah for Rosh HaShanah, we read the story of Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel.  Her story is not an uncommon one, either for the Bible or for people today.  Hannah struggles with infertility.  She, like Sarah before her, turns to God for help. 

Hannah and her family would go every year to the Temple at Shiloh to offer sacrifice to God.  Remember that this all takes place before David conquers Jerusalem and before Solomon builds the Temple.  One year, after her suffering had become too much for her to bear any longer, Hannah goes to the Temple and prays. And she does so with fervor and with passion.  She is so passionate and so caught up in her prayer that the priest, Eli sees her and mistakes her silent devotion for drunkenness.  He demands that she leave.  Her response is subtle and tinged with emotion.  “You mistake me, my Lord,” she replies.  “I am a sober woman.  I have had neither wine nor liquor, but have been pouring out my heart before the Lord…All this time I have been speaking out of my great sorrow and grief.” 

Hannah’s response to Eli the priest shows the power of personal prayer, the importance of time spent talking to God.  At that time, talking to God was either done through prophesy or through sacrifice, the notion of prayer, the idea of it was not common.  Yet, in her grief at her family situation, she felt that her only recourse was to talk to God.  To try and tell God how she was feeling.  To try and let God know that God needs to act, that the time has come.  How many of us have been there, at a time when we are at our wits end, when we feel we can go on no more?  How many of us understand the heartache Hannah is going through either because we or a loved one have gone through a difficult time and the only action we could take was to cry out to God?  Whether we are in awe of nature or exasperated at it, sometimes all that is left is our one-sided conversation with God.  Hannah’s prayers are answered, and in return she dedicates her son to God.  Ultimately, he will become a prophet, choosing and crowning the first two kings of Israel, Saul and David. 

Judaism places importance and significance on personal prayer.  Personal time talking to God.

In particular, the personal experience defines what many of us understand to be prayer, even prayer that takes place in community.  Dr. Larry Hoffman describes this phenomenon.  He explains that from ancient times until probably about 50 years ago, Jews prayed in a specific direction.  When we say the Kedusha, a reenactment of conversations between angels and God, The three angels in the Kedushah chorus, Hoffman tells us, were originally understood as our inner conscience, but directed toward the heavens.  The modern preference of prayer, however, is to look not necessarily upward, but inward.  In antiquity, the desire was to go up and join the angelic host in the heavens.  In contrast, “The goal of worship for many moderns,” Hoffman writes, “is to go ‘deep down inside ourselves’”^[1]  In other words, to commune with God in the deepest most personal way possible.  We aim for this in prayer: striving for the personal God experience. 

But, our tradition does not teach that a Jew can have a complete spiritual life if he or she only prays alone.  We must, at times, pray together.  When the siren sounds in Jerusalem, while it touches people individually, it calls a community to assemble: men, women and children.  Come and pray.  Come and approach God, together.    When the Israelites are wandering through the desert, the entire community is gathered together at the Tent of meeting, the Mishkan, to witness the sacrifices made to God and to hear what God has instructed through Moses.  The people come together – each with their own hopes and prayers, yes, but still together ready to be a part of the conversation with the divine.  When Hannah comes to Shiloh, she is in a place where her family and other Israelites come together to pray.

Our liturgy even makes a dramatic shift from the morning blessings, which focus on our individual relationship with God, to the communal relationship that God has with the people.  We move from blessings about the soul of an individual to blessings about the souls of the community.  “Let every living soul bless Your name, O Lord our God…Through all eternity You are God, we have no King but You.”  This shift from the personal to the communal carries with it a strong message.  We must recognize that though our prayers be personal, we do not exist in a world or a community alone.  We are pray-ers, praying alongside other pray-ers

The liturgy of the High Holy Days makes a point of our communal nature.  When we pray Avinu Malkeinu, we say “our father, our king.”  It is not that God is my father or your king, but God is for all of us, as a community.  When we pray the words of the confessional, the Vidui, the sins listed are in the communal plural because we know that even if we did not each personally commit every one of the sins listed, someone in our community may have and so we confess on their behalf.  These High Holy Days represent the most communal moments of prayer for our people.  We are your people, you are our God!  We come together in large numbers and pray for each other’s well-being.

Meeting God one-on-one in a communal prayer setting is particularly difficult.  Praying in community takes a sincere belief that we must, if necessary, sacrifice a bit of our own experience to help others approach God.  It takes persistence: continual practice.  When we pray for forgiveness from our communal sins, we must take some of the focus off ourselves.  We become a part of something bigger, something communal which has a different kind of power and a different feeling.

Each time we come together and pray, we may not be as lucky as the Israelites in the desert.  We may not make it to the Mishkan, to the Tent of Meeting where God’s presence was felt.  Sometimes we may barely see the opening of the Tent, remaining in the back, behind the crowd.  Other days, we may find ourselves utterly lost amidst the assembled men, women and children.  Nonetheless, we have to search every day, for encounters with the divine.  Communal prayer gives us the opportunities to come to the Mishkan regularly, to meet God.

Even the angels of the Kedushah,  contemplate God’s holiness together: “קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת; מְלֹא כָל-הָאָרֶץ, כְּבוֹדוֹ  Holy, Holy Holy is Adonai of Hosts, God’s glory fills the earth.”^[2]  We pray these words every morning, extolling God’s holiness.  Mimicking the angels’ chorus, shouting, each one to the other:  Holy!  Holy!  Holy!  We pray, each of us standing on our toes, trying to fly, fluttering,^[3] inching ever upward from the earth to the heavens, to get a taste, a moment, a spark of divine holiness. 

When we say Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh together, do we recognize the personal experience comingled with the communal, or are we merely playing at angels?  Do we believe, with all our heart, our soul and our might that by participating in this chorus we can experience God’s presence?

We no longer view prayer as an obligation in our movement.  As modern people, and as Reform Jews, we have made decisions to skip over certain parts of our Torah readings, particularly those parts dealing with sacrifice.  We tend to gloss over the number of bulls or rams that God demands on a particular day.  We choose to ignore the notion of a freewill sacrifice or a guilt offering to God.  What that leaves us with is a sense of Torah with a good deal of narrative when God is talking to us, but very little notion that the people talked to God a lot.  Every sacrifice was a conversation with God.  Every time the altar of the Eternal was lit, the people created a connection to the heavens, and though the sacrifices were often individual, the people came together to offer them.

Praying together is what Jews have done for ages, and though we are in a modern period marked by individualism and a sense that we can, and in fact should, each have our own relationships with the divine, the communal experience continues to be important.  One wonders how much comfort Hannah might have found if she had been able to pray her silent prayer, but surrounded by her community: bolstered by the strength in numbers, feeling the silent presence of a friend or neighbor sitting alongside her.  Even if she had not shared her struggle, what might the presence of another have given her in that moment?  

And this is why as Jews we often require a quorum to pray.  Ten adults coming together is more than a requirement, allowing us to say the words of prayers.  A minyan is a symbol of community because it means we have all taken to heart the needs of others and we expect that others are considering our needs.  We recognize that there are people in our community hurting, grieving, in pain: we come to support them.  We recognize that there are people celebrating, living, rejoicing: we come to share our good wishes with them.

And yet, in too many communities, even in our own, the sanctuary is all too often empty.  Milestones are often only attended by direct relations.  Calls to participate in our services are all too often unanswered.  In this New Year, let us each strive to be a part of a prayerful community.  Let us make a commitment to each other that we will be there to support and to celebrate.  

If you are not a regular synagogue goer, try it out.  Consider coming once a month for five months or consider coming five weeks in a row to a Friday Night service.  What might you get out of it?  What might change for you?  What might you be able to add to the service and to the sense of community?  If there is a special celebration happening, a graduation or confirmation, what might it mean to the graduates or the confirmands to know that their community, more than just their parents and classmates, supports them?  What might it do for our Temple family to see our sanctuary regularly filled with voices who have come not only for themselves, but because the call to pray in community was so strong it could not be ignored.  What might it do for someone to find that their home is filled during a shiva minyan?

What it will do is bring us closer to God and closer to each other.  We use prayer to mark the passage of time.  We pray out of pain and suffering as Hannah did.  We pray when we mourn.  We pray to celebrate.  When we join with our community to pray, we learn about our neighbor’s lives.  We begin to understand each other more, gaining a sense of the seasons of our lives.  We gain a sense of who is in need and who can be of help.  Praying together brings us closer, even if only via a conversation at the oneg.

It is time for us to talk to God on a regular basis, and it is time for us to do so together as a community!  It is also time for us to start to discuss what prayer means to us and what we hope prayer will look like and sound like.  I know that the Cantor and I have some ideas, but we will need your help, your advice and your counsel.  This spring, I will be teaching an adult education course on prayer, but the specific topic is not yet determined.  Let me know what you want to know about prayer.  Let us begin to think about the words we use and the prayerbook we use.  When we make prayer as meaningful as possible for each of us individually and for our community, we strengthen our relationships and our community. 

As the sounds of the shofar echo through this room in just a few minutes, and we rise as a community to hear them, let them be a call both to each of us and to all of us.  Let their sounds remind us of our journeys, from wholeness to brokenness to wholeness again.  Let them call us to prayer.

Shanah Tovah

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[1] My People's Prayerbook vol 2. P 92.  Hoffman, L. on Kedusha

[2] Isaiah 6:4 and Shacharit

[3] My People's Prayerbook vol. 2 p.89 Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev describes the motion as fluttering.

Rosh HaShanah Morning Opening Prayer and Closing Benediction

I had a number of requests for these words; I offer them here with proper attribution.

Rosh Hashanah Opening Prayer:

Thanks to Rabbi Maralee Gordon for pointing me in the direction of this lovely poem by John O'Donohue:

A Morning Offering

I bless the night that nourished my heart
To set the ghosts of longing free
Into the flow and figure of dream
That went to harvest from the dark
Bread for the hunger no one sees.

All that is eternal in me
Welcome the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate.

I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Wave of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.

The book in which this poem is found: 
http://www.amazon.com/To-Bless-Space-Between-Blessings/dp/0385522274

Rosh Hashanah Closing Benediction:

Thanks to Rabbi Lauren Gabrielle Hermann for sharing these words.

A Rosh Hashanah Blessing by Alan Zoldan

May you be inscribed in the Book of Unsung Everyday Heroes 
and may you be written in tear-streaked water colors in the Book of Compassion.

May your page in the Book of Menschlicheit never know from wine stains,
and may your entry in the Book of Those Who Take the Time to Listen & See be as spectacular as the summer’s last rose.

May you be acknowledged in the Book of Those Who Enjoy Books & in The Book of Happy Endings, and may your listing in the Book of Those with Inner Strength be big and bold.

May you believe deep in your heart that there is a Book of Faith
with your name on a page that you will never see.

May your name be written in glowing coals in the Book of Fiery Letters
and in tiny raindrops on the spider-web pages of The Book of Dew.

May your name be written again and again, for all blessings given and received, hidden and obvious, fleeting and forever, like the memories of honey on your tongue.