I relay a wonderful story from Philip Goodman’s “The Rosh Hashana Anthology”:
At the conclusion of the service, the cantor approached Rabbi Vevel, the maggid of Wilna, to extend New Year greetings and to be complimented for the manner in which he led the congregation in prayer.
The rabbi returned the greeting and added:
“It says in Pirke Avot: ‘The world is based on three things: Torah, prayer and deeds of kindness.’ Blessed is our congregation which fulfills these three requisites. I teach them Torah; you pray for them; and they perform deeds of kindness by listening to both of us.”
My work is always gratifying, but especially in times of crisis. As you can imagine, this time of year is both exhilarating and exhausting.
I thought I would share the written materials from the High Holy Days.
Hope and resilience were the themes of the first day of Rosh Hashanah. I spoke about how an oscillating narrative helps us to become stronger and more resilient. Here are the accompanying handouts that I shared with the congregation. Click here for my sermon. Click here for the oscillating narrative handout. In particular, I draw your attention to the Do You Know Scale— I know you will enjoy this exercise with your family.
On the second day of Rosh Hashanah I spoke about hope. I taught texts about hope — one was written by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and the other was written by Rabbi Yael Vurgan, a rabbi who serves the communities that were attacked on October 7. Click here for the handout. Here is also a video about Rabbi Vurgan. In addition, I shared meaningful stories from survivors of the October 7 attack. Quite by chance I came upon this article about Avigail Mor Eden. As you may recall I referenced her story in my teaching. Have a look at this article.
On Yom Kippur I wrote a new martyrology service that allowed our community to both express the pain and grief that we all carried during the year but I also included an inspiring story of strength and resilience. Throughout the High Holy Days, I emphasized the following themes: memory, courage, bravery, peoplehood, healing and hope.
Sukkot begins tomorrow night. Sukkot is nicknamed the Season of our rejoicing. Why is it called that? First off, it is the only holiday in the Torah in which God commands us to “have a good time!” Leviticus 23:40 וּשְׂמַחְתֶּ֗ם usmachtem
you (plural) shall rejoice!” How do we rejoice as the war continues in Israel? How do we rejoice with 101 hostages still in Gaza? To answer this question, I am reminded of the wonderful poem by Yehuda Amicha,
A man doesn’t have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn’t have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.
A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.
And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,
to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest
what history
takes years and years to do.
A man doesn’t have time.
When he loses he seeks, when he finds
he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves
he begins to forget.
And his soul is seasoned, his soul
is very professional.
Only his body remains forever
an amateur. It tries and it misses,
gets muddled, doesn’t learn a thing,
drunk and blind in its pleasures
and its pains.
He will die as figs die in autumn,
Shriveled and full of himself and sweet,
the leaves growing dry on the ground,
the bare branches pointing to the place
where there’s time for everything.
Amichai is telling us that we must embrace contradictory experiences concurrently, navigating the complexities of love, hate, joy and sorrow. In this new year may we find ways to hold these complex emotions in our hearts and prayers.