Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation

Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah 2025 Drash by Sam Bagenstos

by

By Sam Bagenstos

Rabbi Gabrielle introduced this drash by referring to the power of memory.  I may be taking the point in a different direction than she intended, because I’m going to talk about how memory can sometimes have too much power over us.

For many of us, memory is central to what it means to be Jewish: memory of resilience in the face of oppression, memory of ultimate triumph, memory of the great contributions of Jewish scientists/lawyers/baseball players/what have you.  These collective, communal memories are a part of who I am, just as, I am sure, similar memories are a part of who you all are.

The liturgy tells us that “Nothing is forgotten in the presence of your Throne of Glory.”  But I’ve been reflecting a lot recently on the dangers of too much remembering–too great a focus on our communal memories.

One danger is unwarranted nostalgia.  We may fixate on a time when we remember everything as better than it is today and try to go back.  It’s not just people in red baseball caps that say “Make America Great Again” who do that.  How many of us have secretly hoped to go back to a time before some rupture, some change, something that happened that unsettled all our basic understandings of the world?  (Maybe that something was the rise of all the folks in red baseball caps.)  But there are some facts we can’t ignore: even in our wished-for time before the fall–however we define it–everything wasn’t so great.  And the world has changed too much to go back in any event.

Another danger is unwarranted analogy.  We may fixate on particularly salient collective memories–perhaps especially painful ones–so much that we mistakenly see that history repeating everywhere.  Sometimes, we’re right:  Today, fascism, eugenics, and anti-semitism are resurging.  But we err when we let our painful communal memories lead us to see anti-semitism in legitimate–even harshly phrased–criticism of Israel for the injustices it is perpetrating in Gaza and elsewhere.  In these cases, memory leads us astray–it leads us to act from fear rather than from our basic humanity and the values we endorse when we are our best selves.

And a connected danger is unwarranted partiality.  Our community is not the only one with collective memory.  In Hebrew school, I learned a story about 1948–a brave band of people like me (I could even fool myself that I looked like Paul Newman in Exodus), underdogs who fled or were kicked out of every country in the world, fought for a place where they (we) could finally be safe.  For the people who lived in Palestine at the time and their descendants, though, 1948 marks the Nakhba, the tragedy in which they were kicked out of their homes, had their property taken, and from which they would never know safety.

The point is not to ignore or disparage our collective memories.  They are a source of strength and resilience as we navigate fearful times.  They are a part of who we are as a community and as individuals.  As I was flipping through the machzor during the Amidah, I found this passage from Isaac Leib Peretz on page 385 that captured the point: “If you have no past you have no future either, you are a foundling in this world, with no father or mother, without tradition, without duties to what comes after you, the future, the eternal.”

So the point isn’t to scrap our memories.  It’s to understand the limits of those memories–to recognize that our communal values are also at the center of who we are.  Values like those expressed in our Haftarah portion on Yom Kippur: “To unlock fetters of wickedness, And untie the cords of the yoke To let the oppressed go free; To break off every yoke.”  In 5786, I will recommit to living those values.  Shanah Tovah.

Creativity Kavanah (Rosh Hashanah 2025)

by

By Kathryn and Seth Kopald 

Kathryn’s paragraph 

Rav Gav asked Seth and I to share how the power of creativity shows up in our lives and how it has allowed us to step into the fullness of life. 

For me, art making has become a sacred practice, and it’s been especially important during the past year which has had its share of challenges, sorrow, and pain. It is a place for me to connect, shift my perceptions, and know myself better. Engaging in the creative process, using my hands, quieting my mind is a sanctuary that I return to again and again. It allows me to step into my power, and be more fully present in the world. 

Seth’s paragraph 

Creativity is a life force that carries wisdom, potential, and hope. Creativity is not only expressed through making art, or making anything; it’s also a way of thinking and being. I like to use my creativity while woodworking, art making, playing music, writing, and more. It’s a place where I don’t follow other people’s rules, unless I choose to. 

Mitchell Widharma, a friend who was deported this year, just posted this on FB, “Be weird, do art”. To me, he’s an example of holding your power. 

Next, Kathryn and I will read a poem that we co-created. We each wrote ideas that were important to us on strips of paper, and we moved them around on the kitchen table until this poem emerged. We hope it’s meaningful to you. 

Creativity is the expression 
of Aliveness 
We are driven to 
moved by 
examples of 
pure expression 

It is nourishing to the very core 
Of who we are 
Connecting and reconnecting 
To the Divine within 

Creativity is 
Free Will 
My hands 
move 
with 
Divine Sovereignty 
I create for me 

It’s the why 
The purpose 
The heart 
Of all I seek to do 
And become 

Creativity is Freedom 
You cannot control my connection 
to the Divine flow 
There’s no right or wrong 
endless possibilities 
In this moment 
I AM 
Eyeh Asher Eyeh 

It’s unstoppable 
Its public expression 
can be controlled 
Its private expression 
CANNOT 

2
Creativity 
is one of the innate 
powers of all humans 
And it's one of the first 
to be squelched 
But the Pilot Light of Creativity 
can never be extinguished 
We need to give ourselves permission 
to turn on the gas 

As we create 
we are in a state 
of transference 
Ideas transferring 
out of our bodies 
Hands 
Mind 
and spirit 
Engaged 
Bringing hope 
when the world 
feels hopeless 

Creativity 
a force that moves 
through me 
A higher power 
who doesn’t 
follow 
human rules 

Connecting me deeply and fully 
to my own inner wisdom 

Creativity 
will live 
with or without me 
I pick it up 
or someone else will 

To make change 
when change is needed 
To make sense of 
what doesn’t make sense 

3
To feel into sadness and loss 
and see 
the beauty 
in feeling those things 

To release 
what was given to me 
what I didn’t ask for 
and 
what no longer serves me. 
To cultivate joy 
when joy cannot be found 

The way 
to tap into 
creativity 
is to be fully present 
in the moment 
where the fullness of life 
resides 

To be here 
in this moment 
present when the world 
feels darkest 
To be a light 
and point the way

Rosh Hashanah Sermon – 2025/5786

by

By Rabbi Hazzan Gabrielle Pescador

Each Rosh Hashanah, we chant the story of Sarah and Hagar.

Two matriarchs of the Abrahamic lines—Israelite and Yishmaelite.  At odds.  Wounding one another.

Last year, I leaned hard on Sarah—on her harsh treatment of Hagar, her overreaction to Ishmael’s behavior.  I painted her as jealous, reactive, cruel.  And although that interpretation is legitimate, it is just a fragment – only part of a larger story.

We are living in a time when people are focusing on fragments, polarized fragments, partial truths, and it is not getting us anywhere.  We are living in a time that demands broadening our perspective.  We are living in a time of over-reactivity – and we all know that over-reactivity rarely comes from nowhere.


Heaven knows I have overreacted in my own life.   To criticism.  To insult.  To being dismissed.  To the ache of feeling unseen.  

And I know I’m not alone.

Add “power to the mix”—add differentials of power to that mix—and the impact – the pain deepens.

Those of us who value democracy, fairness, justice—we’re sensitive to power imbalances.  Such imbalances stir deep responses within us, and I daresay that over-reactivity is one of them.

Sarah was not without power – she had the power of position—she was wife number one. Hagar also had power—she carried what Sarah wanted most: a son.  Hagar also had the power of voice, and she used that power to taunt Sarah, to make her feel small, less than. Sarah used her power of privilege to influence Abraham to banish Hagar – she used her power to punish, to be vindicative. Both women wielded what they had.  And it wasn’t pretty.

And yet, despite their reactivity, despite their cruelty toward one another – neither was abandoned by God.  Sarah was graced with a child.  And Hagar—exiled, desperate—was met by God – whom she named El Ro’i: The God Who Sees Me.  She did not name God as All-Knowing or All-Powerful—but as The God Who Sees.  The One who promises that even in exile, even in despair, our stories continue.

That name, El Ro’i, has stayed with me. Because being seen—and truly seeing—are two of the more sacred powers we have.

The Midrash tells us that Sarah felt diminished when Hagar conceived – Sarah felt unseen.  Hagar also felt unseen when she fled.  It took exile, pain, surrender before either woman could feel God’s gaze.  Both women—flawed, reactive, human—were still beloved.  Still seen by God.  Still worthy of blessing.  Still worthy of love.  Still worthy of redemption.

And this story is not just about biblical matriarchs.  The pain of being unseen, of feeling overshadowed and dismissed is ubiquitous.  Overreaction to that pain is everywhere—in our families, our communities, our country.  In Israel, in Gaza. Across the world.  In our own hearts.

Deep pain triggers harsh responses.  It drives oversimplification, dehumanization of “the other.”  

Hurt people hurt people.  Hurt communities hurt communities.  Hurt nations hurt nations 

When hurt people, communities and nations—fail to SEE the pain that drives their behavior, reconciliation becomes impossible. 

So, on Rosh Hashanah, we begin here (hand on heart). With teshuvah. With the power of seeing, inwardly and outwardly. That is the power of El Ro’i.  The God who sees us.

This year, I ask myself—and I invite you to ask yourselves with me:

  • Who have we mis-seen?
  • Who have we dismissed because we only knew part of their story?
  • What within ourselves have we turned away from or diminished? 
  • And what do we learn from seeing – How does our ability to see, understand and recognize transform us? 

If I make may speak personally – I’d like to share a story about one of my family matriarchs.  Because let’s face it – if we don’t get real, if we don’t get personal about this stuff, it becomes too abstract, and it’s harder to learn the lessons that we need to learn.

My Bubbe Sarah—my father’s mother—was sharp-tongued and very quick to overreact.  She was also capable of deep love.  She adored my father and my uncle.  I also felt loved by my Bubbe—she taught me how to pray, she made clothes for my dolls, she played with me, and let me play with her hair and experiment with crazy hair styles, which didn’t seem to faze her. And she loved my interest in Judaism.  She would affectionately call me the Rebbetzin—the rabbi’s wife – I wonder what she’d think of me now.

Even though my Bubbe Sarah and I got along well, I recognized the pain that her sharp tongue caused others.  And as I got older, I grew less tolerant of it and even began to keep an emotional distance from her.

As the years have passed, I have gained some perspective and realized that my Bubbe Sarah lived a very hard life: she was the eldest of eight children, an immigrant, widowed young, poor, with the burden of raising two sons on her own.  Two sons who became doctors.  She was SO proud of that, she was SO proud of them.


My bubbe Sarah was tough, intelligent, quick-witted and devout.  And she ached to be seen—for her sacrifices, for her mind, for her experience— for her beauty that faded with age.  And when she felt the pain of being dismissed or unseen, she lashed out.  And I found that lashing out deeply unpleasant and even embarrassing.

So as a young person, I knew I didn’t want to be like her.  I wanted to be gentler, more accommodating, more diplomatic, more of a peacemaker.  And I overdid it, I overcompensated.  You could say that I over-reacted.  When I felt threatened or hurt, I did not lash out, but instead, I bit my tongue and made nice.  It took many years of life experience and self-examination to realize that biting my tongue and making nice – as a reflex reaction – was causing harm to myself.  

I realized that like my Bubbe Sarah, I also needed to be seen and be heard just as much as I need to see and hear others. In seeing my Bubbe Sarah more fully over the years, in seeing my over-reactions to her over-reactions, I see myself differently today.  

I see more possible ways of responding and I have stepped into some of them – I have experimented.  You could say that I forgive her – but that’s not really accurate – I see her and how she affected me – and as a result, I have opened to new ways, to hopefully healthier ways of relating.  I see her in me, not brushing against me.  She was a mixed bag just like I am a mixed bag, trying to do the best I can.  So maybe I forgive her for lashing out or forgive myself for not speaking up or maybe forgiveness isn’t even the point.  Maybe what matters is recognizing that I have space to move, to grow because I can SEE now.  

I wish my Bubbe Sarah could have had the chance to see.  Who knows, maybe she does now, on the other side, as an incarnate soul.  I love to imagine that possibility.

This intergenerational lesson of seeing can ripple outwards.  It is my hope that when we witness people speaking or acting in ways that don’t land well –individuals, communities, or even nations—let’s open our eyes wider.  

I really believe that widening our perspective helps – it does not erase wrong-doing – but it does help us to understand the reasons behind it – and helps us learn how to meet the other with more awareness, more compassion – because on some level, we get it.  If we allow ourselves to see, we’ll get it.  

Over-reactivity doesn’t come from nowhere.  

Seeing and being seen – softens tension, softens pain.  It eases the way for transformation, for healing and repair.  And that begins here [touch the heart] – with rippling effects moving inward and outward. 

That is how I imagine El Ro’i saw Hagar.  And how the messengers of God saw Sarah—not finished, not discarded, but still vital to the story, still unfolding, learning, growing, blooming.

We all deserve a second look—with eyes more compassionate, more curious. This year let’s commit to seeing ourselves and one another more fully.  

May we see.
May we be seen.
May we believe that repair is possible—
even in the mess and the ugliness.

Shanah tovah.

Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5785

by

In today’s Torah reading, we learn that Sarah has trouble conceiving, and instructs Abraham to be with her handmaiden Hagar, who then gives birth to Ishmael.  Hagar lords motherhood over Sarah which makes Sarah resentful, and although years later, Sarah miraculously gives birth to Isaac, she still feels insecure and starts scheming to secure Isaac’s status in the family hierarchy, and has Abraham banish Hagar and Ishmael into the wilderness with limited provisions.

Today’s Haftarah also pits two women against one another over fertility issues, Hannah and Peninah, the wives of Elkanah.  Hannah can’t bear children, which devastates her.  Peninah, on the other hand, is fertile, and lords this over Hannah.  Elkanah tries to reassure Hannah and tells her that she is worth more than 10 sons, but Hannah cannot be consoled, and prays intensely, with bitter tears.  She bargains with God – if God gives her a son, then she will offer him for priestly service.  

Hannah’s way of praying grabs the attention of Eli the priest who notices that her lips are moving but without sound, and so he accuses her of drunkenness.    Hannah explains that she is not drunk but rather praying intently.  Eli believes her and gives her a blessing: לְכִי לְשָׁלוֹם  (lechi l’shalom) – go in peace  – and assures her that God will grant her request.  And Hannah bears a son.

There is another parallel between the two biblical narratives, regarding making an offering of the son with first-born status. In the case of Hannah, she willingly makes an offering of her son Samuel to priestly service.  With Sarah and Abraham’s son Isaac, it is more complicated and one of the most problematic stories in Torah.  God commands Abraham to take a knife to Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice.  Thankfully an angel intervenes, and Isaac is spared.  When Sarah hears that her precious son had almost been sacrificed, she dies of shock.  

In comparing the two stories of making an offering of the first-born son, we see differences in the states of consciousness of the two mothers in question.    Hannah doesn’t give into the pettiness and jealousy that we see in Sarah’s treatment of Hagar.  Hannah doesn’t have Elkanah banish Peninah and Peninah’s children.  Instead, Hannah turns to faith whereas Sarah’s faith appears questionable.  Upon overhearing the angels tell Abraham that she will conceive a child in her old age, Sarah laughs; it seems that Sarah had given up on her dream and loses faith.  Hannah, on the other hand, does not give up, she does not laugh, but cries bitterly and prays. 

We read in Talmud (Brachot 32b): “From the day that the Temple was destroyed the gates of prayer have been closed, but the gates of tears are not closed.”  The Ralbag of medieval France adds that combining prayer and tears brings one closer to God. 

 In other words, our feelings count, our tears count, our grief counts. 

Through Hannah’s tears, vulnerability and authenticity, she draws closer to God, and to her emotional and spiritual truth.  She keeps the conversation going; she bargains and promises to make an unselfish offering in service of the community.  No animals, no people were slaughtered or sacrificed on an altar; the power of words and the power of tears were used instead.

Hannah’s story teaches us that our feelings count and asks us to examine how the yearnings of our heart can be turned into offerings.  What we want and what we long for, what we are grieving over can crack our hearts open and inspire us toward generosity, sharing and giving.  The story of Hannah encourages us to be in conversation with our own hearts and not stifle that inner voice.  

The rabbis of the Talmudic period were so affected by Hannah, that they said (Berachot 31) we must all move our lips when we pray.  We do this together, as a community.  Our individual yearnings, our individual conversations with God, that flow from our own hearts, are held together with the individual yearnings and conversations with God that flow from the hearts of the people sitting next to you, and the people sitting next to those people.  

In this space, we yearn as unique individuals and we yearn together.  We cry as individuals, and we cry together.  

The contrast and parallels between Sarah and Hannah’s stories have a lot to teach us.  We can see that our biblical ancestors were capable of evolving from one generation to the next.  Through her deep, authentic prayer Hannah makes a tikkun on Sarah’s pettiness and jealousy.  Hannah changes the paradigm and breaks a cycle of dysfunction by transmuting her suffering in a more enlightened way, that is not only good for her, but for future generations.  

None of us had perfect parents nor perfect ancestors; none of us are perfect human beings.  Reviewing our developmental and family history safely, with softness and compassionate curiosity, allows us to see patterns of conditioning and shaping.  Some of us may find it useful to do this in a professional therapeutic setting.  Some of us may prefer to journal, meditate, go for cranial sacral treatments or Reiki.  Some of us do all of that to walk the path of self-discovery, which is work worth doing and doing safely.  It is the work of liberation and healing, not just for us, but for the future generations who stand on our shoulders.  

Just as our biblical ancestors have evolved so can we.  If they can break through cyclical dysfunctional patterns and find healthier ways of acting and being, so can we.  These stories invite us to awaken to the dysfunctional patterns that we have absorbed because of personality, ethnicity, culture, history, tradition, and our very religion.   These stories charge us to open our hearts and minds, to be bold, to challenge the status quo, and embrace the sacred wisdom of the past while at the same time release what is no longer working.

Hannah, spoke directly to the Source of Being.  She did not go through a mediator or priest.  She allowed herself to be vulnerable without apology, to stand in her authenticity with strength and resolve.  She did not get rid of the competition nor abuse her privilege.  She prayed with all her heart.  She did not let her grief stifle her inner voice.  She remained hopeful in her pain by continuing to be in conversation with God and as such, she elevated her consciousness and made a commitment to share the gift that she might receive, and in so doing she shifted the paradigm for all of us.   Hannah’s story inspires us to move in this direction.  Zichronah livrachah.  Remember her and her story for she is a blessing for all of us.  Learning from the contrast of her story and Sarah’s is a blessing for all of us.   May we continue on the holy path of learning from our ancestors, for their sake, for our sake and for the sake of future generations.

Rosh Hashanah Morning D’var Torah

by

Rabbi Debra Rappaport, AARC, 5783/2022

Introduction to the Torah Service

As we move into the Torah service, I want to give you a bit of context for what we’re about to read. The Rabbis of the Talmud designated two different – both poignant and challenging – stories for the two days of Rosh Hashanah that were to be observed in diaspora. As an interesting aside, Rosh Hashanah is the only holiday for which the second day is still observed in modern Israel. Most of the time, when congregations observe one day of Rosh Hashanah, we read one or the other of these stories. This year, Deb and I thought it would be meaningful to read the eventful parts of both stories, and no, it’s not a longer Torah service, it’s the same number of aliyot you usually do. 

Why do we read these particular stories? 

The rabbis of the Talmud first linked Rosh Hashanah with the birth of Isaac, thus connecting the new year with new life in fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham and his descendants. The Talmud also linguistically links Biblical verses about remembering to sound the shofar on Rosh Hashanah with God remembering Sarah in our Torah reading, and Hannah in our Haftarah reading. God remembered them, and their children were conceived on Rosh Hashanah (BT Rosh Hashanah 11a). This is our traditional first day reading, where we’ll start.

The subsequent chapter of Torah, Akeidat-Yitzhak, the binding of Isaac, connects the story of Abraham’s trial – being told by God to sacrifice his son – with aspects of the shofar service. According to a rabbinic legend, Abraham bargained with God at the end of the trial, insisting that, because he had done his part by not withholding Isaac, God must now protect Isaac’s descendents by remembering on their behalf this act of sacrifice every Rosh Hashanah, the annual Day of Judgment. God agrees to this demand and tells Abraham that, in order to remind God of this agreement, Isaac’s descendents should blow a ram’s horn on Rosh Hashanah in remembrance of the ram that was sacrificed instead of Isaac (Midrash Tanhuma, Vayera, 23).

After the Torah service, we’ll share some reflections. So I invite you to follow along in whichever language you understand, and ask yourself, what can we learn for our lives and our world by looking at the stories together?

[Aliyot from Genesis 21 and Genesis 22]

After Hagbah and Galilah

These stories, read together, wow. Each year, they certainly invoke God-wrestling! And reckoning with our own judgmental natures. 

20th century Israeli poet Haim Guri, in a poem called Inheritance, ended his version of the binding of Isaac with these words: 

The child, freed of his bonds

Saw his father’s back.

Yitzhak, it is said, was not sacrificed.

He lived a very long time,

Seeing the good, until the light of his eyes dimmed.

But that hour 

he bequeathed to his descendants

still to be born

a knife

in the heart.

What we’ve inherited is heavy. Many poets, including Yehudah Amichai, Chana Block, Alicia Ostriker, and more have captured the paradoxes of these stories in their words, helpful somehow in integrating them. Sometimes I’m grateful for annual opportunities to wrestle with our patriarchal stories; sometimes I want to say to my fellow Jews: team, it’s time for some new foundational stories, stories of collaboration.

But these are our stories, our people’s stories. The rabbinic endeavor has always been to redeem them, to find the good. Here’s what I offer in that lineage: these are stories of human trauma. We tell them to learn from them, not to emulate our ancestors’ behaviors. 

I offer three teachings I’m receiving from the two stories taken together.

  1. The first is that our job of teshuvah, making amends and turning into our best selves, needs to include empathy. Marsha Pravder Mirkin teaches in depth about this in Beginning Anew: A Woman’s Companion to the Holidays. Mirkin explores the interpersonal backdrop of these stories, looking at moments of empathy (like Abraham arguing with God on behalf of the righteous citizens of Sodom) and many moments prior to these stories in which Abraham shows an extraordinary lack of empathy toward his wife. She picks up on the wording of God’s response to Abraham, regarding Sarah’s complaint. God tells Abraham, “shema b’kola” (21:12) – listen or hearken to Sara’s voice – and then God promises to make nations of both his sons. Mirkin writes, “Traditional interpretation takes these verses to imply that God meant Abraham to obey Sarah and expel Ishmael. Such traditional interpretations often hear language through a patriarchal sensibility. However, a feminist understanding of this language creates a world of difference between “listening to her voice” and “obeying.” Sarah was distraught, she was lonely, she was frightened. She needed Abraham to empathize with her feelings, to listen to her feelings. She did not need him to take action, nor do we need to hear God’s words as a request that Abraham take action.” The message here is that in several pivotal moments, our protagonists were not able to see or hear what was really before them, and that teshuvah requires cultivating empathy for ourselves and others, and an intentional effort to give people the benefit of the doubt.
  2. A second learning also comes from noticing what was absent for our patriarchs and matriarchs. Avram had been told by God to leave his land and his people to go somewhere new. He and Sarah did not have any community. Sarah didn’t have friends to vent her insecurities to. Abraham didn’t have friends who might have said, “are you sure that’s what God told you?! – what are you thinking? Maybe you should wait…” This past week I learned that my dear friend’s son and his wife are splitting up, even though they still love each other a lot. In the year and a half they’ve been married, this couple has lived in three places, during the pandemic. They had no opportunity to build community. It’s too much pressure on any one family to figure out challenges by ourselves.
  3. Last but not least, I want to share where I find inspiration in these stories: In the darkest, most severe life-or-death moments, a third way opens up. In both cases, the protagonist hears a call from God or an angel, alerting them to change course. Then they both see with new eyes. Hagar, at the moment she is wailing her son’s immanent death, “God opened her eyes,” and she saw a well of water. Similarly, Abraham heard a call to not sacrifice Isaac, and then vayisa Avraham et eynav vayar’a – Abraham lifted up his eyes and he saw – and check it out, there’s a ram! The learning is not only about finding another way when we feel trapped, but in coming back to our physical senses, hearing, seeing, knowing through more than our minds, knowing through integrated experience what is true. And aligning ourselves with that.
    My personal version of this involves some combination of being in nature, moving my body, and prayer, which when things feel really dark will eventually bring me to a big cleansing cry. Somehow the world then moves from grey tones back to full color, and choices seem to soften around the edges. Unfortunately I can never think my way out of those sorts of binds, so something feels powerful and true about sensory interventions. 

These Torah stories place the struggles of our own lives in the context of human nature, and remind us just how difficult life can be. In closing these reflections, I offer a quote from Jewish Buddhist master teacher Joseph Goldstein: 

Seeing the suffering in the world around us and in our own bodies and minds, we begin to understand suffering not only as an individual problem, but as a universal experience. It is one of the aspects of being alive. The question that then comes to mind is: if compassion arises from the awareness of suffering, why isn’t the world a more compassionate place? The problem is that often our hearts are not open to feel the pain. We move away from it, close off, and become defended. By closing ourselves off from suffering, however, we also close ourselves to our own wellspring of compassion. We don’t need to be particularly saintly in order to be compassionate. Compassion is the natural response of an open heart, but that wellspring of compassion remains capped as long as we turn away from or deny or resist the truth of what is there. When we deny our experience of suffering, we move away from what is genuine to what is fabricated, deceptive and confusing. (from Seeking the Heart of Wisdom)

May we all learn from what Sarah and Abraham were tragically unable to grasp. May this holy season help our hearts open so that we may return, shuv, to presence with our essential compassion and essential inter-connectedness with all life.

Rosh Hashanah Kavanot 2022

by

What a joy it was to learn from and enjoy our community’s teachings on Rosh Hashanah. If you missed it or would like to read the Kavanot that were shared by Emily Eisbruch, Seth Kopald, Anita Rubin-Meiller or Dave Nelson you are in luck! We have posted them here on our blog to read and cherish going forward. Mazel Tov to our Kavanah writers on your profound and heart felt teachings, your contributions are deeply appreciated.

Gratitude for Community
– by Emily Eisbruch

Welcome community of
sharing, being, caring
Music, chanting, praying, dancing
Group aliyot with meaningful themes
Acknowledging our struggles and naming our dreams

Helping with the mitzvah corps
Warm congregation we are working for
August picnic at Bandemere park
Breaking the fast, after havdalah, after dark

Being together through COVID blues
Telling our stories in the Jewish news
Building thoughtful bonds on our listserv Recon chat
Where we ask each other, how about that?

Terrific book group conversations
On jews throughout the generations
Holidays – latke versus hamentashen debates
and pondering of collective fates

Creating chuppah cover squares
A gorgeous collaboration where each one shares
Ner tamid, Magillah ark, Torah Table tapestry
Members manifesting their artistry

For our youth, environmentally and ethically aware
An innovative and bold Beit Sefer
At these days of awe, let’s take measure
Of the community we are together
With gratitude, let’s look at how to nurture, how to be
In the Hebrew year five seven eight three

Praying from the Heart 

By: Seth Kopald 

As we continue deepening into our Rosh Hashanah experience, I invite you to ask yourself: Who is praying? 

Take a look inside. Is it a part of you who is going through the motions because this is what we do on Rosh Hashanah, or one who thinks we “should” be praying on this Holy day? Is it a part of you who might want something from G-d: healing, forgiveness, even a sense of ease? You may notice how much of your attention is above your shoulders, in your cognition. 

Now, slowly allow your attention to drop into your heartspace. Notice, you can sense yourself and the people around you, from your heart. From this place, perhaps we can extend warmth and love to those parts of ourselves who think we should pray, and recognize their desires and their fears. 

–

From this place of deep compassion for ourselves, we can then turn to G-d. From our heart, notice how we feel in G-d’s presence, no matter how you sense or perceive them. Perhaps you feel, or have felt abandoned, by G-d. Yet, for a moment, see if we can feel the acceptance that is there, and how we are also a part of the Divine – the life force we all share that is our true Selves? 

–

Can we for a moment, if you choose, allow yourself to be held, to sense the presence of something greater than ourselves. See how our hearts respond, how our bellies respond, and how our full bodies want to respond. Perhaps ask G-d in this moment: What do you want me to know? And see what you sense. . . 

–

As we move forward in prayer, let’s commune with G-d from this place, alive, embodied, vibrant, compassionate, and from our hearts – let’s commence in prayer.

Kavanah on the Non-Duality of the Divine

David Erik Nelson

About two weeks into the pandemic one of my kids had a question about the Kabbalistic Tree of Life diagram. I don’t recall what the question was, who asked it, or if anyone’s interest persisted long enough for me to find an answer.

But that got me looking at kabbalah, and I kept returning to it, because in those claustrophobic early days of the plague it was definitely more reassuring to read commentaries on centuries-old rabbinic esoterica than anything I was likely to see in the Washington Post.

I’m one of those people who often prefers to follow “the words of your heart” instead of the ones in the siddur. So I’m sharing this, for those who are likewise inclined.

Just a warning: at first, what I’m gonna read will come off as kind of anodyne and hippy-dippy. Then, on reflection, it will begin to seem sort of awful. That makes me nervous.

But I’m still going to share it with you. 

It starts like this:

The essence of divinity is found in every single thing—nothing but it exists. Since it causes every thing to be, no thing can live by anything else. It enlivens them; its existence exists in each existent.

Do not attribute duality to God. Let God be solely God. If you suppose that God emanates until a certain point, and that from that point on is outside of God, you have dualized. Realize, rather, that GOd exists in each existent. Do not say, “This is a stone and not God.” Rather, all existence is God, and the stone is a thing pervaded by divinity.

I don’t think that’s too earth shattering, right? I mean, it sounds an awful lot like a combination of Yoda describing the Force and the first lines from that Beatles song “I am the Walrus” (♬♫♪ I am he as you are he as you are me / And we are all together … Koo-koo-ka’choo… ♬♫♪ )

But Rabbi Moses ben Jacob Cordovero—the 16th Century Kabbalist who wrote what I read—doesn’t leave it at that. He goes on, and that’s where things get potentially…uncomfortable. Cordovero says:

Before anything emanated, there was only God. God was all that existed. Similarly, after God brought into being that which exists, there is nothing but God. You cannot find anything that exists apart from it. There is nothing that is not pervaded by the power of divinity. If there were, God would be limited, subject to duality. Rather, God… is present in everything, and everything comes into being from it. Nothing is devoid of its divinity.

That’s a little more extreme than Yoda and the Beatles. 

Because Cordovero isn’t saying “All of the good things are pervaded by God” or “All of the righteous are children of God” or “Everything in nature is God.”

His claim–which you could derive just from the words of the Sh’ma–is that “Nothing is devoid of God’s divinity.”

That’s … problematic. If I say nothing is outside of God, then I’m surely saying that the squirrel is divine and the car is divine, the meat is divine and the bullet is divine, the victim is divine, the killer is divine, the rescuer is divine, the ambulance divine, diesel is divine, the kid watching it all on YouTube is divine–

That all quickly becomes overwhelming. 

Cordovero claimed that by “Contemplating this, you are humbled, your thoughts purified.”

I don’t know about that.

But I do know that contemplating this non-duality—this complete saturation of all of reality (good, bad, and ugly) in the divine—feels simple and honest and true, in the way the Sh’ma feels simple and honest and true. 

And, on a functional level, it helps me get past the bumpier bits of our liturgy. 

A lot of us feel weird begging the forgiveness and protection of “Our Father, Our King” in Avinu Malkeinu. I feel less weird about it when I reflect that I am singing to a paternal majesty in which we all co-participate, that I’m begging me to forgive me, and for us to forgive each other, and to protect each other (and all of everything) from pestilence, sword, famine, captivity, destruction, iniquity–and all the other very unpleasant things that dwell together with us in the divine.

Zichronot

By Anita Rubin-Meiller

When my mother died in 1986 at the too soon age of 64, 3 months after my wedding, I made a decision to remember God. I was acutely aware of my choice…would I see God as this distant, all powerful entity that just took my mother’s life; or would I turn to the God of my still evolving understanding…a Divine presence shining through the loving and comforting presence of friends and family.  I chose the latter and remember gathering in my childhood bedroom with 3 of my dearest friends, sharing memories, laughter and tears. The blasts of the shofar in this Zichronot section of the Shofar service are a calling from God to us to remember we are never unseen, never forgotten; to remember the God that took care of Noah and saved the species of the Earth from total extinction; to remember that we too, are tasked with seeing the holiness in each and every living and breathing life form; that because we are remembered our actions matter.

There is an old fable, recounted in M.Scott Peck’s book…A Different Drum. It tells the tale of a monastery that had “fallen into hard times.” With only 5 monks remaining, its order was dying. Desperate for new possibilities, the aged Abbot makes a visit to the Rabbi from a nearby village. The Rabbi too was experiencing a dispirited community and so the two faith leaders conversed and commiserated. As the Abbot readied to return to the monastery, he asked if the Rabbi could offer any advice. The Rabbi responded, “ I have no advice to give, but the Messiah is among you.” You might guess what happened then…perhaps it would happen here, or anywhere…the monks, thinking that the Messiah could be any one of them started treating each other with immense kindness; started seeing the particular sparks of God each one manifested; started creating an aura of love and respect that began to attract visitors and even young men desiring to join the Order.

In my nascent meditation practice with the Awakened Heart community, I have been learning over and over again how reality is defined by what we bring our attention to. The shofar blasts of Zichronot ask us to bring our attention to God’s covenant; to the God whose image we are created in; to a God that is not only Sovereign but in the words of Rabbi Samuel Barth“a parent who has time and love for each child”. Through the teachings of Ram Daas, we are being asked to bring our attention to a God who bids us to “love, serve and remember.” What would it look like if what we were paying attention to and remembering was the Divine unfolding in the universe through the interconnection of everything? At the Awakened Heart August 2020 retreat, Sylvia Boorstein, a beloved Jewish Buddhist teacher, offered this drash to introduce the prayer: Hah-raynee m’kah-bel ahleye et mitzvat haboray Ve-ahavtah l’ray-ahchah k’mochah; translated by Rabbi Jeff Roth in this prayer chant as: I take the mitzvah upon myself of loving all who cross my path, offering kindness from my heart, loving you and loving me:  She said,“My choice of the most important commandment might be fixing a mezuzah to the doorposts of your house because when you go in and out and touch the mezuzah you are sensitive to this passage, “to love God with all our soul, all our might, all our heart”. If you took it really seriously you can’t just kiss the mezuzah and leave, you can’t take any grudges with you, so you have to stand in the doorway and think about it for a while – Ok, I can do this; Ok, heart clear – Go! And when you return, you pause, I can’t go in until I’m sure that my heart is free of negativity…may I be free of negativity and the danger it would pose to me of confusing my mind. You have to check yourself everytime you go in and out, am I fulfilling the commandment…I’m going to love everybody indiscriminately…May I have no ill will in my heart, may I have an unmortgaged heart.”

Perhaps for some of you, as it has been for me, this idea of keeping the heart clear of ill will has become particularly challenging amidst our political climate and escalation of hateful, provocative speech and actions. It has been surprisingly difficult to restrain my own hateful speech and violent wishes, albeit usually expressed under my breath or in the privacy of my own home. Still, I can feel its impact on my heart and spirit. So recently, I returned to Sylvia’s teaching and added mezuzahs to 2 other entranceways of our home. I have an earnest desire to follow her suggested practice, knowing the peace that can come to my body, mind and heart from doing so. Knowing it will help me remember that Everything, and everyone, is God. Perhaps the shofar blasts about to come will awaken the capacity to bring that intention into action; to remember to remember.

Introducing Debra Rappaport, AARC’s Rabbi for the High Holidays

by


The Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation (AARC) is delighted to announce that Rabbi Debra Rappaport will lead our High Holiday services for the fall of 2022 (Hebrew Year 5783). 

Rabbi Debra shares this warm greeting:

“Greetings from Minneapolis! My name is Debra Rappaport, I use she/her pronouns, and I share a home overflowing with plants with my husband Bobby Zelle and our fierce funny cat Ozi. I have served two wonderful congregations for seven years each since my ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2007, one in Vail, CO and one in Minneapolis, MN. I’m really excited to be with you this High Holy Days season! Though we don’t really know each other yet, I have been moved by the way the AARC values member engagement at every level.

I’m inspired by the way the people I’ve “met” (by Zoom) are approaching the High Holy Days, with active roles for as many people as possible. And I’m really excited to meet more of you!”

A bit more info on Rabbi Debra: she is co-chair of the Minnesota Rabbinical Association and she served as co-chair of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association Bi-Annual Convention in March 2022. Before becoming a rabbi,  she had a career in sales, marketing, and change management, earning  an MBA from the Wharton School in 1990. AARC Board Co-Chair Debbie Gombert shared that after a just a few conversations, she felt connected and thrilled that we will be sharing High Holidays and partnering with Rabbi Debra this year.

In addition to leading Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services for the AARC, Rabbi Debra will also lead several workshops around the high holidays.  The first workshop will be for a Kavanot (intentions) team on Sunday, July 31. Rabbi Debra will also lead three adult education/workshops via Zoom on these Thursdays: September 15, 22 and 29th to help us get spiritually ready for the holidays. Mark your calendars!

We are at this time forming a Kavanot (intentions) team for those who would like to contribute liturgy in the form of stories, poems or intentions to the High Holiday services. Here are details from Rabbi Debra:

The first opportunity I will have to meet some of you will be a
Zoom gathering on Sunday, July 31st, 1:30-3:00 pm ET with Deb Kraus as your local host.

This gathering of what will be the Kavanot team is for folks who feel moved to write and share something during our Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur services. Everyone is welcome! 

You don’t need to know what you want to write at this point; together, we’ll start to explore the themes of the services and the questions that inspire reflection. Please RSVP to Deb at drdebkraus@gmail.com by Friday, July 29.  

Alternatively, if singing, chanting, musical prayer, and making music in general suits you better, please be in touch with Etta Heisler at ettaqueen@gmail.com.
The “Davenning team” is beginning to convene this month as well. Likewise, everyone is welcome – it’s about bringing our voices together in prayer, not about performance.

Stay tuned as more information about plans for the High Holidays 5783 will be available in future blog posts and emails. As a community, we have a lot to plan and a lot to look forward to, and we are grateful to have Rabbi Debra Rappaport as our rabbinical leader for this season.

Leaving Behind the Idol Shop; Or, Enthroning An Orientation Towards Love

by

By: Rabbi Ora Nitkin Kaner

Rosh HaShanah 5782/September 7 2021

Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner

I want to start with a story—maybe one you’ve heard before. It’s a story about Abraham, back when he was known as Avram, and his father, Terach, and how Abraham smashed the idols. The story goes like this: 

Abraham’s father Terach sold idols for a living. Occasionally, he would go out of town, and when he did, he’d leave young Abraham in charge of the idol shop. 

One day, when Abraham was minding the shop, a woman came in with a plateful of food and said to Abraham, “I want to give this food to the idols.” As soon as the woman left, Abraham took a large stick and smashed all the idols except the largest one, and then placed the stick in its hands. When Terach returned, he was shocked to find the contents of his shop smashed to smithereens. 

“What happened here?” he demanded of his son. 

“Well,” said young Abraham, “a woman came with an offering for the idols. One idol announced, ‘I must eat first,’ but then another insisted, ‘No, I must eat first.’ Then the largest idol rose up, took that stick, and broke them all.” 

“Don’t be absurd!” said Terach angrily. “Idols can’t move or speak!” 

“Did you hear what you just said!?” Abraham asked. “If they can’t move or speak, how much power can they really have? How could we worship them?”

Then Terach, silenced and enraged, sent his son away.

This story—from Bereshit Rabbah—is an origin story of the first Jew; how Abraham started on his journey toward the idea of one God. The story makes it clear that even as a youngster, Abraham could see that believing in idols was silly; and we, from our 21st century vantage point, agree. So naturally we think of Abraham as the hero of this story, and Terach as the misguided villain. But lately, I’ve been less curious about Abraham’s iconoclasm and more curious about his father’s experience: how it must have felt for Terach to come home and find his livelihood and his faith shattered by his own son.

I’ve been thinking about Terach lately because I believe we’re living through a time of our own idols being smashed. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think anyone in this kahal actually has figurines of Baal or Asherah in their homes. But I do believe that as a society, we’re experiencing what it’s like to believe in something, to invest emotionally in that thing, to consider it sacred, and then have it shattered.

What am I talking about? 

I’m talking about the delight we took in Bill Cosby, America’s most loveable dad, and then finding out he sexually assaulted dozens if not hundreds of people throughout his long career. I’m talking about Andrew Cuomo, and Louis CK, and Michael Douglas, and Kevin Spacey, and Junot Diaz, and Sherman Alexie, and on and on.

I’m talking about growing up trusting police, and then watching George Floyd be murdered while calling out for his mother, and hearing about how Breonna Taylor was killed in a raid of her home. I’m talking about memorizing Tamir Rice’s 12-year-old grin, his wide cheekbones and his mischievous eyes, from his obituary photo.

I’m talking about growing up with the idea of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, or the Israeli Defense Forces as the ‘most moral army in the world.’ And then coming to learn that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were deliberately displaced in the founding of the Jewish state, or that Israel is a flawed country like any other. I’m talking about living through May of this year as Israeli rockets killed 67 children in Gaza.

I’m talking about learning to feel pride in America as a democratic ideal, with trust in the basic decency of our government leaders—and then witnessing endless wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. I’m talking about half the country electing an abhorrent abuser in 2016. I’m talking about living through January of this year, watching his mob break into the Capitol, wearing t-shirts that said ‘6 million wasn’t enough.’ I’m talking about this past week’s abortion ban in Texas.

I’m talking about growing up with a basic sense of trust in one’s fellow citizens, and then seeing people refuse to wear masks, refuse to do the minimum to keep one another safe during a pandemic.

I’m talking about faith, and the loss of faith; I’m talking about trust, and the loss of trust; I’m talking about belief, and the loss of belief.

It’s human nature to believe in goodness. It’s human nature to believe in the goodness and stability of the systems we create and the people we put in charge of those systems. So what happens when those systems are revealed to be fundamentally damaged or damaging? What happens when we find ourselves surrounded by the shattered remnants of the idols we once believed in?

Or, to ask this question differently: What have you been feeling these last weeks, months, years? Anxiety, sorrow, despair? Outrage, disgust? Alienation, mistrust? Bitterness, confusion, shame?

These are these emotions that accompany the psychological state of ‘moral injury.’ 

Moral injury is a reaction to a traumatic experience—a traumatic experience that violates our sense of how the world should work. It happens when our meaning systems confront something chaotic or disastrous; when we witness events that shatter our deeply held values. But moral injury doesn’t only occur when we are witnesses. It also happens when we come to understand that we are the perpetrators or perpetuators of an unjust system; it happens when we find ourselves complicit in things that we don’t want to be complicit in. Like as Jews, when we find ourselves defending some of the more immoral decisions of the Israeli government. Like as people with white privilege, when we come to understand how we benefit from systemic racism. Like as Americans, when we see how our taxes feed the American war machine. And how helpless we feel to change any of these realities. 

What’s wounded in moral injury is our sense of the world, and our place in it. 

We have a fundamental need to engage with the world in a moral way. When we feel like we’ve lost our ability to do that, it’s disorienting. It’s painful. And it’s also isolating. Moral injury messes with our ability to connect to other people. Or, to put a Jewish spin on it: it leaves us in a state of alienation from goodness—which is what we call sin. 

In Judaism, sin is the opposite of a mitzvah. The word ‘mitzvah,’ or ‘commandment,’ comes from the Aramaic root ‘tzavta,’ meaning ‘to bind together, to connect.’ If a mitzvah is something that connects us—to God, to our past, to family and community, to others in need, to our own deepest values—then sin is something that leads to a disruption of these connections.

Judaism teaches that idol worship is perhaps the greatest possible sin, from our second commandment (not to create idols or worship them) to the rabbinic saying: “Whoever endorses idolatry, rejects the entire Torah.” (Sifre Deuteronomy 28)

Why is idol worship such a focus of our tradition? Why is it such a sin, to guard against? Coming back to the smashing of idols and how painfully disorienting it is to live through such devastation: maybe we were taught that idol worship is a sin not because God is a jealous God, but because our tradition contains deep wisdom: the wisdom that it is hard to live when we place our faith in fallible things. Because inevitably, our idols will be smashed, and that will be devastating to us. 

We need our gods to be immutable. We need our gods to be eternal. This is the deep truth of our tradition. 

Only an hour ago, as part of the Rosh HaShana morning liturgy, we read a kavanah for ‘HaMelech,’ the liturgical moment of divine enthronement. The kavanah stated: “We have a need to re-enthrone meaning in the face of the chaos of our lives” (Kol HaNeshama Machzor, 269). We do. Perhaps never more so than today. Because we cannot survive as modern-day Terachs. We cannot abandon ourselves and one another to this present-day idol shop, surrounded by smithereens and turning the stick on one another and on ourselves. We need an act of re-enthronement. We need a God that cannot break, a world that will not keep shattering.

With so many of our idols destroyed at this point, how do we trust again? How do we figure out what to believe in?

Recovering a sense of trust, in our world, in our leaders, in one another, isn’t easy. We’ve lost a lot. And losses create suffering. And fear. And doubt that we actually know how to do this, that we’ll know how to make the right choices this time around.

But we do know how to do this. This power of discernment is deep in our ancestral DNA. We inherited it from Abraham, from the very first Jew: the ability to differentiate between what is eternal and what is temporary; between what is sacred and what is not. And to enthrone what is eternal, what is fundamental, and what is the deepest truth of life. Which is: Love.

What’s the first thing we know when we come into the world? Love. We are created out of love, and it is what sustains us, literally keeps us alive when we are infants. Love creates life. Love sustains life. 

And love is embedded in the heart of our tradition. What’s the most important prayer in Judaism? The Shma. The Shma is at the core of Jewish belief. On the surface, the Shma seems like a simple declaration of monotheism: Listen, Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is One. But if God is One, if God is Oneness, if we all contain that sacred, unified wholeness, then the only possible imperative is to love: Ve’Ahavta. When we really integrate the awareness that we are one, then we have nothing else to do but love one another by receiving, resting in, and transmitting abundant love. Our God becomes a God of love, and our life’s work simplifies into seeing love, receiving love, integrating love, and extending love outwards.

Ve’Ahavta: And we will love. On this first day of a new year, we have the chance to acknowledge our old idols, even honor what they gave us. We can gather up the broken pieces, bury them with care, and enthrone an eternal truth—Ve’Ahavta—a truth that will not break, no matter the challenges of the year to come. 

Committing to a new enthronement in the face of chaos is an invitation to believe again. But in this process, how do we make sure that we’re not just setting new idols on the throne?

The way to do this is actually relatively simple. We ask ourselves one question: Is this oriented towards love? This is the question we have to ask ourselves, in every relationship, inside every belief: ‘Does this idea, this person, this leader, this system, orient towards love? Does this maintain and promote a field of care?’ And if the answer is no, then it may well turn out to be another idol. Which means it’s not right for us, and for our tender, yearning hearts. 

Just think of what is possible for us, if we enter the new year holding up the banner of this question for ourselves: Is this oriented towards love? This email I’m about to send my coworker: Is it oriented towards love? This text I’m about to send my friend: Is it oriented towards love? This politician’s platform: Is it oriented towards love? This non-profit I’m donating to: Is it oriented towards love? This community I’m joining: Is it oriented towards love?

We are deserving of a world that doesn’t shatter, and break our hearts along with it. We are deserving of, worthy of, capable of building a world that merits our trust. We are deserving of a world built on love.

Remembering For Life, Being Remembered for Life

by

Erev Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5780

By Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner

Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner

Why are we here?

I don’t mean that in the sense of why do we exist – although, of all the times to ask that question, Rosh HaShanah would be a reasonable one. But you can relax. I’m not thinking quite that meta. 

I mean, why are we here, in this building, this evening? Where does Rosh HaShanah come from?

In Chapter 23 of Leviticus, we find God saying to Moses: “Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: ‘These are My fixed times, the fixed times of the Lord, which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions.’” Essentially, God is saying: “Here’s the Jewish calendar.” The first holiday listed is Passover, then Shavuot, then Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot. And each of these sacred occasions is accompanied by a verse or two on how to observe it. 

For Rosh HaShanah, it is written: “On the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of rest, a memorial proclaimed with the blowing of the shofar, a holy convocation” (Leviticus 23:24).

So we know when Rosh HaShanah is supposed to take place – the first of the month of Tishrei. And we know it’s meant to be a holy day, which means, no work. And we know it’s meant to be a day of remembering – a “zichron” – announced by a shofar.  

What are we supposed to remember?

The simplest answer, of course, is that we’re supposed to remember the past year. Rosh HaShanah opens up the ten Days of Awe, during which we recall, reflect, and repent, so that we don’t repeat our missed marks from the past year.

But we’re not the only ones remembering on this holiday. God is also remembering.

During services tomorrow, we’ll sing: “Zokhrenu l’hayyim” – God, remember us for life and inscribe us in the Book of Life. And we’ll add, “Zocher yetsurav…” – God of Mercy, remember all your creations with compassion. 

Based on how many times in the Rosh HaShanah liturgy we ask God to remember our deeds and judge us for good, it seems like we’re not convinced it’s a sure thing. So as an added strategy, we also ask God to remember that we have a relationship that goes way back. 

We begin the Rosh HaShanah Amidah with, “Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu ve’Elohai avoteinu ve’imoteinu…” – “Blessed are You, Holy One, God of our ancestors, God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah.” And then throughout the Amidah we repeatedly refer to God as “Elohainu v’Elohai avoteinu v’imoteinu” – Our God and God of our ancestors – and ask God to go easy on us based on the merit of their good deeds. 

On the surface, this strategy seems not unreasonable. To be a little glib, you could call it cosmic nepotism. We’re saying to God, “Hey, you knew my great great great etc. grandfather… he was a good guy. So I’m probably a good guy, too, no?”

But thinking about it more deeply, this a strategy based on a flawed premise. Because if you’ve ever read more than one or two chapters of Genesis alone, you’ve realized that our biblical ancestors had profoundly messy and morally complicated lives. 

On Rosh HaShanah alone, we read plenty of examples of our ancestors’ misdeeds. 

The Torah reading for the first day of Rosh HaShanah is the story of how Sarah orders Abraham to cast out Hagar and her son Ishmael. Abraham is troubled, but he listens to Sarah. So Hagar and Ishmael are sent out into the desert with just a little bread and water. They survive only because God intervenes to save them. 

And the Torah reading on the second day of Rosh HaShanah? That’s the story of Akedat Yitzchak, of the near-murder of Isaac. Abraham listens to what he believes is the voice of God, telling him to sacrifice his and Sarah’s child. Abraham and Isaac journey to Mount Moriah, and Abraham binds Isaac and places him on an altar and is about to cut Isaac’s throat, and then an angel intervenes to save them. 

In both of these stories as they appear in our Torah, there’s no acknowledgement of misdeed. There’s no apology. And there’s no recompense.

And Abraham and Sarah were just the first of our complicated ancestors. Their children, and their children’s children, and on and on through the generations, morally missed the mark again and again. Our biblical ancestor fought amongst themselves. They stole land and birthrights. They lied, and cheated, and sold siblings into slavery.

So why do we remind God of our connection to these ancestors when we pray on Rosh HaShanah? Couldn’t this actually backfire? 

Here’s the thing: We don’t know the impact of reminding God of our ancestors, because we don’t know God – God is inherently unknowable. We have no idea what it means for God to remember us, or our ancestors. 

What we do know, though, is our own experience of remembering. 

We know how it feels to remember our flawed ancestors. And it can be hard to be reminded of this complicated legacy and the fact that it’s a part of our cannon.

So what we do with this flawed family tree? How do we sit with these difficult ancestors?

Well, Jews throughout history have been trying to figure this out. I would say these efforts typically fall into one of the 3 categories.

The first category is a kind of apologetics, reframing our ancestor’s actions as unequivocally positive. This is something the rabbis of the Talmud did often. To them, Abraham wasn’t a man who almost murdered his son; Abraham was a God-fearing person who somehow knew all along that he’d never actually be allowed to go through with it. And Sarah, abusive towards Hagar? According to the rabbis, Sarah was morally unblemished (Bereshit Rabbah 58:1). She only wanted what was best for her son.

This drive to reframe, to say that what seems bad is actually morally unobjectionable, is older than the Torah itself. It goes back to earliest human history, and is rooted in the youngest, most tender places of our collective and individual psyches. In psychological terms, we could say that this drive comes from the child self, who needs the parent, on whom they’re reliant, to be completely good and blameless. Rather than finding our ancestors at fault, we twist the stories and ourselves into knots in order to see them as only good.

The second tendency is to look at the stories of our ancestors and focus only on their sins. Many Jews throughout history have done just that – have said “look at these flawed characters” or “look at this abusive God.” And based on the painful moral ambiguity of our inherited stories, some have said: “I want none of this.” And have walked away from God, or from Jewish practice, or from Jewish community.

You could say that this second tendency is rooted in the collective teenage psyche. It’s the need to push away from home. It’s the need to individuate, find independence, and critique the status quo so that we can emerge into a fuller perspective on the world and our place within it.

So. The first option aligns with the needs of the child-self: My people are actually good. The second option aligns with the teenage self: My people are actually bad.

And the third option? The third comes from the integrated or adult psyche. From that vantage point, we look back at our ancestors and their misdeeds. At the teshuvah they did manage. And at what they left undone. We notice how flawed they were. And also, how hard they were trying. And finally, we notice that there is much for us learn: from their values, from their mistakes, from their stories.

You may have gathered, by now, that this doesn’t only apply to Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. This isn’t just about our distant ancestors. It also applies to our own more recent ancestors. Even the ones still with us – the family we called earlier today to wish a Shanah Tova to, or the ones we visited this past summer, or last year.

For me, this time of year – this time of remembering ancestors – brings back memories of my own grandfather, the way he shuffled down the synagogue aisle on Rosh HaShanah, the way his hand, shaking with Parkinsons, felt in mine as I helped him to his seat. I remember his sweet smile, his playful personality. 

I remember my grandmother making kugel for us for the holiday meal, a sweet noodle kugel with raisins, and my grandfather sprinkling extra sugar on top, the shaking of his hands helping to spread the sugar evenly. 

I remember standing next to my father in shul on Yom Kippur, and how he draped his tallit over my sister and I during the priestly blessing, and how protected and safe I felt. 

And, in my remembering, I also remember how my father, who didn’t like his rabbi, would sit in the front row during Rosh HaShanah services and blatantly read a book during the rabbi’s sermon. And I remember how my grandmother would greet us with suffocating hugs when we came over for dinner, her anxious love permeating everything.

On Rosh HaShanah, we remember. Our distant ancestors, and the ones closer.

And as we remember, we also choose. Do we recall only the good, and cover over the bad? Do we remember only the bad, and forget the good? Or can we remember with compassion and moral clarity, with a gentle eye on the course of history and how it shaped our ancestors and us? 

In our liturgy, we sing again and again, “Zochreinu lechayyim” – remember us for life. How can we remember in a way that enlivens us? How can we remember the ways our ancestors missed the mark, but still know that we have arrows to string and release in the direction of love? How can we remember so that the memories are more lesson than burden? How can we remember, for life?

This whole sermon, I’ve been talking about remembering the past. But the reality is that one day, we, too, will become ancestors. At some point, we will no longer be doing the remembering. We will be the ones remembered, by our children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, friends, colleagues, students, all whose lives we’ve touched. 

What might we do with the knowledge that we will one day be remembered?

I want to close by sharing with you the inspiration for this evening’s sermon. A few weeks ago, I was sitting in my office with Sam Ball, a young congregant whose bar mitzvah is coming up in November. We were reading Sam’s Torah portion, Lech Lecha. Lech Lecha recounts how a pregnant Hagar ran away from home because of how badly Sarah treated her.

As we read through the story of Sarah and Abraham and their mistreatment of Hagar, Sam said to me: “Abraham and Sarah really should’ve thought about what their descendants would think of them.”

On Rosh HaShanah, we remember. To reshape and reframe the old stories so that they enliven us. And, Sam reminded me and us that we are at our best when we also remember that we are accountable to the future, when we live holding the question, “Who do my descendants need me to become?” 

We too will become ancestors one day. And the way we live our lives will be a lesson for generations to come.

My simple blessing for us, as we enter this holiday of remembering: May we remember, for life. May we act this coming year in such a way as to inscribe ourselves in the Book of Life. And when the time comes, may we be remembered, for life. And let us say, Amen.

L’chaim, Rosh Hashanah poem

by

by Seth Kopald

It amazes me that we know so little about birth until we become parents and how little we know about dying until we watch someone close to us reach the end of his or her life. It is as if we are protected from our impermanence. The fact that we were once ​not​ here and someday we ​won’t be​ is veiled, keeping us unaware that life is truly a gift that should be celebrated. There are many distractions to life. Of course there are the electronics and screens, but more than that, we often forget to live in the now. We spend our time worrying about the future or vexed in the past. By doing so, we overlook what is right in front of us – our children, our friends, our family, the beauty of the earth. So I wrote this poem hoping to inspire you to live now and be here for yourself and for those around you. L’chaim! To Life!

L’chaim!

Choose living
over distraction
consumption
hiding
numbing
running away

Choose living
over protection
anger
irritation
worry
fear

Be engaged
Pick life goals that align with your values
what you see as your purpose.
Goals without agendas:
like needing to be being perceived a certain way
Release the burden of assuming people’s expectations

Do you want to be rich?
First become enriched through your work and service to others.

At times we are not our best selves
we say and do hurtful things

It’s bound to happen
being human and all
We can count on our flaws
old friends, part of who we are.

Flawed
like a crystal has inclusions
Crystal clear is stunning for a moment
but inclusions are much more interesting
Imperfection is our beauty
and provides richness to our story

I’m sorry I hurt you
I’m sorry I was a jerk to you
I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me
But I’m here now
reaching toward you
knowing that human connection
family connection
is a powerful earthly force

When we hurt others
invite in curiosity
humility
patience
Invite in 2 minutes of courage
apologize showing your precious vulnerability

When we lean in to life
Lean in
to our family
Lean in
to those that unintentionally hurt us
We release sparks of kindness
that season negative climates

You are the most important person
you standing in front of me
family, friends, coworkers, congregants
the one that might look like an other
You are the most important person
my attention present as if we are all that the I can see

There is no life
in what we think of as the future or the past
Life is only now

Time moves quickly
when we don’t embrace the present
We live in our next meeting
wrestling with self judgement in the past.

Time was extended in childhood
Living fully in the present

As we age
we need intention
Reminders
look through the eyes of a child
embrace our happiness and pain
be willing to show it, like a child, with freedom
See the extraordinary in the ordinary