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“High Holiday Greetings” I want to welcome everyone to shul on this special day. We know that we live in two civilizations. Yesterday, I received a notice that tomorrow, September 19th, is “Talk Like a Pirate Day.” It’s a day when people are encouraged to, well, talk like a pirate! Fun, but bizarre. Who knew? It’s also, of course, the first day of Rosh Hashanah, which, even if I weren’t a rabbi working in a congregation, I would know. I didn’t need to hear it announced in shul the week before, as we announce all other Hebrew months. It’s in the air. How would I know this? Well, just yesterday, I received a bunch of calendars from various Jewish organizations. There was one from the Religious Zionists of America; one from the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel; one from the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. All different, but all united by the way in which they divide up time, namely, according to the Jewish calendar. How do we, as individuals, organize our time? Jewishly? Secularly? Obviously, both. What a year we’ve just experienced! It was just a year ago that the market began to tremble. Then came the economic earthquake, from which we’ve only recently begun to recover. Think of the seemingly indestructible organizations and sectors of our economy that have been hit—and hit badly during the past year. During the past year, America elected a son of a white Kansas mother and a black man from Kenya to be president of the United States. And the sky did not fall in. On the other hand, in looking back at the last eight—only eight!—months that Barack Obama has been in office, I cannot think of a more all-encompassing set of really big challenges to come across a president’s desk. I really can’t. That stimulus bill; the efforts to save the banking system, AIG, the American automobile industry and other failing firms; the worsening situation in Afghanistan; the efforts to wind-down the war in Iraq; the effort to pass health care reform;—the list goes on and on. This was also a year of scandals. Some of these scandals involved Jews: Jews who one would have expected to have behaved honorably and respectably—but who instead were revealed to be thieves and scoundrels. In short, this has been a time of tremendous turmoil for all of us. And it’s hit some of us “up close and personal.” Some of us have lost jobs, or have seen them restructured. Some of us have lost retirement funds—and even though some of those losses may have been recouped, the experience took a toll on our sense of well-being. Even those of us who haven’t been personally affected have been left with a not-so-vague sense of unease. What better time to come to shul! The wonderful thing about coming to synagogue on the holidays is that it allows people to “get out of the box.” As opposed to so many places where we find ourselves, here, we are not judged by how much money we are or aren’t making this year. That isn’t the currency of this realm. We can relax. Notice that there are no radios, no television sets, no computers in the room. And if some people are so tethered to their smartphones or blackberrys that they can’t part with them, they generally have the good sense to turn them off while they’re in this room. This isn’t the place where we need to hear what is happening out there. This is the place where we try to listen to what’s happening in here. Coming to synagogue is all about opening up the heart. It’s all about breathing in the fresh, purifying air of inspiration and hope. It’s about finding a calm center to give us stability and strength. Rosh Hashanah is a day to read the stories of our spiritual ancestors, to blow the shofar, and to think about what hasn’t changed in thousands of years: the challenge of living a good life, of doing the right thing, of apologizing when we don’t, of accepting apologies when we’ve been wronged. It’s all about trying to live a good life in an imperfect family, imperfect community, imperfect world. It is about never being satisfied with that, always striving to improve one’s self, one’s community, indeed the entire world—but never being discouraged, never giving up that struggle even though it seems that there is so much work to be done. Rosh Hashanah is a time to re-charge batteries that desperately need re-charging. So much of what we do and experience during the year degrades our souls. The goal of prayer is to revive the soul, to remind us of who we really are meant to be, and how to get there. And so, AVAST, ME HEARTIES! I hope this High Holiday season will be, on the one hand, a respite. I hope that our hours in shul will be hours when we can step back from the stresses and strains of daily life. On the other hand, I hope that this time will also be an inspiring, creative time for all of us, reminding us of what we can and must do rise to our highest possible moral and spiritual level. Shanah tovah u’m’tukah! |
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