Rabbi Joel Abraham

The following sermon was delivered during the 2001 Jewish High Holiday season following the tragic events of September 11, 2001. It has been included on the Torah From Terror website as a resource and retains the copyright of its author. Please cite the source accordingly.

Rabbi Joel Abraham

Kol Nidre 5762
Temple Sholom – 26 September 2001

This Kol Nidre evening, as we continue to examine ourselves, let us take a moment to return to our theme these High HolyDays of kesher, of connection. As we ponder what we have done over the past year, we wonder how we go about this task. We look at the words of the Mishnah that tells us that for sins between humanity and God, the Day of Atonement atones, but for sins between one human being and another, the Day of Atonement does not atone, until that person has first received forgiveness from the other. That should have been our work over the past few weeks, especially in the last ten days – seeking forgiveness from those we might have wronged.

We might understand two reasons to seek forgiveness from another human being. The first is to clear our conscience, to make right what we have done wrong. For some of us that reason is compelling in itself. For those who judge their actions by the standard of what God expects of them, seeking forgiveness is part of the process of atonement. At this time of year, we must seek to cleanse ourselves of sin, to become pure once again.

However, for others of us, this once-a-year process may not be enough motivation in itself. We can understand the benefit of a once-yearly “soul check”, but perhaps see that more as an internal process than external. What is important is realizing what we have done wrong, and resolving to do better in the future. There is no need to go to others to ask for forgiveness – after all, they probably do not remember what we might have done, so why bring it up and cause more trouble anyway? Even if the process is one of personal reflection; even if we do not imagine God actually sitting down in front of a giant book filled with our good and bad deeds; even if we do not expect to be wiped clean of sin – there is still wisdom for us in the words of the Mishnah. The Day of Atonement does not atone for sins between one human being and another, until we have sought forgiveness from that other human being. After all, it is a bit selfish for us to think that we can know ourselves what wrong we have done someone else, before we have spoken to them about it, or asked what we need to do to make it right.

Two years ago, at the High HolyDays, we examined the truism that it never hurts to say that you are sorry. Because I had the audacity to suggest that to the congregation, I have kept those words in mind ever since, and tried to live by them. Even when we think that we are not at fault, there is no harm in saying that you are sorry. This idea seems to fly in the face of our first reason to seek forgiveness – that there is a scorecard keeping track of our sins. After all, if we were right, then the other person has the burden of the sin, and we are blameless. For us to still ask for forgiveness, there must be another reason, something else compelling us to seek forgiveness, to repair the breach in our relationship.

That compulsion is the desire that we have for kesher, for connection with other human beings. When we are arguing with a friend and, perhaps, not speaking, we miss their companionship, their point of view, their input on our own lives. The most common complaint that I hear from grown children regarding their deceased parents is that they never had a chance to reconcile, or to tell them how much they meant or how much they loved them. Sometimes, it can be very difficult to strengthen a kesher, when the other partner is no longer around. Now, in the aftermath of sudden, national tragedy, we have been reminded how such opportunities can be cut short before we have the chance to mend, to heal.

This evening, let us take the opportunity to look at three major connections, keshers, in our life. Let us use this Yom Kippur to resolve to strengthen those bonds with others in the coming year. First, we will look at our connection with our family; second, our connection with our neighbors, and finally, our connection with our friends.

Family may seem to be the most obvious of keshers. After all, in many cases, we live with our spouses or partners, and live or have lived with our children or parents or siblings. These are people that we need to interact with every day – whether it is to share the bathroom, pick what to watch on TV, pass the salt, or celebrate birthdays and anniversaries together. Not surprisingly, with such intense and intimate interaction, these are the people with whom we get the most frustrated, the most furious, and flare up at on the smallest pretense. In mitigation, we can say that we only get so mad because we love them, but in the instant of fury or snub, that subtle explanation is easily lost. A door slams. Words are exchanged. People storm off. These little wounds may heal quickly, but they still leave scars.

The answer to such difficulty is not so melodramatic as we may have been thinking in the past few weeks – our lives our sacred and may soon be cut short, so spend more time loving and less time reproving. Judaism insists that part of a loving relationship is letting others know when they have done or are about to do wrong. Parents have the responsibility of teaching their children what is right and wrong, but they are not alone. Children can educate parents, can keep an eye on brothers and sisters – as we said last week – kol yisrael aravin zeh b’zeh – all Israel is responsible one for the other.

The secret to a good relationship, it has been often said, is communication. In our hectic and busy lives, we find it difficult enough to coordinate schedules with our spouses and partners, let alone sit down and talk to our children, or to call our parents and relatives. But, and here’s the plug, Judaism realizes this difficulty and works to make time in our lives for those more relaxed interactions. Unfortunately, we view Judaism more often as an intrusion into our personal lives or our family times, then as an aid to finding more such opportunities. Shabbat, for example, exists outside of time. We should be jealous of the Orthodox who shut out the outside world completely for 26 hours and only spend time with their family and loved ones. We can do that as well – if not for 26 hours, perhaps we can decide that the whole family needs to be home for Friday evening dinner, or for Saturday afternoon at the movies, or even a leisurely breakfast. Right now, we are in the midst of all the new beginnings of the Fall – new schools, new jobs, the High HolyDays, the new TV schedule. Judaism again comes to us and forces us to take time out to celebrate. Enjoy the two hours that you are stuck together this evening, sitting next to each other in uncomfortable seats. If you haven’t been able to this year, resolve to do whatever it takes to have your extended family together for Rosh haShanah dinner, or Break the Fast, or Passover Seder. As Judaism has opened the door for you, use this time of year as an opportunity to talk to your family members – to ask for forgiveness, to try and heal old wounds, to strengthen the kesher between you.

Judaism also gives us insight into how to treat others. We are told to love our neighbors as ourselves. As we consider how the we view the world, so we should also assume that our neighbors have the same thoughts and feelings – that they are human beings in the same way that we are. That just as much as we are “I” to ourselves, so are they to themselves, and we are the “they”. Much has been made in the past two weeks about how Americans have come together – how we reach across lines of race and ethnicity and are Americans together. However, other than possibly standing next to someone of color at a rally, how many of us have actually reached out to someone and had a conversation? Created a new kesher? Because of this tragedy, I have met other members of our Plainfield community that I might not have met sitting in this building. As a congregation, we will be reaching out to the Muslim community and hopefully sharing some events with them in the coming year. We will also be creating opportunities for our youth to get to know the youth of Plainfield, through contacts that I have made with local ministers.
However, the Temple can only go so far, without the membership working to make such efforts a success. For the past three years, we have worked actively with the Interfaith Council for the Homeless in Union County to sponsor local commemoration of the Children’s Defense Fund’s Children’s Sabbath. Some members of our religious school have participated, but despite the event having been held in our sanctuary last year, few congregants attended. If we invite the Muslim or local communities to join us here for worship, will you be here as well? If we go to their places of worship, will enough of us make the effort to find a strange place to create a new connection? Imagine how we might feel if we asked the local community to participate with us in a rally against anti-Semitism and no one came. If we love our neighbor as ourselves, we must imagine how we might feel in their shoes.

We have relationships formed by blood and marriage, and relationships formed by where we live or where we may be located. Different from relationships of circumstance are the relationships that we choose to cultivate, that we call friendship. We can make friends at work, in school, through leisure or social action activities, or by chance. These are the relationships that support us in dark times. Friends are the ones that we turn to when we need to laugh, when we need someone to share with, when we want to just have fun. The kesher of a friendship is only as strong as the work that we put into that relationship, the care that we give that is reflected back to us.

Pirke Avot tells us that we should find ourselves a friend. Sometimes we do that without thinking. We meet someone, we interact, and before we know it, they are a close friend. Other times it takes more work – making time to meet, to talk, making the effort to connect. In this room, we have collected a group of like-minded people who have gathered together for some of the same purposes. People who are looking to form a community, not just of fellow congregants, but of friends as well. Some of us may find it difficult to make time to find friends; here at the Temple we have a timesaver. Come to an event at the Temple and fulfill your Jewish purpose; meet someone here and find a friend to fulfill your social needs. Any event at the Temple has a social side – whether it is the bagels put out an hour before the Sunday morning lectures, or the oneg on Friday night. The secret of a thriving congregation is congregants who are willing to create a strong kesher amongst themselves – people who can call each other friend as well as fellow congregant and Jew.

We are defined by our personal connections. We are sometimes judged, fairly or not, by the behavior of those around us – whether it is parents who are judged by what their children do, or children who are judged by the appearance of their friends. We ask those whom we trust to recommend others – whether for plumbers and electricians or babysitters and psychologists. We rely on our personal connections to connect to the wider world. We trust those whom we know, and so trust those whom our friends and family know. Just as all of us were connected in some way to someone who was lost or miraculously escaped the events of September 11, so we are also connected to the good things that happen in life and the world around us.

In this New Year, as we look back on the things that we have done to others that we need to ask forgiveness for, let us also look for new opportunities for things to be thankful for. Let us rededicate ourselves to the keshers in our lives – to family, to our neighbors, and to our new and old friends. Let us choose, through strong and far-reaching connections, to anchor ourselves in this world, to weave a web of kesher after kesher, connecting and interconnecting until we can scarce follow the lines ourselves. Next year, let us have so much more work to do seeking forgiveness, because we have so many more people that we care about asking for forgiveness from. Then truly, the Day of Atonement will atone for us and send us out once again renewed and reborn.

L’shanah tovah u’m’tukah - a good and sweet new year.

Rabbi Jon Adland

The following sermon was delivered during the 2001 Jewish High Holiday season following the tragic events of September 11, 2001. It has been included on the Torah From Terror website as a resource and retains the copyright of its author. Please cite the source accordingly.

Rabbi Jon Adland

Rosh Hashanah Evening
September 17, 2001

It is hard to celebrate our Jewish New Year this year. It is such a sad time in the souls of the people of this nation and for many around the world. The core of our being has been shaken. Our hearts are in pain. Our strength has been drained by watching the news, listening to the overwhelming tasks ahead, thinking about war, and thinking about those who may have survived, but couldn’t be saved. Our minds are filled with images of destruction unlike anything we have seen before.

September 11, 2001 changed everything about our country forever. It changed us, too. We will never ever see things the same way again. We will never walk into an airport without looking around. We will never look at another skyscraper without seeing the sight of that plane flying into it and the ball of fire that followed. We will never go watch a building implosion as if it were some sideshow. We will never take for granted the freedoms that are ours. We will hug our children a little tighter, phone our friends a little more often, and say I love you as often as we can. I will never forget September 11, 2001, as long as I live. This date will live on as a day of reckoning for a long, long time.

I am not old enough to have known the horrors of WW2. I wasn’t there to liberate the death camps and see the victims, living and dead, inside the gates. I have seen the pictures of the natural disasters brought on by hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes. I remember the assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. I watched the news about the war in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War. I saw the pictures over and over again on TV of the Challenger blowing up. And now this carnage and destruction. Nothing compares. There are so many people: those who died, those who survived, those who lost a loved one or too many loved ones, those who tried to help and those who felt helpless. The tidal wave of this cowardly act will affect so many people that it is incomprehensible. It is affecting you and me each and every day.

How do we respond to this pain that fills our hearts? How do we respond to the words we read about the miracles of lives saved and the depth of grief felt by those who lost a father, mother, brother, sister, friend or relative? We will hear about the person who overslept and was late to work that day or the person who missed a subway or the person who decided to stay home instead of flying. The story of everyone who got out of the buildings alive will inspire us with courage and the awe of chance in life. We won’t hear the stories of the heroes who died. We won’t hear about the many who helped others down the stairs or may have stayed to comfort a wounded co-worker. We won’t hear about the many who didn’t quite make it out.

It is the stories that we don’t hear that will haunt our imagination. There are so many who probably died trying to save another. There are so many who died just because their office was just too high for them to be able to get out in time. There are so many who died just because they went to work that day.

Finding a place in the midst of all of this is so hard. Finding my soul while looking at the debris is difficult. Yet, we as a people have faced overwhelming situations before. Only 56 years ago, we saw the end of a savage era and began to rebuild our lives. The fortitude and strength to overcome such adversity and pain and death was faced by every survivor. We knew we had to go on. We knew that we had to heal first and grieve, but the survivors were alive. Their strength came from being a Jew and the traditions of Judaism. The Psalmists and sages of the past also saw death and destruction and felt pain, but through their experiences of living they offered to us hope. Hope that we can use today and tomorrow and the next day.

Now more than ever we can turn to God. I am not angry with God for I don’t believe that God does evil. Human beings do evil. God is the source of goodness. I don’t believe that God intervenes in a world where free will is an important part of our belief system. Though we often ask God to do the miraculous, we forget that God does things that are miraculous constantly. God displays many miracles even when we aren’t looking. Rather, we must show God who we are and what we do in this world. God should know that we believe in goodness and kindness and love and compassion and righteousness and caring. God should know that we believe that God is good. God should know that when life is bleak and people are struggling that the strength and presence of God is near and that presence is comforting. The psalmist wrote in psalm 46, “God is our refuge and stronghold, a help in trouble very near. Therefore we are not afraid, though the earth reels, though mountains topple into the sea—its waters rage and foam; in its swell mountains quake.”

We must use this strength of God and turn it into good. We must choose the blessing over the curse, life over death, goodness over evil. We shouldn’t do it with just lip service, but with the work of our hands and the spirit of our souls. We have witnessed a great destruction, but we have also witnessed the resilience of a people. Thousands streamed to the sites of destruction to dig for the survivors. Thousands did what they could to begin easing the pain whether giving blood or money or time. Once, we all stood at the bottom of Mt. Sinai and heard the charge to live with God in our hearts and souls, in our hands and feet. Today, we all stand at the bottom of the towers as they crumbled and realized that this mountain is our challenge to live life, to be good, and to overcome evil. We must use the most important mountain in our tradition to bring life and meaning to this mountain of destruction.

It is ahead of us that we face our greatest tasks. How do we come to grips with such evil and hatred in the world? How do we make sense of the senselessness of such an act of death and destruction? What do we tell our children, the next generation about living life? What can we give them to sustain them? We must find meaning in a world turned upside down. Judaism teaches that we must always choose life and make a difference in this world. That is the message for the ages.

Last Saturday morning, 15 people came to the morning service. The night before there were so many people and the service was so important. People needed to pray and contemplate and think and sing and cry. On Saturday morning we returned to the regular service that we do each Shabbat morning and I found myself finally praying in a way I haven’t prayed in a long time. I read each word of each prayer as if the whole world was listening to each syllable. I prayed to God and it felt good and comforting. God is my stronghold. No matter how many people assail God or turn away from God, God is the source of my strength. When enemies attack me, I turn to God in prayer and song, and I turn to the God inside of me for the strength to offer these words and to hopefully make a better world. I want God to be with me in this time of trial and I want to be with God.

Most of us haven’t faced the great evils of the world. We haven’t been inside of a terror attack. We haven’t seen evil face to face like others have so maybe it is easy to say that God is with us. Yet, we have to believe in the faith that there is something greater out there beyond what we can see or feel or touch. We must have faith in this power that moves in ways beyond our comprehension and gives strength to people in their greatest moments of trial. The people on the planes and in the Pentagon and in New York faced death. I hope and pray that God was with them in their hour of need. There is great evil in this world and that is why I need to affirm my sense of goodness. There is chaos and I must assert my sense of order. I believe in God and I hope that God believes in me.

I heard a story earlier in the week about the great Redwoods of California. These trees reach tremendous heights as high as 300 feet. Imagine a tree the length of a football field standing vertical in a forest of other trees standing vertical reaching up to the heavens. One would think that the tree would have deep roots to hold it up, but the Redwood has shallow roots that spread out in all directions interlocking with the roots of the other trees. In this fashion, when the wind blows each tree helps keep the other upright. It is this kind of interlocking strength that we need right now. We have been shaken, but not broken. It may be blowing a fierce wind out there, but we are holding each other up.

We need to be the Redwoods as we rely on each other in the days to come. Some of us may heal more quickly, but no one, I believe, can put Sept.11th, out of his or her mind. As human beings, we will take comfort in our friends and families. As Jews, we can turn to our community and we can turn to the words that have offered us comfort and strength for so many years and through so many trials. What we can’t do is retreat or bury our heads as if nothing is different. What we can’t do is be non-responsive to the world around us. What we can’t do is pretend that September 11th, never happened. It did. We are still here. Thousands aren’t anymore. We can’t live their lives, but by our will, our strength, our fortitude, our spirituality, our goodness, our compassion and our love, we can give meaning to their deaths.

The prayers we read during the High Holy Days will test our personal beliefs. We will read things that might not make any sense any more. We may find ourselves struggling with God a little more. We may find a word here or there that touches a nerve, strikes a chord, argues with us or helps us move on. I urge you to use these days of awe as a time for personal reflection and introspection. Think about what makes your life matter in the scheme of things. What about you can do to make your life matter even more now.

September 11, 2001, is a day that will live on in each of our hearts and souls. It will always be a day of mourning and sadness. We cannot stop living because of those who have died. Better yet, we should live in a way that pays tribute to all those who died.

The world has changed a lot since last Tuesday. I have changed since last Tuesday. I pray that a better world awaits us, but it may take some work to get there.

Kein Yehi Ratzon—May this be God’s will.

Rabbi Batsheva Appel

The following sermon was delivered during the 2001 Jewish High Holiday season following the tragic events of September 11, 2001. It has been included on the Torah From Terror website as a resource and retains the copyright of its author. Please cite the source accordingly.

Rabbi Batsheva Appel

Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melekh Ha’Olam dayan ha-emet. Blessed are you Lord our God, King of the Universe Judge of the Truth. This is the prayer that is said on hearing bad news. It is familiar to those who have had the sorrow of wearing black k’ri’ah ribbons after the death of a loved one, because it is the prayer that is said as the ribbon is cut.

As a Reform Jew I try various aspects of ritual and practice. Beginning several months ago
I tried saying this whenever I heard bad news. Why? If I remember correctly, I wanted a way to mark bad news so that it would not get lost in the shuffle, so that I would actually hear it and pay attention. And at the same time make some connection with God. I think that I was also intrigued. How many other religions have a blessing for hearing bad news?

Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melekh Ha’Olam dayan ha-emet. Blessed are you Lord our God, King of the Universe, Judge of the Truth. While I knew that saying this blessing would not necessarily be easy to do, there have been times over the last several months when it has been very hard to do. There were some mornings when things happening in Israel meant that I was saying this blessing every day as I got up. Other times I would say it and think,
why does this blessing use the image of God as Judge? Does this mean that God judged and decided that this would happen? To think of God as a Judge is, for me, one of the hardest parts the High Holy Day liturgy. I struggle each year with this image of God and here I was using the image as mine sometimes on a daily basis.

Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melekh Ha’Olam dayan ha-emet. Blessed are you Lord our God, King of the Universe, Judge of the Truth. Last Tuesday, I heard about a plane hitting the World Trade Center on the radio and I said the blessing but it was difficult. When the radio announced that the second tower had been hit by the second plane, I froze. Right now I can’t tell you whether or not I ever said the blessing. I struggled with what had happened.
I struggled with the idea of God as a Judge who decreed that this tragedy should be so. I struggled with the idea of God who would permit such things to occur. I just struggled with ideas about God.

Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melekh Ha’Olam dayan ha-emet. Blessed are you Lord our God, King of the Universe, Judge of the Truth. God has been on our minds a lot this week. We have had our own questions and for some of us, our children’s questions. We have struggled with how to think about what happened, about God. We have been attending prayer services and vigils and Shabbat services. Rabbi Wisnia spoke about God last night.

Usually we don’t speak much about God with our friends and family. I remember my surprise at my second interview here at Beth Chaim. When I got home, I called my friends and said “Well, I think that it went well and you will never believe it, I spoke about God during the interview. I talked with the search committee about how I think of God.” But we are talking about God this week. We are thinking about God. We are singing God Bless America.

I think I know why we have God on our minds, why we are searching so ardently. In the Mechilta, a midrash on the book of Exodus it describes what the 10 commandments look like.
We know from the book of Exodus, that there are two tablets, but we don’t know what the tablets look like. Two copies of the same thing? Equal numbers of words on each tablet? Or the way we usually see them, 5 commandments on each tablet? The midrash in Mechilta suggests that there are 5 commandments on each tablet and then suggests that we read across. Anochi Adonai Eloheicha “I am the Lord your God.” lo tirtzach “Do not murder.” In other words, when someone commits murder they deny that god exists

What happened a week ago was horrific. If it had been some sort of tragic accident, an air traffic control system gone terribly awry it would have been bad enough. But what we saw was murder, over and over again. What we saw was the handiwork of evil people, who, although they might have thought that they were acting in God’s name, effectively denied God’s existence, over and over again. It was enough to sear our souls, whether or not we were there; whether or not we knew someone there; whether or not we only saw. So this past week we have sought ways to reconnect with God, ways to think about God, ways to answer our questions about God, ways to prove that God does indeed exist.

I know that I struggle with my ideas about God. I am not always logical or coherent. Sometimes though it can be helpful to read or hear what other people think about God.
Last night it was fascinating to hear Rabbi Wisnia speak about God and to think about how much he and I, two very different people, agree. I can tell you some of what I believe about God.

I believe that God is the Creator, which is probably how I made the switch from Biology to the rabbinate. It is part of the wonder of biology to see the beauty of God’s design. I believe that God revealed the Torah to us. I don’t think Moses took dictation on Mount Sinai, but I do think that God is in the Torah. I believe that God redeemed us from Egypt. Whether or not the Sea of Reeds actually split, the Exodus from Egypt is too much part of us for me to believe that God was not a part of that. I believe that God is eternal and holy and infinite and all powerful and all knowing. I believe that God gave humanity free will. I believe that we have a relationship with God as human beings and that we have a covenant with God as Jews. I think that God is constant. There have been times when God has felt distant. I have only lately realized that I am the one who moves.

There are many things that I don’t believe about God. I don’t think that God has a favorite sports team, nor has God cursed the Boston Red Sox. I don’t think that God influences the outcome of the lottery, roulette, blackjack, or bingo.

I don’t think that God has a form or body. I don’t think that God is male. I don’t think that God is female. But here is where my theology becomes contradictory. I don’t think that God has eyes, but I want to know that God sees. I don’t think that God has ears,
but I want to know that God hears prayers. I don’t think that God has hands, but I want God to act, to heal, to intervene. I don’t think that God has arms, but I want God to comfort me. I don’t think that God has wings, but I want to be under the shadow of God’s wings when I die, as we read in Eil Malei Rachamim.

It is our liturgy that challenges my thoughts about God the most. Whether the wings in Eil Malei Rachamim, or seeing God as my Rock in Yihiyu L’ratzon, I keep thinking about my ideas of God.

This morning we are about to read the prayer that challenges me the most, Unetaneh tokef.
In this prayer, we speak of God as awesome and fearsome. We stand trembling before God as we are judged. And so we are back to the idea of God as a Judge. We are about to read how God judges all of this day. The evidence is our own words in our very own handwriting about all the things that we have done this year. Troubling enough, but then we read that God considers each soul and sets our destiny and the limits of our life.

“How many shall pass on, how many shall come to be;
Who shall live and who shall die;
Who shall see ripe age and who shall not;
Who shall perish by fire and who by water;”

I do believe that our actions count. I can’t believe that God is a puppet master who determines what my life is to the last detail. I can’t believe that God decided last year all those who were saved and all those who died this week. Or even that God decreed that such a thing would happen. Yet there it is. And I struggle.

It is easy for us to see things as either/or. Either we believe this prayer in its entirety or we are not here. I think that for us as Israel there is another choice. I think that the struggles that I have spoken of are a valid choice. Too often there are those who think that the idea of God is one-size-fits-all, that there is one way to think. And this it not true. Rabbi Wisnia gave you his concept of what God is. I have just shared some of my concept of God. What I really want to share is that I struggle. I wrestle with our texts. I challenge our liturgy. I actively think about God. And I don’t have all the answers and that is fine.

In Genesis we read about Jacob wrestling with a man? an angel? Beside the Jabbok river the night before he sees his brother Esau again. After it is all over, Jacob gets his new name Yisrael, Israel, one who wrestles, who struggles with God. Questioning, challenging, wrestling, thinking about God is very Jewish.

Evil people tried to deny and devalue the existence of God last Tuesday at the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. There were many others who affirmed God’s presence in the world. The firefighters, police officers and emergency medical service personnel who died trying to save others affirmed God’s presence by declaring that every life is important. The passengers about flight 93 that crashed outside Pittsburgh, if they did what we believe they did, affirmed God’s presence by preventing other people from being murdered at the cost of their own lives. God does not want us to die, or to commit suicide,
But each life is important.

Many of us this week affirmed God’s presence in much smaller ways, as God’s agents


This past week we have clothed the naked and fed the hungry. We have visited the sick
In the coming weeks we will comfort the mourners and bury the dead. We have affirmed God’s presence and acted as God’s agents. We have raised our standards of how to act in the world and we have the chance to keep those standards.

Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melekh Ha’Olam hatov v’hameitiv. Blessed are You, Lord our God, the one who is good and beneficent. This is the prayer for good news. This is the blessing that I will be trying on this year as a Reform Jew. I want to be ready as I hear about the wonderful actions of the people in our country and around the world. I want to ready as I hear that we have kept our high standards. Repeat after me. Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melekh Ha’Olam hatov v’hameitiv. Blessed are You, Lord our God, the one who is good and beneficent. I want all of us to be ready for a good year with all of the possibilities that a new year brings for us.

Rabbi Melanie Aron

The following sermon was delivered during the 2001 Jewish High Holiday season following the tragic events of September 11, 2001. It has been included on the Torah From Terror website as a resource and retains the copyright of its author. Please cite the source accordingly.

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Erev Rosh HaShanah 5762 - September 17, 2001

The Meaning of One Death, One Life

Perhaps it's spending so much of my life at funerals, that makes last week's events more difficult to absorb.

I know what one death is like. I have been with families grieving for one father, one sister, one son. The gaping hole when death comes suddenly, unexpectedly. The tears and the pain, the exacerbation sometimes of existing family fault lines, or sometimes thankfully, the healing that coming through a crisis together may bring. Most often there are plans that will never come to be, hopes unfulfilled, happy events in the future whose joy will be diminished by the absence of a loved one. Rarely are there no regrets. If the survivors are children, there is the terrible knowledge that this loss will not be easy to overcome. I know what one death is like.

But over the past few days, it has been difficult for me to hold in my mind, the deaths of so many victims of the September 11th attack. I try and put it into some context that I am familiar with - if I officiated at three funerals a day, and continued from now until Jeremy, who was just Bar Mitzvah, graduated from high school, could I lay to rest all of the dead from last week's tragedy? What becomes of all the sorrow, the burdens of so many people?

In most ancient times the taking of a life was an offense against the family of the deceased. That made sense. The family suffered the loss, both emotionally and economically. Therefore the family had the right to avenge the loss. In the Bible you can see a transition taking place, as murder becomes not just a crime against the family of the victim, but also against society. Cities of refuge are established, places for an accidental man-slaughterer to flee. Whereas originally the sanctuary was an automatic refuge to whomever could reach it, now it is society that decides whether the criminal deserves protection from the avenger. If, as the Bible describes, the killer is one who has killed unwittingly, without having been his victim's enemy in the past, then he can stay. But if he has lain in wait for his enemy and strikes him a fatal blow and then flees to one of these towns, then he is taken even from the corners of the altar and handed over for punishment.

Murder is not just an offense against the human community but it is also an offense against God. In murdering another individual, one is blotting out God's image reflected in every human being. That is why Jewish law came to require an almost unattainable level of certainty in imposing the death penalty, and why we are required by Jewish law to intervene in order to save a life, even where we are not directly involved.

The first murder in the Bible, of course, is Cain killing Abel. Here some commentators attempt to blame God- after all God didn't accept Cain's offering and that's what seems to have started it all.

But the Bible rejects this rationalizing. Bad things happen, we may even be treated unfairly, that does not entitle us to lash out. Cain is warned, as his blood begins to boil, " if we do right, there is uplift, and if we do not do right, sin crouches at the door. Its urge is towards us, yet we can be its master."

The rabbis read into this story every contemporary source of warfare: economic, political, religious and even sexual. They tell us that Cain and Abel divided the world between them. Cain took all the moveable property and Abel the land. But even the whole world divided among two brothers was not enough. Cain said to Abel, why are you wearing clothing that comes from my property? And Abel said to Cain, why are you standing on the earth?

Others say they were competing over Eve, the only woman alive, our own Helen of Troy.

And still others say that it was religious intolerance: that they were arguing as to whether the Temple would be built on the property of one or the other.

Cain and Abel, living in a world before Torah, a world without law, were not able to manage their conflict, were not able to find a way to live together. Placing this first fratricide so close to the beginning of the Torah was to shows us how deeply ingrained in humanity is the recourse to violence.

Perhaps closest to the events of this week, is the attack of the Amalekites on the Israelites following the crossing of the sea. We are told, that contrary to the established conventions of warfare at that time, the Amalekites attacked the camp at the rear, attacked the weakest members of society, the civilian stragglers, old men and children, rather than the armed men at the front. Perhaps for that reason the Torah treats them differently from all the other enemies of the Israelites. The Egyptians enslaved the Israelites for 430 years. They forced cruel labor upon them, they embittered their lives with hardship, yet we, the Israelites descendents, are commanded in the Torah, "you shall not abhor an Egyptian".

The Amelekites are a different story. They are viewed as enemies of God. When the battle is over and Moses builds an altar it is called Adonai Nisi- which the Torah translates as "hand upon the throne of the Lord". And the Bible reminds us: "The Lord will be at war with Amalek throughout the ages". The Amalekites, as a people, disappear from the pages of history, but the concept of the Amalekites is evoked whenever an enemy arises who recognizes no limitations, who abides by no laws, who dehumanizes those who are targeted for death and feels no compunction in wiping them out. Amalek is the enemy of every organized community.

In 1938 Mahatma Gandhi, who was leading a campaign of non-violent civil disobedience against the British, published a statement in the newspaper suggesting that the Jews in Europe adopt that strategy in Germany. Martin Buber the prominent philospher wrote a response that was published on February 24th, 1939. Buber was a pacifist; later he became an outstanding Jewish proponent of a bi-national state in Palestine. He was not a man of war. But he wrote Ghandi a letter, saying in essence that not every enemy is British: civil disobedience works only against those with an underlying respect for human life.

I do not wish to see America at war. I pray that we do not imitate our enemies and become Amalek, indiscriminantly killing civilian non-combatants. Doing so will not prevent further terrorism and will only encourage another generation to rise up against us. But neither should we be innocents, who refuse to recognize murderous hatred when it is directed against us.

In America we have differences of opinion and still go out to coffee. In the House and Senate, and even on the Supreme Court, the most partisan of opponents may still be personal friends. Arthur will be pleased to know that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsborg, and Justice Anthony Scalia enjoy attending the opera together. I may be a Republican and you a Democrat but we can still live side by side, our children attending the same schools, our arguments limited by the conventions of our society.

It is not like that in all parts of the world. Conflicts are not seen as limited, compromise is viewed as treachery and enemies are demonized.

As Jews, our concern for Israel makes us think of fundamentalist Islamic extremism mainly as a danger to the Jewish homeland in Zion. But Islamic fundamentalist extremism is active in other areas of the world as well- ask Hindus in Kashmir, ask Buddhists in Afghanistan, ask the Southern Sudanese Christians and Animists, ask the Ibo's in Nigeria.

It is not Islam with which we have a quarrel. Islam is a beautiful religion, closer in many ways to Judaism than Christianity. It has a sense of halachah which Christianity lacks, and a tradition of midrash. It has been in some times and places, a religion of tolerance and humanism, of learning and culture. Our enemy is a particular narrow and totalitarian political use of Islam, a perversion of Islam. An Assyrian Bishop I spoke with on Sunday evening used the analogy, bin Laden is to Islam, as the KKK is to Christianity. Perhaps we can get the analogy a little closer, as Timothy McVeigh was to fundamentalist Christianity, as Yigal Amir is to Judaism. Even if Israel did not exist, there would be conflict between the West and this version of Islam, as there are conflicts between this and other more mainstream versions of Islam. As the United States creates alliances around the world, we reach out to Muslim countries to join us, so long as their professions of sorrow at our loss, are accompanied by a serious commitment to renouncing terrorism as a means of achieving political goals.

There are those who lay blame for recent events on the economic disparity between the United States and the peoples of the Southern Hemisphere. It is embarrassing how disproportionate a percentage of the world's resources we use here in the United States. Working with other religious groups on the appeal for the year 2K Jubilee debt forgiveness for African nations, I learned about the hardships we create when insisting that debts to the West be paid back. I hope on Yom Kippur, or perhaps given the dislocations of this high holidays season, it will be on Children's Sabbath in October, to talk about the terrible moral quandaries related to the exploitation of children around the world in factories and fields. We cannot ignore the suffering that exists in much of the world. We need a Marshall plan for the 21st century. But, it is also true that inequities within poor countries are a cause of poverty and destitution, and that often local elites take no responsibility for the well being of their citizens. Judaism urges our allegiance to the government wherever we live, on the presumption that government is an important protector of the well being of the inhabitants of the land.

The massive deaths at the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center were for some a challenge to their faith in God. The randomness of death, the vulnerability of the good and the innocent, all belie a simple understanding of God's action in our world. Our tradition would put theological justifications of the sort Jerry Fallwell recently presented, in the same category as the foolish responses of Job's friends. After Job loses all of his property, his children and his health, his friends come to visit proclaiming that God is wholly righteous and that if he has suffered then he must have sinned. The Bible rejects these words of comfort as being neither helpful to the situation nor insightful in providing a deeper understanding of the workings of God.

While for me there are no simple answers to the theological problem of evil, there was much in the past week that spoke of good and the presence of God in the hearts of people. It has been a long time since I have heard stories of self-sacrifice like those of the fire fighters climbing up the stairs in the World Trade Center, and of courage, like that of the cell phone heroes on the Pittsburgh flight. Individuals on crutches were carried down 50 flights of stairs, volunteers who felt that they had useful skills drove 10-12 hours through the night to come and help. There have been tremendous acts of generosity from people of all of the many different faiths and nationalities that make up New York City and from countries around the globe.

It is also significant that even under these most difficult circumstance, our country has spoken out strongly against acts of violence or threats against those whose ethnic background or nationality might lead them to be identified as related to the perpetrators of these terrible acts. To me this speaks to a wonderful decency in the American people. When on Friday I spoke on the phone with David Aboujoudon, one of the leaders of our Arab- Jewish dialogue, he expressed surprised at the statements of American government officials, community leaders, ordinary citizens and in particular Jews. His experience in the land of his birth, and the attitudes he had been taught, did not lead him to expect this.

I am a rabbi who tries to help people at times of loss and I know the meaning of one death. But I am trying at this difficult time to focus also on the meaning of one life, on the good that can be added to our world by individuals acting with courage, faith and love. Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, who preached during the difficult days of the 1930's and 40's described the task of good people as follows: to stay sane in the midst of madness, to stay civilized in the midst of brutality, to light candles in the midst of darkness. If we rise to those challenges then we will repair through our own actions the damage that has been done to our families, our society and our God.

Rabbi Brad Artson

The following sermon was delivered during the 2001 Jewish High Holiday season following the tragic events of September 11, 2001. It has been included on the Torah From Terror website as a resource and retains the copyright of its author. Please cite the source accordingly.


To Choose Life

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Delivered at
Sinai Temple, Los Angeles
Rosh Ha-Shanah 2001


My friends, with all that s going on in the world, this has been a week of devastation and a challenge for all of us. Today, Rosh Hashanah, we come together historically to rededicate ourselves to the sovereignty of God, to the notion that God is, in some important and mysterious way, a melekh, a Majesty who rules over us. Just look at virtually any page of the Mahzor, and there you see again, and again, and again, “Eloheinu, ve-Elohei Avoteinu… Our God and God of our ancestors, reign over all the universe in Your glory, and in Your splendor be exalted over all the earth. Shine forth in the majesty of Your triumphant power over all the inhabitants of Your world, that every living form may know that You have formed it, and every living creature understands that You have created it, and all with life’s breath in their nostrils may declare: The Holy One, God of Israel, is sovereign, and God’s dominion rules over all.”

I can’t help but wonder: given that we have just endured a week in which two large buildings in Manhattan were destroyed, in which the Pentagon was attacked in Washington, in which the world shows weariness before the fight has even begun, I wonder why we are sitting here and reading a book that speaks, repeatedly, about God as Sovereign?

Why do we sit and talk about God being Ruler, when God’s children are being blown up? Why do we speak about God’s law uniting all humanity, when freedom is under assault? When the very foundations of democracy are being attacked and when, in some corners of the world, people were dancing in the streets and passing out ice cream and candies to children as a way of celebrating this attack against democracy? And why in a year, in which Israel has been suffering these attacks relentlessly, why would we be reading from a tired old book some abstract theological concept about this divinity to whom somehow we must pledge an allegiance today.

I know that you read the newspapers as well as I do, and I am sure that you watch TV better than I do. So I don’t want to speak about this issue as a pundit. I am not here to offer you policy suggestions, I am not here to analyze to situation in strategic terms, but i’ll tell you what I am today - today I am a simple Jew. I am a citizen of the United States, and I need to come together with you today to make some kind of religious sense of what has gone on. I need to understand why when we gather together, our tradition will have us speak of God’s sovereignty. I need to know why that matters in the world, and I need to know where to go from here.

It is my hunch that we all need that today. So, I want to start by thinking about God as Majesty.

All people serve a master. It is an illusion of modernity that freedom somehow means freedom from all authority. And it is, I believe, the wisdom of our tradition to remind us that the power that we have as human beings is to choose what will be our master in life. The choice, then, matters essentially, because, there are many masters competing for our loyalty. There are fame and youth, and power, and wealth, and prestige, all of these masters seeking our service and countless people throwing away their lives in the service of these very masters who ultimately turn on those who serve them and abandon them. The only master worthy of service is a master so large that the distinctions that human beings normally makes - the pettiness of our ambition, our frailty, our greed, fade into insignificance. In choosing your master, friends, choose one whose service is freedom. Choose one who calls you to an adult maturity and summons you to take responsibility for your own life and for the world in which we live. It turns out then, that in choosing the master, the only master worthy of service is God. That is why, perhaps, our tradition indulged in an ancient pun, in speaking about the Ten Commandments engraved, carved into the rock, the Torah uses the word harut - to engrave. But you know, the Torah is written without vowels and without punctuation, and so the Rabbis play with the consonants: al tikra harut, ella heirut – Don’t punctuate the Hebrew as “engraved”, but as “freedom.” For the only freedom given to adult human beings is to take responsibility for a life of law, and order, and justice. Freedom is not the freedom to simply pursue our own momentary whims, that’s a form of slavery. Freedom is the ability to stand tall and make of your life a shield, so that others may also live in freedom.

And what than, if God is our master, what than is the core of divine service? Here, I turn to one of the Torah’s most famous passages that we read only last week. In speaking to the people of Israel, God says the following words, “I call Heaven and Earth to witness this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse, therefore choose life that you and your offspring may live.”

I’ve often pondered that passage and thought to myself: what kind of God needs to tell us to choose life? But this week makes clear: there are people out there who reject life. There are people out there whose rejection of life is so strong that they would rob others of that blessing as well. And I recognize again God’s wisdom in telling us that choosing life is not some passive thing we do by inaction. Choosing life takes willing choice, it takes consciousness, it takes attention, and it takes discipline. To choose life, we have to resolve on what it means to live with meaning, and with purpose, and with dignity.

€ To choose life means to know yourself so well that you know who you truly are. So that when others seek to make you into someone else, you are able to know, “that’s not me and I won’t go there.” We live in a world that presumes to tell us that some people are better than others, and that some ways of being human are worthy of dignity, and that others should be ignored or removed. To choose life means to choose to be yourself, trusting that God made you as you are, and that you, therefore, have a purpose as you are.

The great Rabbi of the Talmud, Rebbe Akiva, told the remarkable story during another time of devastation and violence. At the time where the Roman Emperor had made it a capital offense to observe Judaism and to live a life of Torah, Rabbi Akiva insisted on publicly teaching Torah. His disciples said: Master, don’t you know that in teaching Torah, you endanger your life? The Romans have made it a crime! Rabbi Akiva responded with the following fable:

There was a time once when a fox was walking by a river stream and saw a large school of fish swimming frantically upstream. And the fox said to them: “Brothers and sisters, why are you swimming this way?” And they said: There are fishermen down at the other end with nets and they seek to trap us and to take our lives. And the fox said to the fish: “You don’t need to swim away from them. In fact, you don’t need to stay in the water at all. Come out here and live with me! My ancestors lived with your ancestors very happily, come out of the water and I will take care of you.” And the fish turned to the fox and said: “They call you the smartest of animals, but you cannot be very clever, because if we are in danger here in the water which is our natural place, how much the more so would we be imperiled where we to live our home to try to live in yours.”

In a world that tries to tell us to abandon who we are, to walk away from our Jewish heritage and a life of Torah and Mitzvot, to choose life means to reject that false choice. It means in a face of terror and violence to affirm that we are, as we have always been, Am Israel - the Jewish people, and that we have, from the beginning of our time, wrestled with what it means to serve God and to magnify and glorify God’s kingdom in the world. The terror has no power over us, because we remain in our natural place, in our synagogues, in our schools, studying and living Torah.

€ To choose life means to illuminate God’s image in our fellow human beings. It is, I think, one of the crowning points of glory of our Torah that at it’s very inception it tells us that each and every human being is fashion in God’s image. “Na’aseh adam be’tzalmenu - Let as make humanity in our image,” says God. And that means, then, there is no human being devoid of the divine.

€ To choose life means to resist stereotyping, our fellow human beings, and I point out here that we as Jews bear a particular responsibility in that area. Both because we have suffered by being stereotyped by others, and because we have been for this century engaged in a political struggle that puts us at odds with most of the Arab world. It is, therefore, doubly incumbent upon us, to make sure that Arab-Americans and Muslims are not scapegoated because the terrorists who committed this act share their faith. We must stand up in democracy for the core conviction that people are judged by their deeds, and not by their ethnicity, and not by their labels. And if we do not do that then we have nothing to say when people turn against us in that very same way.

€ To choose life means to choose a life of service and I think here, particularly, of the heroic fire-fighters and police who gave their lives in a hundreds, so that their fellow citizens should live. And I pray that we will never again take for granted the courage and the honor of serving in a police force, in the fire force, and in the military. These men and women put their lives at risk so that we may live. They deserve our honor and our respect.

I think not only of those men and women, but I think of the stories now coming out of the World Trade Center, of the heroic men and women who made sure to help their fellows get out of the building alive. Of the people who stopped along their way to help someone who was a little slower, someone whose legs were failing them, someone who could not catch their breath. Their names we will never know in full, but their heroism ought to inspire our own.

Think of the countless volunteers of this past week. In the hundreds of thousands, people all over this country and all over the world have been asking, “What can I do to help?” And have been stepping forward in a variety of ways. And I think that remarkable story that is found in the Talmud in Massekhet Sanhedrin. It is told that once Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, one of the great Rabbis of his generation encountered the prophet Elijah. You know that, according to Jewish legend, Elijah never died. He was whisked up to heaven in a chariot and he comes down every now and then to talk to us about the age of the messiah, an age of world peace and harmony. There, standing by the tomb of another great Rabbi, was Elijah. So, Rabbi Joshua ben Levi approached the prophet and he said to him: “Master, When will the Messiah come?” And Elijah said to him: “Go and ask him yourself.” So the Rabbi said: “Where is he?” And Elijah responded: “The Messiah is standing by the gates of the city. That’s where the lepers gather. And those people with leprosy are constantly wrapping and wrapping their bandages and treating their wounds. He sits among the lepers also bandaging and re-bandaging. But where others take off all the bandages and then put on all the bandages, the Messiah is not so. The Messiah takes off one bandage, cleans the wound and re-bandages it immediately because he thinks, ‘perhaps, my service will be needed by someone else. I need to be ready to help.’”

Imagine a tradition that speaks of a Messiah who was injured, and who, even while tending his own wounds, is worried about caring for those of other people. I think about that vision of Messiah this week when I read about Dan Lopez, who worked in the World Trade Center. After the building was hit, he used his cell phone to call his wife, Liz. This is what he said to her: “Liz, it’s me Dan. My building has been hit. I made it to the 78th Floor. I am OK. But I am going to remain here to help evacuate other people. I’ll see you soon.” And those were his last words. I think of the paradox of Dan Lopez choosing life by dying, by choosing to place himself at the service of other workers in that building, he made of himself a monument to the choice of life. He stood up at the last moment to this brutal terror.

€ To choose life, my friends, means to live life to its fullest. The poet Allen Ginsberg spoke about “the dearness of the vanishing moment.” The present is rapidly receding into the past and our only choice is whether we choose to live this moment or merely wait for some other moment yet to come. But life is merely a series of moments and if we don’t train ourselves to live in the present now, it will pass us by, leaving us with nothing. In that light, I wonder, if you had only 60 seconds and could make one phone call, whom you might call and what you would say? I want to share with you some of the words of some of the people who faced exactly that choice:

Stuart Meltzer called from the 105th Floor. He phoned his wife and he said to her: “Honey, something terrible is happening. I don’t think I am going to make it. I love you. Take care of the children.”

Mark Hogan on United Flight 93 phoned his mother and he repeated three times: “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

On flight 175, Brian Sweeney called his wife: “I just wanted to let you know that I love you and I hope to see you again. If I don’t, please have fun in life and live your life the best you can. Know that I love you and that, no matter what, I will see you again.”

One friend in the building didn’t have a phone, so, he e-mailed another friend: “I don’t think I’m going to get out. You have been a really good friend.”

Veronique Bowers phoned her mother. She said: “Mommy, the building is on fire, there’s smoke coming through the walls, I can’t breathe. I love you Mommy, goodbye.”

To choose life means to know whom you would call and what there is to say and to remember that nothing else really matters: the people you love, spending time with them, showing them that you love them, letting them love you. That, it turns out is what God has made us for, and what constitutes God’s highest service.

Our agenda for the coming year is to choose life. I need to warn you that it is not an easy choice to make. There will be people who will seek to take advantage of the violence and the terror to remake us in an image of the terrorists. There will be people who will respond to the terror by bigotry of their own. (Last week we heard Reverend Falwell and Reverend Robertson blame a whole host of innocent people for the terrorist attacks in a way that can only make these men look petty and small.) We must resist the temptation to do the same.

In that regard we have no better guide for how to choose life than the words of the prayer we have already recited this morning. Rabbi Amnon of Mayence wrote the Unetaneh Tokef in a similarly difficult time and he closed his prayer with the following powerful words: “u’teshuvah, u’tefillah, u’tzedakah, ma’avirin et ro’a ha-gezerah – but repentance, prayer, and deeds of love remove the severity of the decree.” Notice, that Rabbi Amnon recognizes that we cannot remove the decree. What has been done has been done. It was wicked, it was devastating, and it has assaulted us all.

But the consequences of what have been done – that is in our hands. I want to unpack his religious language into more contemporary concepts:

“Repentance” – teshuvah – translates into paying attention to our own inner life, to what goes on inside our souls and that, my friends, we control. We have the choice to abandon our complicity, to abandon our slavery to habit and drudgery, our indifference to our fellow human beings and the way we have trained ourselves not to look people in the eyes and to see them as a human beings. This I understand to be Teshuvah.

“Prayer” means turning beyond ourselves and reaching out to a world beyond. It means addressing each other in a fullness of being. It means being able to beseech God on our behalf, in memory of the deceased, on behalf of those who are still ill and suffering, on all of God’s children who are in need of healing, who have suffered loss.

And, finally, “deeds of love” translates into the need to take action. It is insufficient to simply be in touch with your own inner life and to commune with the divine. At times such as this, the service of God requires hands – reaching out to our fellow human beings, repairing the world. You are God’s hands.

So, we must mobilize this year on behalf of New York and Washington, two beautiful cities that symbolize freedom. We must find ways to contribute and to help whether that means contributing blood or supplies, giving to charity, or providing for our own needs in this city.

My friends, we must stand tall with Israel. Here I will violate what I told you and I will say something political. Make no mistake about it that when the enemies of freedom identify their targets, they are correct in understanding that their enemies are the United States of America and Israel, sister democracies committed to the notion that people have a right to their own destiny and their own freedom. They are not wrong – those who live their lives by terror and darkness – to see us as their enemy. And at this time let no one question our resolve, with our brothers and sisters in Israel, on the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in our own land, in our own state.

And let no Jew doubt that the Jewish democracy in the Middle East is unafraid of peace with its neighbors and is willing, even now, to discuss a real peace, a peace with security, a peace that will benefit not only Israel but the Palestinians and our other Arab neighbors. But let nobody confuse our unflagging commitment to peace for weakness. We will fight for our children’s right to go to bed safely, and we will fight for our own safety and security just as would any free people.

If the events of the last week leave us with any message, the message must be – as it has always been – that freedom requires eternal vigilance, that liberty requires determination, and that the revolution that was launched by Israelite slaves leaving Egypt thousands of years ago, the sparks of that revolution, which shined in 1776 and gave birth to this nation (which saw itself as a new Israel expressing an old Covenant), that that revolution still remains incomplete. In affirming your master, know that you are in the service of a master who demands the freedom of the heart, and soul, and mind. In the coming months and years, we can best fight terror by re-committing to civilization, to democracy, and to a life of Torah and Mitzvot.

God bless us all; we need those blessings.

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson is the Dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies of the University of Judaism. He is the author of The Bedside Torah: Wisdom, Visions, & Dream.

Rabbi Ilana Baden

The following sermon was delivered during the 2001 Jewish High Holiday season following the tragic events of September 11, 2001. It has been included on the Torah From Terror website as a resource and retains the copyright of its author. Please cite the source accordingly.

Yom Kippur – 5762
Rabbi Ilana G. Baden
Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation

I read the newspaper yesterday. Here is a sampling of the headlines I found:
• Airlines struggling to stay aloft
• Child abuse, neglect killed 45 here last year
• Mad cow disease case confirmed in Japan
• Economies are headed for recession
• Pakistan won’t end Afghanistan ties
• Sikh residents report harassment
• Miners killed in rescue are praised as heroes
• 100 injured when blast derails train in India
• Last standing piece of building is toppled.

There’s no denying it: We live in a complicated world. Perhaps this morning’s Torah reading puts it best: R’ei, natati l’fanecha hayom et ha-chayim v’et ha-tov; v’et ha-mavet v’et ha-ra. “See, I have set before you this day life and good; and death and evil.”

As a Jewish people, we do our best to focus on ha-chayim v’ha-tov, on life and good. We remind ourselves daily of the blessings in our lives: our family, our friends, God-willing, our health. We look around with pride in this synagogue – as we gather with our community at this High Holy Day season, thanking God for another year that has been granted to us.

However, while we strive to concentrate on the good things in life, we cannot ignore ha-mavet v’ha-ra, the death and the evil. We cannot ignore the fact that the world is also filled with misfortunes. Natural disasters – such as earthquakes and tornadoes – wreak havoc on communities. Medical complications – such as miscarriages and cancer – cause suffering not only for the patient, but for friends and family alike. And national travesties – such as the recent attacks on New York and D.C. – remind us that the world is not as safe as we would like it to be.

So, as we gather today on this Yom Kippur, we are faced again with that eternal question: Why does God allow bad things to happen in this world and what is the meaning behind them? Clearly, this is a difficult question, a question that has plagued the minds of scholars and sages throughout the generations. In response, there are those who say that suffering is a form of Divine Punishment; there are those who say that suffering is a test of our faith; and there are those who say that suffering is the means by which God can teach us valuable lessons.

Suffering as punishment. What does this mean?

Thousands of years ago, the Holy City of Jerusalem and its Temple were destroyed by Israel’s enemies. Many interpreted this devastation as divine retribution for not keeping God’s commandments. The prophets of the day preached to the people that God had allowed this calamity to take place because of His anger and contempt for the society’s corruption. They scolded the people for their sinful ways, saying that it was because of Israel’s rebelliousness that God allowed their enemies to overtake them.

And so, too, today, do we have people that would like to blame us for what has happened in our country. Self-proclaimed, would-be prophets, such as Jerry Falwell, say that the devastation in New York and D.C. is due to God’s wrath over matters such as pro-choice, homosexuality, and the ACLU. They blame us – yes, us – for giving into what they deem temptation and corruption; for pushing God to take such a drastic measure in order to punish us for our misdeeds. While this view is certainly hateful to many, it does console a few. For it suggests that we could have control over disaster. If only we were more “righteous”, God would not have to chastise us with such tragedies.

Suffering as a test. What does this mean?

Another popular explanation of why bad things happen in this world is that God uses these misfortunes in order to test us. God wants to make sure that we are a faithful and loyal people. Therefore, He sets challenges before us, so that He can prove to Himself and to others, that we are worthy of His blessing. However, God is careful to choose only those whom He knows will pass the test, such as Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice his beloved son to God; or Job, who was able to maintain his faith in God, even when faced with financial and personal ruin.
This view is reminiscent of an ancient commentary on a verse from Psalms: Adonai tzadik yivchan, v’rasha v’oheiv hamas sina nafsho. “God tries the righteous, but [as for] the wicked and he who loves violence, God hates his soul.” The rabbis, therefore, teach us that when bad things befall us, it is because God knows that we are capable of dealing with them.
Rabbi Yonaton, a sage from antiquity, compared God’s testing humans with a potter who taps his pots, so that he can be sure that they are sturdy. Rabbi Yonaton taught, “A potter does not examine defective vessels, because he cannot give them a single blow without breaking them. So then, what does he examine? Only the sound vessels, for even if he gives them many blows, they will not break.” By testing the sound vessels, the potter is able to demonstrate that he has produced a commendable item. So, too, some would say, with God. By testing us, He is better able to assure that His creation is worthwhile.

How many of us can relate with this mentality? I, myself, have often heard people frame their own hardships in such a way. There’s the woman who lost her job. Upon receiving her pink-slip, she told her co-workers, “God doesn’t give us more than we can bear. He’s sending me this trial so that I can learn to be more resourceful. I know I’ll figure something out.” And there’s the man who was diagnosed with leukemia. He told his wife, “This is a test, dear – a test of how well we can cherish each other in bad times, as well as good times.” And there is the headline on MSN.com’s web-page for America’s response to our current situation. It is a quote from the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who commented, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Suffering as a lesson. What does this mean?

There are those who say that God allows bad things to occur in order to teach us a valuable lesson – a lesson we would not otherwise have learned if we did not suffer a bit.
It seems that many people find meaning and comfort in this view of suffering. By assigning a purpose to our pain, we might be better equipped to persevere through it. As Rabbi Joseph Soleveitchik commented, “Suffering comes to ennoble man, to purge his thoughts of pride and superficiality, to expand his horizons. In sum, the purpose of suffering is to repair that which is faulty in man’s personality.”

Take, for example, the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness after being liberated from slavery. Our text tells us that there was a more direct route from Egypt to Canaan. Yet, God decided to lead them in a more round-about fashion so that the journey would last forty years. For generations, Torah scholars have wondered why God would do this.
One popular explanation teaches us that this was for the benefit of the Israelite people. For so many years, they had no choice but to be slaves, unable to control their own destiny. Therefore, God felt the need to extend their transitional period before they reached the Promised Land – so that they could develop the skills they needed in order to become an independent nation. Though the wilderness was a harsh and dangerous place, it was a necessary evil that would ultimately result in strengthening the People of Israel.


So here we have it: three different explanations on why God allows suffering to occur in this world: to punish us, to test us, or to teach us. To many, such interpretations are comforting. After all, who wouldn’t like to think that there is a grand, divine plan, and that everything happens for a reason? However, I, personally, cannot subscribe to any of these perspectives on why bad things happen.

God, as I understand God, is not is so petty as to need to punish us through pain. Neither is God so insecure that He would need to test our faith and loyalty in such a cruel way. And neither is God so cavalier with people’s welfares and lives to use them in order to teach us a lesson – no matter how valuable or valid that lesson might be.

So what do we do with all these stories from our Bible? In pondering this question, I am reminded of a story told about the great Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber. Once, when he was taking a train-ride, he met a very traditionalist rabbi. The two began to discuss Torah, and came to talking about the verses regarding Amelek, Israel’s worst enemy. They noted that it is written in the Torah that the Israelites were to utterly destroy the people of Amelek. Buber said to the rabbi, “You know, I don’t believe God ever really said that.” The rabbi was astonished. He protested, “But it’s written, and Moses wrote down everything just as he heard it from the mouth of God!” To which Buber replied, “Oh – don’t get me wrong. I believe that this is what Moses heard, but I don’t believe that this is what God actually said.”

So, if we reject the notions that God is punishing us, testing us, or teaching us, how can we interpret the evils that befall us? What do we make of all the pain and suffering?

Recently, Rabbi Debra R. Hachen wrote a modern-day midrash, or rabbinic story, that offers us another perspective on how to understand tragedy. Rabbi Hachen composed this midrash just last week and shared it with her congregation on Rosh Hashanah. Today I would like to share her words with you:

God sat shocked on the throne in heaven. God couldn't believe what had just happened down on earth. It was September 11 and God saw it all as it unfolded. God couldn't find words to speak, and tears started to form in God's eyes. Then the accusing angel approached, the one who was always trying to get people into trouble with God…

[Ha-Satan spoke:] "O Eternal One, Master of All, Judge of all Truth: here it is just a week before the holiest days of the year -- the days when you open the Book of Life and examine the deeds of each human being. And what will you find this year? Just when people should be starting to think about repentance, prayer and charity, you will find that almost twenty sinful people committed a terrible crime - and took the lives of 5,000 people in one day - in one morning! And, once again, O Master of All, they said they did it in Your name. Now is the time,” said Satan, “to get rid of humankind once and for all. It was a hopeless experiment, and it's not going to yield any good results."

…"O Eternal One," Satan spoke in a consoling whisper. "Just give me the word. I will take care of it all. We'll destroy this world and start over again. We angels will help you build a better version."

…The Eternal One [replied,] "You may be right. Perhaps there is no future for humanity. Perhaps it's time to give up. But I must be certain. I must send three of my loyal and faithful angels to check it out and see if there is any reason to save this world."
So God called three angels, the same three that had been sent so long ago to visit with Abraham in the desert, and gave them their instructions. "Each of you search high and low, and bring back to me any evidence that humankind is still worth saving and helping. Return by nightfall, and I will make my decision."

So the angels went down to earth and began to look through the rubble at each site. They saw the pain of those who were wounded, they knew that under the collapsed buildings there were thousands who had died. But they split up and began to search further for any evidence that man, in spite of all this evil, was worth saving.

The first angel [went to New York. He ] came across two men covered in dust. They were embracing and shaking, so he stopped and overheard them talking to a firefighter. “We were on the 68th floor,” they said, “when we realized we had to evacuate quickly or we would die. But there was a woman in our office who was in a wheelchair -- and the elevators weren't working. We found the emergency wheelchair and moved her over, so we could carry her down the stairs. It was hard work -- coming down all 68 floors. Others told us to leave her and run -- that the firemen would bring her later. But, we couldn't desert her. We passed the firemen on their way up to help others, and we kept going. We got her out, and an ambulance whisked her away immediately. Just as the ambulance pulled away, the building collapsed. We ducked under a van, and now we are just grateful to be alive. Another minute, and all three of us would have died in that building.”

Ahhh...thought the angel. The courage of the firefighters who entered the dangerous building to save lives, the compassion these two ordinary men showed for a woman in need, and their gratitude for being alive, surely God will want to save the world for their sake. And so he gently, almost invisibly scraped some of the dust that had fallen from the buildings off of their faces, and flew up to heaven and presented it to God.

The second angel went to Pennsylvania, [where] all on the plane had perished. He could sense the spirits of those who died -- could almost feel how they were still linked to their loved ones back home. So, following the trail of connection, he found himself in a home where a wife stood trying to explain what happened to her neighbors. Tears were rolling down her face. “He called me on the cell phone,” she said. “He told me how much he loved me, and then he said that he and four other passengers were going to rush the hijackers and try to stop them. After that, I never heard from him again. But now the authorities are telling me that the plane was headed for D.C. to crash and kill hundreds or thousands of people. I lost my husband today, but I know that he saved the lives of others by his actions.”

Ahhh....thought the second angel. The love of this man for his wife, and the courage these men showed in the face of evil, surely God will want to save the world for their sake. And so he gently, almost invisibly, lifted one tear from her cheek and flew up to heaven and presented it to God.

The third angel went to D.C. He too saw fire and smoke and death and rescuers hard at work. Then he started searching through the city to see how the rest of the people were reacting. Most were in their cars or on the streets heading home. They were in shock and disbelief. But he watched as one woman, a Christian minister, drove past a mosque, made a U-turn, and came back again. She parked and got out of her car and walked up to three Muslim women standing outside the mosque. "My friends,” she said, “what can I do to help?" - for there on the building were scrawled ugly words of hate, spray painted by those who blamed all Muslims for the attacks that morning. The women embraced and cried together, and the Muslim women thanked the stranger for her kindness and caring. She promised to return and bring others to stand with the women in solidarity against hatred and prejudice.

Ahhh...thought the third angel. The way this woman reached out to those who are scapegoated and wrongly accused, surely God will want to save the world for her sake. And so gently, almost invisibly, he captured the words "What can I do to help?" and flew up to heaven and presented the words to God.

Just then, Satan appeared before God to announce that he was ready to carry out the mission of wiping out humanity and that he had the plans already in hand to start over on another world. "All you have to do is give the command,” said Satan, “and I'll see it is obeyed immediately."
"Wait!" cried God. "You are right that humanity is capable of much evil. And you are right that from time to time it looks as if hatred has won out over love. But I have evidence that we cannot give up on the people down below us. My angels have brought me proof that there is hope for my creation: here is the dust to remind me how compassionate human beings can be - and how much they treasure life. For compassion's sake I will save the world. And here is a tear, a remembrance of the love shared between husband and wife, and a reminder of one who gave his life to protect others from harm. For the sake of selflessness and love, I will not destroy the world. And lastly, here is the voice of a woman who saw wrongdoing and did not turn away. She was willing to stand up for what was just and right, and to get involved. For the sake of justice and righteousness, I will not destroy the world, for they will in the end redeem this world."
Satan's face fell, and he knew he had lost again. "But God," he asked, "how many times will you give them another chance? Take a look at history -- how many wars and genocides will it take before you change your mind?"

"Oh, Satan," said God, rising up from the throne. "You don't understand. I also hate the suffering and pain. But as long as I can still see the goodness and mercy and love in the hearts of my children on earth, I must have hope that the pain will one day end."

[And God sat back down on the throne to begin hearing the prayers of those who were calling out from earth, and to record again the deeds of humankind in the Book of Life for the year 5762.]

I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know why bad things happen, and I am not so sure that God does either – at least not on a case by case basis. Yes, God is ultimately responsible for everything – the bad along with the good. Our Torah portion reminds us – God gives us ha-tov, the good, along with ha-ra, the evil. Yet, I do not believe that God personally sends pain and suffering to us as individuals or as communities. God does not, per se, cause bad things, but neither does He stop them. Pain and suffering are a part of this world.

So what does God do when confronted with the tragedies and the travesties? I believe that God weeps alongside us, mourning for the loss and acknowledging the pain. And I believe that God is there beside us, giving us comfort and encouragement to live our lives with meaning, to perform acts of love and kindness, and to go forward in strength.

Rabbi Aaron Bisno

The following sermon was delivered during the 2001 Jewish High Holiday season following the tragic events of September 11, 2001. It has been included on the Torah From Terror website as a resource and retains the copyright of its author. Please cite the source accordingly.

Rabbi Aaron Benjamin Bisno
Congregation Rodeph Shalom
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

A Still Small Voice is Heard

Kol Nidre / Yom Kippur Day 5762
September 26 And 27, 2001

I have so much to say to you. I have so much I want to share.

But I worry that what I have to say may not be up to the expectations built into this moment -- you know, “the-Yom-Kippur-High-Holy-Day-what-did-the-rabbi-talk-about-this-year-sermon-moment.”

I have so much I want to say -- and what I have to say feels enormous.
But it is also very simple. And I am concerned my words will not be sufficient.

____________________

When last we gathered as a congregation, we stood on the cusp of a New Year. There was then a new heaviness upon our hearts. At the time it had been only a week since we first saw the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center laid low.

Together we sustained a horrific blow to our collective psyche. Our sense of personal safety and national security had been attacked. Our trust had been assaulted.

Many of us were quiet on Rosh HaShanah, and yet we came together and stood with one another. As we quietly ushered in the New Year, our standing all together upheld and supported us.

Even as our hearts were heavy, our collective sharing sustained us. It was in this way that our own twin towers -- the spires of our doubt and fear -- were made the smaller.

I am thankful for the experience we shared on Rosh HaShanah. I am thankful for having been able to share it with you.

Today we gather to observe Yom Kippur. We have the benefit of a bit of distance from the events of September 11th, and yet, at least for me, the distance has produced only greater silence. And with distance, the pain has grown deeper.

As the enormity of the attacks on the people in those four planes and at the World Trade Center and in the Pentagon -- as the enormity of the attacks on each of us -- and on our freedoms and way of life -- as all this begins slowly to sink in -- the quiet, the hurt, the sadness -- as all of September 11th sinks in -- the pain has grown deeper.

____________________

The Lebanese Christian poet Kahlil Gibran, author of The Prophet, offers that sorrow carves a groove in us.

And I tell you that the groove sorrow is carving into me feels enormous -- deep and wide. And what I feel I have to say about this groove of sorrow -- that feels enormous, too.

I hear what I have to say inside my head. I feel what I have to say beating in my heart. What I have to say catches in my throat. What I have to say feels enormous.

But then when I think about everything that happened on September 11th in New York and all of what has followed . . . . what I have to say suddenly feels very small.

____________________

Judaism calls the part of us that struggles to make itself known “the Qol Dmamah Daqah.” The King James Bible translates the Hebrew phrase as “the still, small voice.”

Literally, the Hebrew means “the sounds of a storm’s last wind,” and originally the phrase referred to the last winds of a tempest. Qol Dmamah Daqah -- the sounds that are heard from the depths of a storm , from the depths of a tempest in the desert wilderness.

Eleventh century French scholar Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac, better known as Rashi, moves us away from the notion of Qol Dmamah Daqah. as a referent for an audible, physical sound. And with 20th Century theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, Rashi offers that Qol Dmamah Daqah is better understood not as “the sounds of a storm’s last wind,” but rather as “a voice of silence.”

Now that’s good. The part of us that struggles to make itself known comes not from the outside world, but from our own depths. The part of us that struggles to make itself known is “ the voice of [our own] silence.” If you will, then, the Qol Dmamah Daqah -- is best understood as “the still small voice of silence.”

Our Qol Dmamah Daqah comes from our own depths. It is what animates us. This voice from deep within each of us gives us our affect and emotion. This voice gives us our personalities and our politics.

The Qol Dmamah Daqah is our inner voice -- our still small, silent, inner voice -- and it is what makes each of us different from one another and uniquely ourselves.

On Yom Kippur our Tradition reminds us that we must each find our own Qol Dmamah Daqah -- We must each find our own still small, silent, inner voice --
And we must listen for it. And we must hearken to it.

And though we may feel ourselves bereft and depleted with nothing to say -- or more likely -- though we may feel exhausted at the prospect of giving voice to what we do not yet feel we have the means to articulate --

How we yearn to say what is in our hearts! But it is so painful and sad!

Though we may be bereft, depleted and exhausted -- though it may be difficult -- on Yom Kippur, especially --

We must listen for our Qol Dmamah Daqah -- our still small voice of silence!
And we must hearken to what it tells us to express!

For even if what we would say is silent or very small -- even if it is not said with words -- if it is sincere -- if our Qol Dmamah Daqah is sincere -- our Tradition tells us it will be sufficient. On Yom Kippur, we must trust this is true. It is our tradition.

____________________

Our Tradition is rife with stories which describe the journey we are going through now -- that we have been going through since September 11th -- and will be on for the rest of our lives.

In particular, Jewish Fiction and Literature offers many stories which tell of those who came before us -- people like you and me -- who found it difficult to express the words they felt themselves called upon to produce.

There is the story of the joyful worshipper, who while attending services felt compelled to offer a prayer of thanksgiving, yet he knew no prayers. After sitting in silence for some time, while the prayers and words of others swirled about him, the man put his fingers into the corners of his mouth and joyously whistled his thanks.


There is another version of the story which has the man reaching into his pocket for a flute as his neighbors are singing. And in this version, after sitting in silence while others prayed, the man put the instrument to his lips and added melody to their words.

In each case, our Tradition records that the worshippers’ expressions, their voices, if you will, were sincere and, therefore, sufficient.

____________________

On Yom Kippur, each of us must look within and search for our voice. On Yom Kippur, as did those in these stories, we must each find a means of expressing our gratitude and our joy.

But as the next story relates, on Yom Kippur, each of us must also look within and find a means of expressing our fears and our doubts, as well.

In this story, a worshipper is frustrated at her inability to pray the words as they are printed on the page. In this story we do not know if this worshipper’s inability to pray is due to an inability to read -- or if she is of failing eyesight -- or whether on this particular year, as may be true for many of us, she simply does not feel she can affirm the prayers as they are printed on the page.

Regardless, in this story, this worshipper sits when it is appropriate to sit, and she stands when it is appropriate to stand. But when it is time to pray, rather than reading the prayers -- for that she cannot see her way to doing -- this woman chooses to recite the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet: alef-bet-gimel -- all the way to the end -- resh-shin-sin-tav -- over and over again with the hope that God will arrange her letters into the prayers she cannot offer.

Our Tradition tells us that because the letters this worshipper offered were a sincere expression of her Qol Dmamah Daqah -- the still, small, silent voice within -- as with the two other worshippers before her -- it happens. According to tradition, God does arrange her letters into the prayers she cannot offer. Her voice is sincere and so it is sufficient.

That our Tradition preserves so many stories of ordinary individuals, worshippers like ourselves -- that our Tradition treasures the stories of such ordinary people, people who in spite of themselves find ways to express that which resides in their hearts if not on their lips -- That our Tradition preserves and treasures such stories should reassure us.

That these stories are retold and renewed time and again should comfort us. For some of us likely see ourselves in those immortalized in the fables of Jewish Tradition. This year, we too may feel we have no letters, no words.

And by the same token, there may be those among us who have not lost the power of speech -- for whom the letters form words, and the words prayers. There may be those among us for whom the “words of their mouths come easily,” but who nonetheless feel discomfited or ill-equipped to listen -- let alone to hearken fully -- to “the meditations of their hearts” -- to their Qol Dmamah Daqah -- to their still, small, silent voice within.

We may all feel from time to time like inarticulate worshippers. This has certainly been my experience. In fact, while I can fill this time with words, as I stand before you, I feel incredibly inarticulate.

It is an enormous task to speak with you -- replete with enormous expectations -- yours and mine! And as I have but a still, small voice to offer, I can only hope that what my Qol Dmamah Daqah urges me to express -- I can only hope it will be sufficient.
____________________
You may know that about a month ago I became engaged to be married. I could not be more excited!

And yet in the past two weeks, as I have begun to appreciate the true magnitude of heartache the attacks on New York City and our nation’s capitol unleashed -- as I have come to appreciate how many people were killed so tragicly, so mysteriously, so horribly -- and that so many were young and happy -- and in the prime of their lives --

In a way I had not had to before -- since becoming engaged and then confronting the full reality of September 11th and its aftermath -- I have had to fully come to terms with the fact that the lives of more than 6,000 people vanished -- and with them their dreams and so many of the dreams of their loved ones --

In a way I had not had to before, I have come to understand that so will my relationship with Michelle someday end.

I pray this end will not be for a very long time! It is a terrible thought!
But it is inevitable -- and is precisely the lesson in this tragedy for us all.
It is what our still small inner voices are responding to!

And it is precisely the point of Yom Kippur!
Michelle and I have discussed the reality that in all likelihood one of us will die before the other. And while we pray that our ends, when they come, will be peaceful and many, many years into the future, we cannot know how or when either of us will go.

And yet, the reality remains. Someday our relationship and our lives will end.
And it is true for our parents, and our siblings, and every one of our friends.
It is true for everyone we know. It is true for everyone of us.
And it is true of every relationship every one of us has.
They will all someday end.
And we have no idea when this will happen for any of us!

If we did not understand this -- or if we did not want to acknowledge this before -- before September 11th -- then what we have seen in the past sixteen days -- and make no mistake about it -- we’ve all been witnesses as this lesson has been taught to us most cruelly -- if we did not know that everything we know of life will end, before the events of September 11th unfolded, we surely cannot avoid coming to terms with this fact now!

The events of September 11th necessarily force us either to reaffirm or reprioritize everything we value. There is no avoiding it. Nothing is promised to us. All we prize in life is but lent to us. And at any moment we may be called to surrender all we care about and love most.

The comfort and hope in this cruel lesson?
The comfort and hope is precisely our sorrow’s opposite.

Precisely because of the deep groove sorrow carves in us -- precisely because at any moment we may have to surrender all we care for and love most -- we have an opportunity at every moment -- to bring comfort and hope and joy and meaning into our world!

Precisely because of how deep a groove sorrow carves -- at each and every moment of our lives, we have opportunities to maximize the potential for blessings -- and to continually bring comfort and hope and joy and meaning into our world!

And I must tell you -- and this is the sum of what my Qol Dmamah Daqah tells me to say -- these opportunities -- the ones that are available to us at each and every moment of each and every day of our lives -- The opportunities we have at every moment of our lives to maximize the blessings we share --

These opportunities ARE ENORMOUS!!

How do I know this?

Jewish Tradition and my Qol Dmamah Daqah –

Jewish Tradition and my still, small, silent voice within tells me it’s true.

____________________


My prayer for each of us, in this New Year, a year that began with such difficulty –

My prayer for each of us -- and all our loved ones -- is that we all be sealed in the Book of Life for a lifetime full of blessings.

May this New Year see all of us embrace the fullness of the time we are afforded -- filling our days with gentleness and laughter and meaning -- seizing every opportunity to tell those we love how we feel -- to strengthen and affirm others -- to offer kindness and understanding to all with whom we share our lives.

And may each of us always listen for and hearken to -- our Qol Dmamah Daqah -- the still, small, silent voice within us.

For regardless of whether our voice tells us to sing or to spell or to speak or to be silent -- though it be small -- the enormity of the comfort and hope and joy and meaning we can provide one another is matched only by the depth of the grief we feel.

And from out of the depths -- the tempests and storms that rage about us -- and from the deep silences that pulse within -- May a still, small voice be heard -- and may it be sufficient.

Amen.