yom kippur speeches 5771

Al-S’fat Hayam Words From the Shore

High Holiday Sermons & Student Reflections

from

Fiedler Hil lel at Northwestern Universi ty

5771 – 2010

Fiedler Hillel at Northwestern University Al S’fat Hayam 5771 (2010)

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Rosh Hashanah


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Awakenings By Michael Simon Hello – my name is Michael Simon, and I’m the new Executive Director of Fiedler Hillel at Northwestern University. For my wife, Claire Sufrin, and me, it is an honor and a pleasure to be with you for our first Rosh Hashanah in Evanston – we hope that this will be the first of many to come. Fiedler Hillel is the center of Jewish life at this great university, and it is also the catalyst for Jewish expression of all kinds. Our mission at Hillel is to inspire every Jewish student at Northwestern to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life, and we work to create meaningful experiences that enable our students to explore their Jewish identity within the context of what it means to be human. At Rosh Hashanah, as we celebrate the creation of the world and of all human beings, it’s fitting to note what a privilege it is to engage young people in exploring their identity and what Judaism means to them. During the High Holidays, and at other points during the year, we are also privileged to serve the Jewish community of Evanston and greater Chicago. It’s a pleasure to welcome all of you – students, alumni, faculty, and community members – to our High Holidays services. Your presence here– and your support of Fiedler Hillel throughout the year – enable us to do our important work; for that I thank every one of you. I also want to thank, in particular, the generous donors who have helped to make these High Holidays such a beautiful event and I want to thank all of the Hillel staff members, student staff and volunteers, ushers, security personnel, and community volunteers who make these High Holidays possible. An extra special thank-you to Rabbi Josh Feigelson and to Associate Director Cydney Topaz for their tireless work and able leadership in coordinating the High Holidays this year. So, a few of you might have taken the opportunity during my introduction to nod off and catch a few zzz’s. That’s OK, but my message to you this Rosh Hashanah is: WAKE UP! Actually, it’s not just my message. It is the message of Maimonides – the RaMBaM, the 12th century Jewish physician, philosopher, and legal scholar. In his Laws of Repentance, the Rambam says that, while the primary reason we blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah is because the Torah commands us to do so, ultimately the shofar carries a message. And that message is this: “Awake, awake, O sleeper, from your sleep; O slumberers, arouse yourselves from your slumbers; examine your deeds, return in teshuvah (repentance), and remember your Creator.” The Shofar is a clarion call, awakening us from our moral and spiritual slumber, rousing and prodding us to look at our behavior, to do teshuvah (repentance), and to recognize that we are creatures endowed with the precious gift of life by our Creator. Rosh Hashanah is a time of awakening. We rouse ourselves out of our complacency, out of whatever rut or habit we have gotten ourselves into, and look at ourselves with clear eyes. Are we


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measuring up? Are we fulfilling our promise? Are we living up to our own expectations of the kinds of people we can, and should, be? Being awake means being able to choose. When we are asleep, we are in the world of our dreams rather than the world of conscious choice. It’s when the alarm clock rings that we enter the world of consciousness, the world of choices. This is why the RaMBaM continues in his Laws of Repentance by saying that “It is necessary, therefore, that each person should regard himself throughout the year as if he were half innocent and half guilty….That is to say, he who acts justly presses down the scale of merit in favor of all the world and saves it.” RaMBaM makes it clear that “Free will is bestowed on every human being”, and our choices can lead us either toward the good and righteous path, or toward the evil and wicked path. And, not only that, but each and every one of our choices has the potential for good or for evil. This is why the shofar’s call to awaken us is crucial – the difference between one who slumbers and one who is awake is the capacity to choose. We awaken, and we are able to make choices that impact ourselves, others, and the world. But what kinds of choices are we supposed to make? One answer comes from a dreamer in the Bible – not Joseph, that famous interpreter of dreams, but Jacob, his father. In two places, Jacob spends a night filled with dreams (or dream-like experiences). In Genesis Chapter 28, Jacob sees the sulam (stairway/ladder), with angels ascending and descending it. He awakens to a realization that he has spent the night on hallowed ground, and exclaims, “Ma nora ha-makom ha-zeh – How awesome is this place!” He proceeds to set up a pillar in recognition of God, and then to make a vow that, if God enables him to return safely from his perilous journey, God will become Jacob’s God. Though Jacob has emerged from his dream, he is still not completely awake – his need to hedge his bets with God indicates that he has not yet confronted the part of himself that is always making a deal, always ready to pull a fast one. This is Dream I. Dream II – the bookend, and the conclusion of this part of Jacob’s story – comes in Genesis 32, in the middle of the night, in a dream-like sequence when Jacob wrestles with the ish (man, or angel) by the Jabbok River. Until this point, Jacob could always find a way out, some kind of loophole – but the confrontation with the ish provides Jacob with no angles for sneakiness or obfuscation. In the process of this existential wrestling match, Jacob is compelled to confront his own fears and his own shortcomings. His name change says it all – Jacob emerges from being Ya’akov -- the one who “grabs at the heel” – to becoming Yisra’el – the one who wrestles with God and men, and proves capable. Jacob’s new name, of course, becomes the name that we use to this day for the people, the land, and the state of Israel. I just returned from Israel, where I had the privilege of staffing Hillel’s Birthright Israel journey, which included 40 Northwestern students and, for about half of the trip, 8 Israeli soldiers. For our students, the trip provided countless opportunities to “awaken”. Some responded to the experience of walking in the footsteps of our ancestors, which awakened a sense of pride and connection to Jewish history and peoplehood that they had not felt before. For others, stories that the soldiers and I told about losing loved ones in battle or in terror attacks awakened a sense of


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connection to the realities of 21st century nationhood that they had not imagined possible prior to this journey. But perhaps the most striking moment of awakening occurred during the soldiers’ last day with us. On the other days of our soldiers’ participation, they wore civilian clothes, and pretty much blended in with the rest of the group. But on that last day, when we would later go to the Har Herzl Military Cemetery and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, Harel, Or, Doron, Tal, Yana, Amit, Niv, and Roy showed up at breakfast dressed in their IDF uniforms. One of our students, Stacey Lurie – a member of Hillel’s Campus Engagement Corps, later spoke of her realization in that moment that these new friends, with whom she had bonded so closely in such a short time, were about to return to places where they put themselves at risk in service of the country, of its citizens, and of the Jewish people. For Stacey and others, this awakened important questions: What am I committed to? What is my commitment to Judaism, and to the Jewish people? Before the end of our journey, Stacey and five other students made a public commitment to Judaism in a B'nei Mitzvah ceremony near the Southern Wall Excavations in the Old City. This commitment reflected their choice to engage actively with their Judaism. For Stacey, the ceremony was particularly meaningful – unlike the others, she had had a bat mitzvah when she was 13, but she described it as more of a nice party than a rite of passage. This moment, in the Old City, in Jerusalem, surrounded by her peers and by stones filled with history, awakened in Stacey questions of what Judaism will mean to her as a young adult. This trip to Israel awakened in Stacey an awareness that she is actively in the process of choosing who she is as a Jew and as a human being. ~~~ So, on this first day of the High Holidays, though we’ve only just met, I want to ask all of us here a challenging question: To what will we awaken on this Rosh Hashanah? For me, the answer to that question seems relatively simple: this New Year brings the excitement of a new home, a new community, wonderful new students and new friends, a new chance to make an impact on Jewish life at an important University in a world-class city. I am awakened to a new world of possibilities. But I wonder – am I fully awake? Next week, on Yom Kippur, I will fast – but will I truly be awake to the call of Isaiah in the haftarah that we will read, when God says through the prophet in Isaiah Chapter 57 , “This is the fast I desire: to unlock fetters of wickedness, and untie the cords of lawlessness. To let the oppressed go free, to break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry, and to take the wretched poor into your home; when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to ignore your own kin.” Am I fully awake to that call? Not yet. But Rosh Hashanah compels me to begin – if I haven’t already done so – to do the cheshbon nefesh – the accounting of my soul – that such an awakening requires.


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To what will we all awaken on this Rosh Hashanah? As we reflect on the challenges we face, the pain we suffer, the sorrow we feel, will we awaken to the knowledge that, as the Talmud says, the entire world was created for us? As we reflect on moments of joy and bliss, will we awaken to the blunt reminder from the Torah that we were created from dust, and to dust we will return? As we consider whom to ask for forgiveness, will we awaken to the possibility of becoming vulnerable in a way that creates an opening for real teshuvah, real repentance? And when we are asked by someone for forgiveness, will we awaken to the possibility of moving past wrongs both real and perceived, toward an expression of rachamim – mercy – and chesed – lovingkindness? Will we awaken to being present to ourselves, to our loved ones, to the stranger and the Other? Will we awaken to action? As we spend these High Holidays together, I hope that each of us will have the time and space for reflection that will enable us to become truly and fully awake. Shana tova u’metuka – may you have a sweet, healthy, and happy New Year.


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The Shofar of Fear, The Shofar of Strength By Rabbi Josh Feigelson Kol ha-olam kulo Gesher tzar me’od V’ha-ikar lo lefached klal. All the world is a very narrow bridge And the essence is not to fear at all. It was the early years of the nineteenth century. The Jews of eastern Europe were herded together in cities and villages throughout Poland, Ukraine, Russia—in the area known as the Pale of Settlement. The machines of factories and the ideas of modernization, which had already had such an effect in the West, were beginning to be known in the East. Think Fiddler on the Roof. People suffered—from poverty, disease, and threats of violence. While the ideas and forces of modernity offered an escape, they also deeply challenged traditional ways of life. In the midst of all of this, beginning in the late eighteenth century, the movement known as Hasidus, Hasidism, spread like wildfire throughout the Jewish world of Eastern Europe. Its appeal was based on its simplicity: any Jew could experience God’s presence through the joyous performance of mitzvoth. Advanced Talmudic scholarship wasn’t required, wealth wasn’t required. Simple faith, simple piety—this was all a person needed to find fulfillment and happiness in the world. Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav was the grandson of the founder of Hasidus, the Ba’al Shem Tov. A charismatic leader and creative genius, the teachings of Rebbe Nachman’s short life have inspired seven generations of disciples since his death. Rebbe Nachman’s teachings are brilliant in the profundity of their simplicity. He taught of the power of song to elevate the spirit. He taught that meditation and silence could be routes to revelation, even more than reciting the traditional liturgy. But Rebbe Nachman’s most famous teaching comes to us through this song: Kol ha-olam kulo Gesher tzar me’od V’ha-ikar lo lefached klal. All the world is a very narrow bridge And the essence is not to fear at all. I want to reflect with you today on this song, and on the challenge of fear. Because we live in fearful times. Indeed today, more than at any time since September 11, 2001, we sense fear around us.


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We fear for Israel—because of the threats it faces from without, and because of the deep ruptures that tear at it from within. We fear for our planet—because of floods and earthquakes and hurricanes and droughts, and food shortages, unclean water and disease. We fear for our nation—because of an economy that seems unable to recover, because of a political culture as toxic as ever. We fear for our state and our cities—because of debts that have driven our governments to bankruptcy, because of underfunded schools and drastic cuts in social services. And all these fears cause us to fear for ourselves. Will we find a job? Will we keep our job? Will we be able to go to the hospital and pay for medicine? We will be able to afford the mortgage? I recently heard an astonishing statistic from the president of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, Steve Nasitir: In the last year, 42,000 Jews have taken food assistance from a Federation agency. In Chicagoland. 42,000 individuals. That’s a staggering number of hungry Jews. So we have much to fear. We have good reasons to fear. It is totally appropriate for us to tremble and wail and moan. But what then? That is the question: What then? What comes after the fear? What comes after the trembling? What comes after the wailing and the moaning and the crying? The answer is right before us. The answer is the heart of today. The answer is in the shofar. And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the people of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, yom zichron teruah, a day of remembrance through the teruah, a holy convocation.” (Leviticus 23:23-24) The Torah tells us that the essence of the shofar blowing on Rosh Hashanah is the teruah, the middle sound that we blow. What is the teruah? According to the Talmud, the teruah is crying. Just what kind of crying is the subject of a disagreement. It could be a kind of weeping or wailing, or it could be a long sigh—the kind of sigh that a person makes when he is worried about some great thing, says Maimonides. So our teruah becomes both of these types: the kind we call a shevarim, the three broken sighs; and the kind we call a teruah, the short staccato panting we experience when we weep. The heart of our shofar blowing, the heart of Rosh Hashanah itself, is this crying. It is sadness. It is trembling. It is wailing. It is agony. It is war. It is fear.


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But: What then? What comes next? What comes after the teruah? What comes after the crying? What comes after the fear? The answer, again, is in the shofar. What comes after the fear? What comes after the teruah? The tekiah. Unlike the teruah, the tekiah is unbroken. It is not the sound of crying, it is not the sound of fear. The tekiah is the sound of coronation, the sound of the king. It is the sound of might, the sound of confidence. The tekiah is the sound of hesed, the sound of generosity and kindness. What comes after the fear of the teruah is the strength of the tekiah. After the suffering comes the healing. After the brokenness comes the wholeness. After the teruah comes the tekiah. That is the message of the shofar for us this year. We do not blow a teruah by itself. We do not wallow in despair. No: after we blow the teruah and give voice to our anguish, we blow the tekiah and give voice to our hope. And not only that: we even blow a tekiah before we blow the teruah! We surround the fear of the teruah with the strength of the tekiah. “The teruah is surrounded by mercy, before and after,” says Nachmanides. Rosh Hashanah is a day of din b’rachamim, a day of judgment and fear, surrounded by loving kindness. The shofar, then, is calling to us to rise above our fears. It is not saying, as Rebbe Nachman did, that we must not fear at all. Fear is real. It has a place. We need a time to be afraid. That is today: u’malachim yechafezun b’chil u’readah yochazun v’yomru hinei yom hadin, “On this day even the angels are alarmed, seized with fear and trembling as they declare, ‘The day of judgment is here!’” But after we give expression to our fears, we must move beyond them. We must remember our hopes, remember our dreams, remember that we are the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. We are the descendents of people who, b’chol dor vador, in generation after generation, under the most difficult circumstances, demonstrated their faith that goodness and righteousness and redemption were possible, and indeed, ultimately inevitable. Certainly they were afraid. But they were not paralyzed by their fear. They moved beyond it, they transcended it. They were models of strength and courage, hospitality and generosity. When fear would drive them to close themselves off, to be distrustful, to lose faith—they responded by opening themselves up, trusting in God, showing faith in the covenant. Today we do nothing less than this. Today we listen to the teruah of the shofar, and we acknowledge our fears. And then we listen to the tekiah of the shofar, and rekindle our hopes. So as we listen to the shofar, as we dwell on its message, I ask you, What are you afraid of? What are you most nervous about this year? What keeps you awake at night and lies lurking at the door? Think of it, bring it to mind. Really get inside it. Allow the teruah to really speak to you.


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And then ask a second question: In spite of all of that, what gives you hope? What, and who, do you have faith in? What will give you strength to overcome your fear? What inspires you and raises up your spirit? What does the tekiah evoke for you? Because, in the end, it is the tekiah that will lift us up. It is the tekiah that we will take with us. It is the tekiah, the triumphal tekiah that surrounds the fearful teruah, that is the essence of today. I bless us all today with the ability lishmoah kol shofar, to truly hear the voice of the shofar. To hear its agony, and to hear its resolve; to hear its tears, and to hear its joy. I bless us with the power to overcome our fears, to continue to live with open hearts and generous spirits, precisely when it is most challenging to do so. Ketiva v’chatima tovah – May we all be inscribed for a healthy, sweet, and hopeful new year.


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Yom Kippur


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Spending Our Days By Hannah Greene ‘12 Presently, there are a lot of new beginnings in my life. I’m smack dab in the middle of extreme makeover home edition right now. Apartment assemblage. An unfurnished student apartment is both a blessing and a curse. With great artistic freedom comes great responsibility—to get it done before the school year starts—and on budget. When that’s over with, new couch, bed, desk and freshly bought Euroshams set perfectly in place, I’ll say goodbye to my parents. And then I’ll start school on Tuesday. A lot of new beginnings. I’ve always been a big fan of new beginnings. Mondays. The first day of school. And the high holidays on some ever-changing day in September. A new time is a new time because we make it so. Because we crave it. Because we create the time and space for it. Last year was, for me, amazing on paper, but I don’t think I was present for it. I don’t remember most of it. I don’t remember being in the rooms I was in. I don’t remember being with the people I was with. I don’t remember choosing the things I chose. We all do this. We sprint from morning to evening, week to week, waiting for the end of it, waiting to get through the thick of it. Get me the destination, the end result, the grade, the reward, the weekend. And while I tried to keep up in the race, I lost track of the general stuff we college kids lose track of. What I cared about. What I wanted. Who I was. And it was time to go home. I was dreading the F.O.M.O. (fear of missing out—a clinical condition on Northwestern’s campus) I’d experience by going home==my friends were all going to China to intern with CNN or Germany to study sustainability or Barcelona to, well, party. But I knew that I had to take time to start over. And little did I know I was making a more important decision than I could have imagined. At home, I worked, but I also filled my life with yoga and kids and rest and meditation and long drives and good music and greeting each day with the idea that perhaps I could learn something new, be more open, more present for it, more available, that I could be there for everything, all day long. And it really truly worked. The luxury of slowing down that I was provided this summer by my own choice to go home and by my parents’ willingness to support me was the best medicine—a healing break, a growing time, and what I felt was a real life change.


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But the journey had been a solitary one. I had no way to know whether the internal stuff would show up in the external world. Had I actually changed or just thought a lot about changing? Would I have the courage to implement the things I had learned? I needed something to seal the deal. It happened to be Israel. At the beginning of the Birthright trip, I had no expectations. I barely knew anyone. I didn’t know what the itinerary was. I didn’t even feel all that Jewish, to be honest. Israel, the land of the Jews, and who was I? Some reform Bu-Jew (a term coined by my mother meaning Buddhist and Jewish) who didn’t know her Haifa from her Tel Aviv and thought koogle was Yiddish for cellulite. But off I went anyhow, with my new self that was just my old self with a change of heart and mind, ready to try it out in the world, with no expectations, and only hopes. The 40 of us were very different in many ways, but very similar in one big way. We were ready for whatever this trip would mean to us. Some of us discovered ourselves opening to new people and experiences. Some of us found new love for America. Some of us found new love for Israel. Some of us redefined our definition of Judaism. We reconnected religiously, or culturally. Most of us met new friends that we wanted to keep into the new year. And all of us grew a little, shifted a little, opened a little bit more. And for me? The summer of work paid off. I was able to be present. To experience. To be unafraid of the result and ready for the journey. Too good to be true? Why did this happen? Why couldn’t this time in my life, this time of change and growth, have been the same without this trip? The magic of the Birthright trip wasn’t that we all went and fell in love with Israel or with our Judaism, even though many of us did. The magic of it was that a space and a time was created for growth. I was able to bring the self I’d been working on into a new place, with new people who could receive it with support and eagerness, with kindness and acceptance. And ultimately, as a group, and as individuals, we all seemed to grow together. One of the most profound wisdoms I gained from Birthright is the realization that Judaism is an accepting and supportive global family. This week is our chance worldwide as Jews to say, “Let’s try this again”, for us all to get together and agree at the same time that this year, we will have the courage to start anew. Annie Dillard says, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” It is for this reason that I am so inspired to be a part of a community of people who live by this idea, who will begin the journey of the new year today, and who will travel it together.


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The Search For Wholeness By Benjamin Ratskoff ‘12 I spent my summer in Jerusalem, living in an apartment a little over a mile from the green line and practically swimming in Israeli politics, society, and culture. So when I landed in Morocco for the Hillel Alternative Break experience after two months of Israeli life, I was more than hesitant about the overwhelmingly Arab Muslim population and government. This is the unfortunate reality. After making a home in the literal war zone that is Israel in which absolute ethnic lines rise from the sand like thick, permanent marker, touching down in a land whose very infrastructure is antithetical to me—who I am as a human being—was unsettling. I imagined that I would stealthily navigate the alleys of Marrakech Jason Bourne-style, curiously hiding my identity while immersing myself in Moroccan life. This was not the case. When I awoke my first morning in Awrikt, a tiny, rural village in the Tirza valley four hours South of Marrakech, and I strolled to the outdoor patio overlooking the valley and facing the stunning Atlas mountains guarding it, I laid my tefillin and davened as the women of Awrikt heaved straw bags of figs below and the donkeys howled in boredom above. And as my body rocked, with two eccentric leather boxes wrapped around my head and bicep, my host, Mohammad, tiptoed onto the patio before hastily spinning around and waltzing out. As I wrapped my tefillin and sealed it in secrecy inside its velvet, hiding place, anxious thoughts raced across the gravel of my mind. It was Ramadan! Did I infuriate him, because of this? Did he just leave to go form a lynching mob? Or worse, had I upset the Jinns, the mysterious Islamic spirits who guarded this home? On Friday night, the other trip participants and I gathered on the same, fateful balcony to celebrate Shabbos. And as we sang the ancient songs to welcome this utterly unique day of spiritual oneness, Mohammad strolled onto the balcony to learn our melodies. It was a sublime moment of unbelievable understanding. The shard of Hashem existing in Muhammad had suddenly become one with the unique shard within me. There was no distance between us, only a wide, beautiful ocean we were both floating in, together. So today, on Yom Kippur, I’m reflecting on the remarkable depths of myself I haven’t filled. Not because I chose not to, or willingly transgressed, but because my life experiences had painted this Arab Muslim people a singular red, ignoring the diverse, versatile hues that each individual expresses. On that Shabbos in Morocco, I climbed to mystic heights I never had before, grasping at each new rung in transcendence. In these past days leading to Yom Kippur, I’ve been forced to reflect on the stairs I’ve forsaken, or missed—on these exceptional opportunities to connect with humanity. And for this New Year, I will strive to access these spiritual, and truly human, opportunities until I am shalem, until I am complete.


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Diverse Expressions By Lauren Mindell ’12 I’m going to start by asking you to picture a few scenarios for me. Scenario number one – you’re sitting on a bench with your iPod in hand, scrolling through all 2,880 songs trying to pick out one that relates to or reminds you of the shmah, one of the ashrei, and one of the amidah. Scenario number two – you’re sitting on the sand overlooking a gorgeous lake. The sun is shining, the sky is as blue as can be, there’s a gentle breeze, and you have 30 minutes to do nothing but think, reflect, and appreciate your surroundings. Scenario number three – you’re listening to essays published by NPR’s radio program called This I Believe, a program that allows Americans from all walks of life to share the personal philosophies and core values that guide their daily lives. One essay is titled “Be Cool to the Pizza Delivery Dude,” another “There is No Such Thing As Too Much Barbeque,” and another “Miracles Do Happen. Do you consider these scenarios tfillah? I do. Though they deviate from the traditional shacharit service, I don’t hesitate to call them forms of prayer. This past summer I worked as a counselor for 14 and 15 year olds at Camp Ramah in Canada, the camp I attended as a camper for 8 consecutive summers and where I’ve worked for the past three. It was my first time working with an older age group this summer, and while it was an extraordinarily rewarding experience in so many ways, it was also a challenge. It is the nature of 15 year olds to be inquisitive, push boundaries, and challenge their authorities. One area in which they never failed to do such was in regard to tfillot. At every Ramah camp, davening Shacharit each morning is an essential part of the schedule, and I think it is fair to say that at every Ramah camp, getting campers to comply and be enthusiastic about tfillot can often be difficult. And I don’t blame them, because the concept and practice of tfillah can be tough, and is something that I myself have recently been struggling with. Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are supposed to be a time for inner reflection and personal prayer, repenting for our individual sins throughout the past year. Last week on Rosh Hashana my rabbi at home discussed the contrast between communal prayer and individual prayer as a part of his sermon, and it really resonated with me. He touched upon the somewhat contradictory practice of emphasizing personal prayer and reflection during the time of the Chagim, yet it is another person’s words written in the siddur that we use to pray. What I took away from his speech was the importance of finding a balance, of using the siddur as a template for our thoughts, yet at the same time not being afraid to deviate from tradition by writing our own personal tfillot every now and then. I know that this Yom Kippur I will be working to find my own meaning in the tfillot we say, to create my own “alternative” tfillah, as I did this past summer for my campers. I will try to strike the balance between davening on my own, yet following in the footsteps of tradition and saying the words on the page and I challenge you to do the same.


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Making Our Lives a Blessing By Adam Yalowitz ’11 Each Yom Kippur, I am reminded of the awesome power of the Jewish faith and the Jewish community. During Yizkor, we remember those who are no longer physically present here today. For me, it’s always a time to remember my mom. I inherited my passion for Tikkun Olam and the concept of Shomrei Adomah from my mom, a journalist who wrote about education, community charities, and social welfare. My freshman year of high school, my mom was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Each night, for the fifteen months until she passed away, a family from our community – the neighborhood, our synagogue, or mom’s work – brought us dinner. The support of the communities she built made it possible for my brother, my dad and I to push through the years that followed her passing. Coming to Northwestern, I sought ways to continue to make my mom proud, to keep her spirit and her values alive. I began tutoring weekly at Jonquil Hotel, a transitional home in Rogers Park. As I worked with Colby, a third-grader who could not read, I grew angry at the culture of indifference that allows some of us to study at Northwestern while others only a few miles away suffer from severe lack of opportunity. Around this time, the community service organization through which I tutored Colby held a panel of campus workers and community organizers. Julian, a community organizer, challenged us, asking whether any of us knew if Northwestern workers were paid a living wage. Rafael, a cook, told us that one dining hall worker had recently become homeless. The other food service workers came together to help her pay rent. The hardship experienced by workers in campus dining halls made me question the role Northwestern University played in creating poverty in nearby areas, like where Colby lived. The loving, inclusive community I had experienced when my mom was sick, with the community bringing my family food each night, had been inverted. Now, on campus, the people serving my meals while I was away from home, nourishing and caring for me, are often forced to live without the basic necessities many of us take for granted, like access to affordable healthcare. In some situations, wages are so low that workers and their families experience periods of homelessness. If you’re anything like me, generally you spend each Yom Kippur counting the seconds until you can devour a bagel and lox. This year, while fasting and reflecting, take the time to remember the campus workers, who on every other day of the school year feed us. Today’s Haftarah, from Isaiah, tells us not “to oppress our laborers.” Isaiah 58, 6-7: No, this is the fast I desire: To unlock the fetters of wickedness, And untie the cords of the yoke To let the oppressed go free; To break off every yoke.


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It is to share your bread with the hungry, And to take the wretched poor into your home; In America, the Jewish community has always played a central role in the struggle for social and economic justice, for Jews and non-Jews. Our calling is to heal the world. Each night when my mom was sick, I would sing the Mi Shebeirach to her at her hospital bedside (The Debbie Friedman version of course). Mi shebeirach avoteinu, M'kor habracha l'imoteinu. May the source of strength who blessed the ones before us, Help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing. G’mar chatimah tovah, May you be sealed for a good year. And may we all find the courage to support those struggling around us.


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Finding Clarity By Laura Oser ’11 Until very recently I had sort of been questioning my decision in a major. As had my parents. What on earth could I do with a French major? More importantly, what was I going to do with a French major once I graduated. I honestly can say that I still don’t know, but I’m a lot closer to a decision after this past summer. I went on Hillel’s first Alternative Break trip to Morocco this past August. A group of 10 students and one staff member travelled to a small village in the Tighza valley about 4 hours south east of Marrakech. It was in and near the village that we did our service projects, which included painting their new water purification building, painting the school and some local reforestation. Between our group of 11 and some of the local villagers, who were fasting all day for Ramadan, we were able to easily accomplish our tasks, despite some short-comings in the planning, like having enough brushes for everyone. We also had plenty of time to relax, and go on numerous hikes into the surrounding mountains. The views from these mountains were simply breath-taking. Other than my visit to the Grand Canyon, I have never seen a valley so vast and beautiful. I always made sure to stop and just take it all in. I’m always amazed that places still exist like they used to, and haven’t been so drastically changed by mankind. The villagers made sure about that too, by painting all of their buildings an orangy-pink color to blend into the mountains. But I think what most surprised me about my 10 days in Morocco was how much French I used. On countless occasions I was used as a translator to either explain things in English to our group, or to explain something in French to our local guide. And more-so in Marrakech, I spoke French with all of the restaurant owners, and store-keepers, even in our Riad with the care-takers. I really enjoyed having this skill, and for the first time since being in France last fall quarter, I really felt like I had made the right decision in choosing my French major. Looking back on this past summer, and on my decisions throughout college, I’ve come to realize that everything has happened for a reason. I got involved with Hillel because I had such a good time during New Student Week, I started working at the Aquatics Center on campus and learned how to really budget my time, I chose a French major and am now confident that I made the right decisions. Had I not gone on this ASB trip, I may have still been questioning my decisions. And hopefully in the future I’ll be working in the international field, doing community work and of course using my French. So at this time of year, I invite everyone to take a moment and reflect on decisions you’ve made this year. As I’ve learned, results are not always clear until much later down the road.


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Words Matter (Yom Kippur) By Michael Simon I spoke on Rosh Hashanah about the sound of the shofar, about awakening to its clarion call. Tonight/today, I want to talk about words. Words matter. I’ll begin with a humorous illustration from sometime in the not-so-distant future (please may it be so): Seymour is a HUGE Cubs fan. But one year, Kol nidre falls on the night of a decisive Game 7 playoff game Seymour goes to his rabbi, and pleads: “Rabbi – I know that Kol nidre is tomorrow night, but my beloved Cubs are playing in a Game 7! I can’t miss this game! Is there any way, with all of your wisdom and knowledge of the nuances of Jewish law, that you could provide me with a Jewish way to miss Kol nidre? The rabbi responds: “Seymour – there’s no problem – you can just record it!” Seymour, relieved, and a bit surprised, replies: “Great! I didn’t realize I could record Kol nidre!” ~~~ Words matter. For Seymour and the rabbi, the lack of clarity about what was being recorded created a great punch line, but a misaligned set of priorities. For us, words can convey humor, sadness, and meaning. Words can create intimacy and openings for deeper relationships. On Yom Kippur, like other Jewish holidays and moments of observance and ritual, words play a key role in the experience. But Yom Kippur in particular is centered around words. Take a look during the silent amidah, throughout Yom Kippur, when we beat our chests and recite a litany of sins, and you’ll note that many, perhaps even most, of the transgressions for which we are asking forgiveness are related to speech and words. I want to briefly discuss three other parts of the Yom Kippur service in which words matter, and then I want to share a few stories and thoughts about the ways in which words matter to me and to all of us. First, of course, there is Kol nidre. At the very beginning of this (and every) Yom Kippur, the chazzan – prayer leader – and congregation recite Kol nidre. We all engage in the recitation of solemn and ancient words – not just once, but three times, we chant these words together.


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“Kol nidre” translates into “All vows”, or, put another way, “All verbal statements of promise.” During the Kol nidre recitation, we declare null and void all vows that we may swear in the coming year. At first this is puzzling, as it seems to indicate that our words do not have the weight and importance we might attach to them. But Kol nidre is saying the opposite – our words have such power that we must be careful not to make any vow that we cannot fulfill. Kol nidre recognizes how easy it is to fall short in keeping our promises, and provides a leniency that enables us to function in the world of real words, real relationships, real people. At the conclusion of the kol nidre, we beg God through our words, three times, to forgive all our iniquities. S’lach na l’avon ha’am hazeh c’godel chasdekha – Please forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your kindness. Astoundingly, and beautifully, the liturgy provides God’s response: “Selachti ki-d’varecha”. And God said, “I have forgiven according to your words.” Our words express our intentions, our desires, our values. Here, in effect, words are actions, and they matter. Second: Unetanah Tokef On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, during one of the most powerful prayers, the Unetanah Tokef, we use words to describe how our fate literally hangs in the balance. “On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created, who will live and who will die.” We read that on this day the great shofar will be sounded, and a “kol d’mamah dakah” – a thin, silent voice will be heard. This thin, silent voice refers to a passage from the first Book of Kings (12: 11-12), when the prophet Elijah flees to a cave. In a moment of transcendence, Elijah hears a thin, silent voice that contains the clear words of God. This clarity – these words – are what we yearn to hear and understand as we approach the ineffable on Yom Kippur – and we do so with utmost awe. But not without hope – which is the other aspect of the Unetanah Tokef that is so richly connected with words. We all recite, aloud, U’teshuvah, u’tefillah, u’tzedakah ma’avirin et ro’ah g’zeirah – Teshuvah (repentance), Tefillah (prayer), and Tzedakah (righteousness in the form of gifts/service to the needy) might avert or alleviate the evil of the decree. There is amazing symmetry – the decree comes in words, which are written down and sealed – but the only actions we have to address and perhaps even turn the decree toward our favor involve words – prayer, and repentance (often in the form of apologizing to our friends, colleagues, and family). The words that we speak enact the repentance that we seek. Third: The Book of Jonah On Yom Kippur afternoon, between Mincha and Ne’ilah, we traditionally read the book of Jonah, which begins with the strange tale of Jonah’s flight from God, but later on portrays Jonah as the most – and perhaps only - effective prophet in the Hebrew Bible. In just five words – “Od Arbayim Yom v’Nineveh nehpachet (Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned!)” – Jonah delivers a decree that causes all of the inhabitants of the great city of Nineveh, from the king to the


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nobles to the common folks to even their cattle, to don sackcloth and ashes and to fast and to do teshuvah. When God sees the teshuvah of the Ninevites, He rescinds the punishment. Jonah then challenges God: Hey God, words matter. Didn’t you say, God, that you would destroy this people for their sins? Yet now you’ll save them? What about emet – truth? Jonah is all about emet. It’s right there in his name – He is Yonah ben Amittai (Jonah, the son of Amittai/My Truth). But Jonah’s truth is limited – in his understanding, when God says that the sinners and their sinful city will be overturned, it will be overturned. Jonah asks: How can the God of truth not fulfill this important attribute of God’s self? God’s implicit response to Jonah is that, yes, words matter, and what you say matters, but what also matters is how you say it, and why. ~~~ Words matter on Yom Kippur. But how do words matter in our lives beyond this one special day each year? Sometimes, words form the foundation of a lifelong relationship. Two years ago this October, Claire and I stood under the chuppah and recited to each other pledges of commitment. I gave Claire a ring and declared, “Harei at mekudeshet li be-ta’baat zo kedat Moshe ve-Yisrael ve-ani ishekh (Behold, with this ring you are consecrated unto me according to the tradition of Moses and Israel, and I am your husband.” Claire then declared to me, “Ani ishtekha kedat Moshe ve-Yisrael ve-atah mukdash li ke-ishi (I am your wife according to the tradition of Moses and Israel, and you are dedicated to me as my husband). Claire then gave me a ring as a symbol of her love for me. The rings, the breaking of the glass, the huppah – these were important symbols at our wedding. But the words themselves actualized our marriage – Our words made us married. This is a vow that is not annulled by Kol nidre (big relief!) because our marriage vows took on a status of permanence when we spoke them in front of our community. Now, I’ll admit that we don’t necessarily recall this moment of consecration each time we’re deciding whose turn it is to do the dishes or arguing over the remote control, but these words, spoken publicly in front of our friends and family, do provide the foundation for what our relationship means for each of us and for both of us together. Words matter. Words can build a home. ~~~ Words matter when an obscure pastor in Florida announces that he plans to burn the Koran as a way of commemorating the devastating tragedy of 9/11. That purported religious leader did not light even one match, nor tear one page, but his words rippled across the world, fomenting fear and disillusionment and searing the hearts of millions of Muslims in America who wondered whether they are really welcome in the land that is their home. Words can tear apart.


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Much closer to our own home, here at Northwestern, we experienced the power of words to both destroy and to create just last week, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. Here is what North by Northwestern reported about the incident:

Four members of the Westboro Baptist Church gathered on Wednesday on the corner of Foster Street and Sheridan Road for half an hour to protest Northwestern’s Fiedler Hillel. This protest, brought on by the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, also included stabs at homosexuals, Israel, President Obama and Americans in general.

According to a press release faxed to Hillel from the Kansas-based church, the protest was one of five stops the group made in the area on Wednesday. Other locations included the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie and the Israeli Consulate in Chicago. The press release was filled with quotations from the Bible and a statement saying, “WBC is looking for the good figs among the Christ-rejecting hypocrites.” The group held several signs, with such slogans as, “Your rabbi is a whore”, “Mourn for your sins”, and “Israel is Doomed”. They sang parodies of famous songs, including “Hey Jew,” based off the Beatles’ “Hey Jude,” and a remake of “God Bless America” called “God Hates America.” I stood on that street corner last Wednesday night, just as I had on July 19, when the WBC came to campus for a similarly pathetic picket. I had sent an email to the Hillel community to discourage engaging the protesters. We knew that the WBC hoped to be taunted and engaged, and that their choice of Rosh Hashanah was an obvious attempt to provoke a response, and we did not want to give them any satisfaction beyond whatever drives them to do these protest stunts. Based on our experience from July, I did not expect many people to be present, but I was pleasantly surprised when a group of Northwestern students and Evanston residents gathered to combat the hateful protest with songs of love and signs of hope. After 25 minutes, the protest quieted down and the members of the WBC left, moving on to picket Rosh Hashanah services at Evanston Township High School. I took their departure as an opportunity to address the small crowd that had gathered. I told them that Rosh Hashanah is the New Year not of one people, but in fact commemorates the creation of the world and of all human beings. Their presence – representing a mix of races, genders, sexual orientations, and religions – provided special inspiration in celebrating the wonder of creation, and was a defiant rebuke to the repugnant protesters. Words can destroy, but words can also build. I was grateful to hear the hopeful words of the students who came in a spontaneous show of support for Hillel, for the Jewish community, and for common decency. And I was tremendously pleased to receive an email earlier this week from Omar Jamil and Noreen Nasir, two of the leaders of NU’s Muslim cultural Students Association. They wrote, “We were very upset when we heard the news, (and) we thought it was imperative that we express our support. It’s now more than ever that we should look to the similarities in our faiths, rather than the differences, to hold our ground and stand together when outrageous acts of hatred like this occur. We are always here to support you.”


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Omar and Noreen and the students who stood up when the protesters came have internalized the words of the great 20th century rabbi and teacher Abraham Joshua Heschel, who said, “Speech has power and few realize that words do not fade. What starts out as a sound ends in a deed.” Words matter. ~~~ This past week, hundreds of upperclassmen welcomed 2000 new freshmen to campus. (Any members of the class of 2014 here tonight/today? Show of hands?) Words matter when we say “welcome to our community”. And the tone matters – do we really mean it? Do we remember someone’s name the next time we see them? Do we continue to say “Welcome” in November? In March? When we’re having a bad day? Words, such as the sign hanging outside of the Hillel building and at other locations throughout campus, can welcome others into the community. But words can set us apart from one another, and we must remain aware that not only the content of our words but the tone in which they are said matter. ~~~ One more story, and then I’ll close. I began work at NU Hillel on July 1. This summer, I tried to meet with as many students as possible for coffee, for lunch, or for ice cream. (side note – I’m hoping to meet with the other few thousand of you over the coming weeks and months. I do love coffee!) On one of these occasions, I went for a walk with a student who is now a senior. As we crossed campus, we were engaged in the basic “getting-to-know-you” kind of conversation, and she was telling me about her family, her hometown, and her high school. I noticed a couple of times that she mentioned her mother and brother, but not her father. Eventually, with a bit of hesitation, I asked her, “I’m wondering – about your dad…” She told me, matter-of-factly, that he had died when she was young. We continued along our walk to Norbucks, and she proceeded to tell me about her major, student organizations she is involved in, her summer job. But after a few minutes I stopped and said, “I just want to acknowledge and appreciate that you shared something really intense and important with me. And, if you’d like to tell me more of the story, I’d like to hear it.” That coffee conversation lasted far longer than expected, and she shared her story of loss with me. The following week, we met again, and I shared some of my own encounters with loss and grief. There are more coffees to come. Words mattered – When this student left a gap in her story regarding her loss, I picked up on the signal. When I asked her about that loss, she shared what had happened to her father and how it affected her and her family. At each step, words chosen with care and shared with empathy


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opened up a space for real sharing and created the conditions for forming an important connection. Words matter – and stories matter. I tell this story in part so that everyone here with words to share knows that I, along with my colleagues at Hillel, am here to listen. And there is a thread running through it all, from Kol nidre to Unetanah Tokef to Jonah, and from the huppah to the student at Norbucks: Words are the vehicles through which we create and nurture relationships. ~~~ Before I end, I want to ask us all a set of questions: • What words will have an impact on us in the coming year? • Which of our words will have an impact on others? • What stories will we tell, and what stories will we seek out and hear? • What relationships and connections will we strengthen through our words? Let’s make our words matter on this Yom Kippur, and throughout this year. Shana tova u’metuka – may each and every one of you have a sweet, healthy, and happy New Year. And G’mar Tov – may you complete Yom Kippur in a good and meaningful way.


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“Whatsover Things Are True” (Yom Kippur) By Rabbi Josh Feigelson

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.(Phillipians 4:8)

To put it mildly, it’s unusual for a rabbi to begin his Yom Kippur sermon by quoting the Christian Bible. The Torah, the High Holiday machzor, the Talmud, even the Big Book of Jewish Humor (which I’ve done). But Saint Paul? Really? Well, as we say at Hillel, we are distinctively Jewish and universally human. Chalk this up to the latter half.

But seriously folks, this is not a gratuitous quote from Paul’s Epistle to the Phillipians. Quaecumque Sunt Vera – Whatsoever things are true. These are the words on the seal of Northwestern University. They are the very motto of this place. And they come from this verse of St. Paul. “Whatsoever things are true: think on these things.”

Northwestern adopted these words as its motto in 1890. Presumably the trustees wanted Northwestern to be dedicated to truth. Harvard’s motto was veritas, truth; Yale’s was lux et veritas, light and truth. Northwestern, like other universities, was and remains about learning truth, searching for truth, knowing truth, and living by truth.

Of course we have a word for this in Hebrew, and it is emet. Emet in Hebrew is as powerful as truth is in English. The book of Deuteronomy refers to judges who “inquire, probe, and investigate thoroughly” (13:15) to arrive at truth. The Talmud goes further and determines that judges must actually perform seven separate inquiries to ascertain the truth in a case. They must check and check and check again. They must interrogate witnesses and check all the facts. They must be absolutely certain in their judgments. They must be true.

So finding the truth can be hard work. Like a science experiment or an archaeological dig, the truth is there to be discovered, and it must be measured and investigated and probed before we can be certain. In this conception, truth stands outside us, and we must use our tools of historical and scientific inquiry to find and verify it.

But there is another kind of truth, one that doesn’t stand outside us, but which emerges from within us. This is the truth of belief. This is the truth that tells us that our family and friends will be there for us when we need them. It is the truth that says we can always come home. It is the truth we experience when we tell the story of the Exodus at Pesach. It is the truth we rely on today, Yom Kippur—the truth that God will always forgive, if only we will return.

“Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach,” Moses says. “It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will go up into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ No: ki karov elecha ha-davar me’od. The word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.” (Deuteronomy 30:11-14)


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This kind of truth is not scientific. It cannot be proven by our tools of critical analysis. It is belief, to be sure, but no more so than the belief we have in science or history. It is true. It is emet.

This kind of truth, the truth we live in all the time, the truth without which our world would cease to be meaningful—this kind of truth is, by and large, not the kind of truth we talk about at the university. For from virtually the moment Professor Daniel Bonbright wrote the words “Whatsoever things are true” into the seal of Northwestern in 1890, the idea of truth itself has been fraught with questions and difficulties. Science continually disproves its theories; history upends our understandings; sociology and psychology and neurobiology show us that the very things we take for granted in the world aren’t as simple, as seemingly truthful, as they seem.

And so we are plagued by doubt. Nothing is as it seems, and whatever we think we know—we worry we will soon come to see, as George Gershwin memorably wrote, “It ain’t necessarily so.”

The roots of this conundrum go back a long way. The earliest moments of modernity owe their inception to doubters. Descartes, Montaigne, and our very own Baruch Spinoza—the philosophers you study at the beginning of intro to modern philosophy, who lived 400 and 500 years ago—all began by doubting what was.

Is the world really like everyone tells me it is? Maybe it’s different. That was their fundamental and earth-shattering question. They thought outside the box. And as they did so, the box itself started to quiver and shake, to stretch and to crumble, until the whole way we approached the world changed. Science, economics, politics, art, music, religion—everything that was inside the box was suddenly exposed to doubt.

Things didn’t have to be as they had been; they could be different. Nation-states, democracies, capitalism; Beethoven, Madonna, Jackson Pollock; Reform Judaism, Hasidism, Zionism—they all came about because of doubt. They came about because people asked, “What’s not true about the world I live in?” What amazing things doubt can create!

And yet, here’s the part I think we too often forget. These people, and the people who brought us these incredible things, didn’t stop when the doubt ended. They didn’t stop with the question, What’s false? No, they went on, and they asked an equally important question: Now that I know what’s false, what do I know is true? If I know what is fake, what is real? If I know what I can’t believe in, what will I believe in? If I know what isn’t true, what is true?

Somewhere along the way, I fear, we stopped asking that question. We stopped asking “What is true?” In our search for truth at the university, we allowed our doubts to cannibalize our truths, instead of clarify them. We got so good at asking what is false? that we forgot how to ask what is true?. While our doubting was motivated by a search for truth, we stopped believing that truth could ever be found.

And so we stopped even looking for truth. We focused instead on things we can measure, things we feel like we can know. If you stopped by the undergraduate majors fair, where all the departments have tables to meet prospective majors, you could see the results: the lines for economics, the business certificate program, engineering—these were out the door. The lines at English, Slavic, Jewish Studies: there were no lines. You can’t measure the value of the humanities. And if truth doesn’t exist, then what’s the point of studying things that can’t be quantified?


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To be sure, there is truth to be found in economics and business and engineering. I don’t mean to knock those disciplines. But the essence of liberal education is the belief that the quantitative must be made meaningful through the qualitative, that the hard truths of science must be enriched by the search for the deep truths of human experience. Whatever your major, whatever your discipline, there is deeper truth, richer truth, to be found.

The Torah anticipated all of this. It is not in heaven! Rather ki karov elecha ha-davar me’od—truth is very close to us, if only we will look with open minds and listen with open hearts. If only we will stop to ask, “What is true?” Truth is there. We simply have to be looking for it.

I’m reminded of a story a friend of mine likes to tell about an art professor at a university a lot like this one. Every morning he would eat breakfast with his young daughter, and then he would go off to work. One morning, when she was four or five years old, she asked him, “Daddy, what do you do at work all day?” He told her, “I teach grownups how to draw.” The girl paused for a minute and then, with a confused look on her face she said, “Did they forget?”

How much we forget as we grow up. While becoming an adult is of course about discarding old truths, it is also about finding new ones. And it is about coming to a more nuanced understanding of some of the same truths we knew when we were children. Becoming an adult cannot only be about rejecting what is false. It must also be about finding, and sometimes rediscovering, what is true.

Because if we fail to do this, we encounter a world without meaning, a world without a center, a world completely fragmented and disintegrated. Disintegration is something we do amazingly well here at the university. We create schools. We create departments. We create subdepartments and subspecialities within subdepartments, which are inside departments inside a school.

All of which can be good. But unless we try to pull together all this fragmented knowledge, unless we ask, “What is true?” our knowledge, our world, and our selves, remain dis-integrated. If we stop at the question, “What is false?” we remain disintegrated, incomplete, fragmented.

But when we ask, “What is true?” we change the game. We start to see a frame for the puzzle. We start to see that things can fit together, and that our knowledge, our selves, and our world can have meaning. Instead of disintegration, we have integration. And instead of fragmentation, we have integrity.

Integrity, sheleimut, shalom -- begins by asking “What is true?”

So here we are on Yom Kippur. Here we are on the day when we say in our amidah, v’taher libeinu l’avdekha b’emet—God, make our hearts pure so that we may serve You in truth. Yom Kippur is our annual reset button. It is the day when all becomes possible, because we can let go: of our mistakes, of our inadequacies, of our doubts. It is a day when we can start over, when we can learn from our shortcomings and we can make a change. It is the ultimate day of freedom, because we’re not trapped. On Yom Kippur, we can challenge our own doubts with our truths: the truth of sheleimut, of integrity and wholeness; the truth of teshuva, of real, honest change; the truth of mechila, of forgiveness and letting go; the truth of kapara, of atonement, of starting over, of rebirth.

Today on Yom Kippur we recommit ourselves to these basic truths: the truth that life is about more than money, that life is made meaningful precisely by the things we cannot quantify; the truth of family, the truth of community, the truth of tzedakah; the truth of gemilut chasadim, of doing kindness;


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the truth of am Yisrael, of the Jewish people throughout time and around the world; the truth that we are all created b’tzelem elohim, in God’s image.

And today on Yom Kippur we recommit ourselves to a learning based in truth. In our learning this year, we will ask “What is false? What do I suspect? What do I need to investigate?” We will be rigorous and thorough in our research and in our thinking. We will analyze and dissect and take apart.

But this year, we will remember that after doubt comes faith. After we ask “what is false?” we will ask “What is true?” After we ask, “What do I suspect?” we will ask, “What do I trust?” After we analyze, we will synthesize. After we dissect, we will reassemble. After we take apart, we will put back together.

These things are emet, these things are true.

I bless us all this year with a year of knowledge, of insight, of understanding, of the courage to put aside childish things. And I bless us with a year of good questions, of genuine exploration, and of the courage not only to doubt, but to trust—the courage to ask not only “What is false?” but also, “What is true?”

Gemar chatima tova – may we all be sealed in the book of truth and life today.


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The Four Children of Yom Kippur By Claire Sufrin When I was about ten years old, my father and uncle moved their father, whom I called Zayde, to a nursing home. His dementia, which had first appeared about five years earlier, had reached the point that he needed the sort of comprehensive, round-the-clock care that only this kind of facility could provide. When we visited, my father would go up to the Alzheimer’s floor and bring my grandfather down to the first-floor lounge where we would sit together. There, beside a large and dirty aquarium full of fish who looked as depressed as we felt, we tried to engage with the reality of a man who had reached the end of his mental and emotional life but continued to live on in the shell of his body, which stubbornly insisted upon continuing to exist. When they thought I wasn’t listening, I sometimes heard my father and uncle speculate whether their father’s illness was a long-delayed reaction to a serious head injury they knew he had received at the hands of a Ukranian soldier when the Nazis arrived in Bukuwso, the small town in Poland near the Carpathian mountains where he was born and raised. Though I know now just how common, random and inexplicable diseases of memory are, at the time, it seemed not only to them but to me that my Zayde’s illness was but the final insult in what had been a life of struggles, both horrific and mundane. In the last year of his life, long after he had stopped showing any signs of recognizing our voices or even sensing that we were there, my grandfather began repeating one phrase. Sitting beside us, sitting beside those moping fish, shuffling with us up and down the hallway, one phrase. Le-chayim tovim u-le’shalom. Or, slightly closer to the way it sounded from his throat, le-chayim toivim u’le-sholom. Toward a good life and toward peace. It’s a line from the liturgy from the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe, or, as we usually call them, the High Holy Days. the conclusion of the additional text we insert into “sim shalom” on these days. It was, beyond a doubt, the last fragment of a sentence he ever spoke. And to my family and me, he said it perhaps a hundred times. This winter, it will be 21 years since he died. Yet every year, I think of him when we reach this line. Every year, I wonder why his failing mind was able to hang onto anything at all and why he hung onto this, of all the words he might have preserved. It’s too simple, too cheap, to think he was distinctly trying to send us a message, that from the depths of his illness he was able to see some truth that we could not see, like some sort of post-modern prophet. I’ve come to think of these words less as an attempt to sum up what he had desired and instead as more of an attempt to articulate what his muddled mind still wanted and was still pointing toward.


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Tonight, as we prepare ourselves for the coming year, his last refrain sounds almost like a vidui, the confession of dying. Tonight, as we prepare to recite the final vidui, the final confession of the living, his words have led me to think about the different ways of engaging with these days, these yamim nora’im. ~~~ At other times of the Jewish year, we have potent symbols for discussing human personalities and tendencies. Next week, with Sukkot, we will wave the lulav and etrog and talk about characteristics of smell and taste as metaphors for different combinations of study and piety. Ideally, it seems, we should all want to be an etrog, whose smell and taste symbolize the Jew who both has Torah learning and follows the commandments. In a few months, on the other side of winter, we will eat four courses of fruit on Tu B’shvat, and we will compare their seeds and shells to layers of human emotions and self-presentations. But tonight I’d like to think about the four children of Pesach, Passover, and borrow them from their native springtime moment of unleavened bread for our own autumnal hour of ascetic denial. The wise, the rebellious, the simple, and the one who does not know how to ask. In the Pesach original, the chacham, the wise child, asks about the laws and the statutes of the holiday. For the chacham on Yom Kippur we have a lengthy answer: no leather-soled shoes, no food, no drink, no washing and more. Even for the week before, we have an answer for him the form of hilchot teshuvah, the ways of repentance, with instructions on whom to ask for forgiveness, when and how. The rasha, the rebellious (wicked) child, asks: what is this to you? To this child, on Yom Kippur, we reply with Vayikra 23:27-29: “The tenth day of the seventh month shall be a Day of Atonement, a sacred occasion for you; you shall afflict yourselves and bring-near a fire-offering to God. And you shall do no work on this day because it is a Day of Atonement to effect atonement for you before God. Indeed, if any person does not afflict himself on that same day, he is to be cut-off from his kinspeople.” The tam, the simple child, asks: what is this? To the simple child, we reply with Vayikra 23:32: “It shall be a Sabbath of complete rest and you are to afflict yourselves; from the ninth day of the month, at sunset, from sunset to sunset, you shall observe this Sabbath.” And for she-eino yodeah lishol, the one who cannot even ask a question? My thoughts turn here not to a child before speech who is too young to ask but to a child after speech, who once asked and no longer can. To one particular end-of-life child, who could not ask but gave instead an answer: le-chayim tovim u-le shalom. Toward a good life and toward peace. Le-chayim tovim u’le-shalom. Because without a self-accounting, it is impossible to live a good life. ~~~


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There’s a central tension at the heart of our Yom Kippur experience. So much of the day is communal: look at us here, together; think about the similar gatherings happening around Evanston, around Chicago, around the U.S., and around the world. If we were not together, we could not have the sublime intensity of Neilah. At the same time, Yom Kippur is profoundly an individual experience. On a mundane level, we can think of how fasting affects each of individually; on a deeper level, remember that judgments of life or death in the coming year are apportioned one-by-one. (And I don’t think that we would want it any other way.) Pushing our four Yom Kippur children a bit further sheds light on this tension. In the Pesach original, the rasha and the she-eino yodeah lish’ol are answered with the same verse from Shemot. They get, in other words, the same basic answer with a slightly different interpretation placed upon it, appropriate to their respective characters. This liturgical twist of the Haggadah—one that’s rarely noticed—suggests that, for structural reasons, tonight too we must link the answer we give our rasha to the answer we give our she-eino yodeah lish’ol. We originally answered our rebellious child with a warning that this is a day of atonement and any one who does not participate will be cut off from our people. But if the purpose of atonement is, as we told the one who cannot ask, le-chayim tovim u-le’shalom, the answer to the rasha reminds all of us that we must orient ourselves toward this individual goal of good life within community, where, with others, we can create peace. Our four children are not absolute types. We cycle through them within our lives; even within one Yom Kippur day. Now, nearing the end, I am like be the child she-eino yodeah lishol, struggling through a haze of hunger, thirst, and exhaustion to make sense of what has just passed. But if I am honest, I must admit that in the days building up to this hour, it is the pose of the rebellious that has for me resounded most clearly and insistently. I choose to speak of the rasha as the rebellious, not the wicked, as she so often is called. Yes, the rasha tests boundaries and threatens to leave. But the rasha is the one who is truly grappling with a quest for meaning at difficult times. The rasha is the one whose question is “what does this mean to you?” To you, because she is trying to figure it out for herself. And so I’ll go ahead and ask it: What does this mean to you? Last night’s beit din at Kol nidrei that granted us absolution from vows; the rigor of today’s self-denials and the resounding pounding of your fist on your chest. What does this mean to you? Ultimately, I hope that each one of us will find in this day the strength to strive for a good life and together we will orient ourselves toward peace as a community, even as we ask “What does this mean to you?” G’mar chatimah tovah.


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Neilah: Pushing Open By Rabbi Josh Feigelson The name of Neilah is ironic. Neilah refers to the locking of the gates. As the sun sets, the gates of the city are locked, the gates of heaven are locked. But as we will say in a few moments during the amidah, we implore God: p’tach lanu sha’ar b’et neilat sha’ar: Open the gates at the time when they would be locked.

Open. Open is the theme of Neilah, just as it has been for all of Yom Kippur. From the moment of Kol Nidrei, when we opened up by throwing off the fetters of our vows, to the viduy, when we have opened ourselves to critique, to the avodah, when we open ourselves to the historical moment of the beit hamikdash and transport ourselves there through the opening of imagination: openness has been our theme. P’tach lanu sha’ar b’et neilat sha’ar.

We stand here now, at this moment, as open as we will be all year. We sense the openness of the bride and groom on their wedding day, for this is the day of our wedding with the Ribbono shel Olam. It is the day of forgiveness, of renewal, of letting go, of being open. We stand here at Neilah tired and exhilarated, the way we stand near the end of the wedding: we don’t want it to end. As hungry as we are, as tired as we are, these are the last moments for us to be together in this special way: b’ahava v’achva, b’shalom v’reut.

Look around. This is our community. These are our brothers and sisters. These are the people to whom we are responsible. These are the people with whom we share some of the most intimate moments of our lives, the people whose joys and sorrows we share, the people who support us and comfort us. And in this minyan, we can say, these are even the people who know exactly what foods we like and don’t like.

This is a special group of people. The moment of Neilah is the beginning of the end, and the end of the beginning. It is the moment when we can be together in a unique way, in an open way, the way we are together at a wedding. We can pray for one another, we can pray for our kehilla, we can pray for our students, we can pray for klal yisrael. These prayers, uttered at this moment, are special prayers.

So let’s open the gates as they try to shut, let’s push them open and hold the moment a little longer. P’tach lanu sha’ar b’eit neilat sha’ar.

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