Protection

 I cannot speak or write about the things I experience with community or congregational members because it crosses the borders of confidentiality.  Every now and then there is an exception:

It was a small dark colored car.  Four door.  Kind of old and battered.

It is hard to see inside the windows of a car, even from a short distance.  I knew that someone must be sitting in the car because of its position outside the main sanctuary.  I waved, not knowing whether the people inside saw or acknowledged me.

Opening the door to the sanctuary I motioned to the blank window and yelled,”Do you want to come in?”  The door cracked open and three people climbed out, two from the front and one from the back.

They introduced themselves to me as newcomers to town from Texas.  Then the man pointed to the younger man and told me that this was his son who is in training at Ft Jackson.

The three of them davenned with the congregation in the chapel that Friday evening.  The father knew his prayers well and sang them loudly, so loudly that he forced me to change one of my tunes so that I would be in sync with him.

Services ended with Yigdal and after a few hand shakes and embraces I made my way over to the trio and asked how long the young man was going to be here in Columbia at the Ft Jackson.  “He’s leaving tomorrow,” said the father.  

“To Afghanistan,” added his wife.

I nodded.  

“Come with me,” I pulled the three of them over to the Aron HaKodesh, the Holy Ark, after the last member had exited.  “Stand here.”  

I opened the Ark, held the young soldier’s hand and prayed: “Avinu Shebashamayim, Lord of Heaven, I am here with Your child who is off to a distant land tomorrow.  Look after him. Guard his steps.  Be with his officers to protect them and protect one another.

“Let him serve his duty with dignity and grace and bring him back home to his family whole.”

Tears trickled down this soldier’s cheeks. Everyone is human.

The father placed his hands on his son’s head and bensched him with the Priestly Blessing.

Rosh Hashanna and Yom Kippur

 Introduction

Rosh Hashanna comes once per year and lasts two days.  It is part of the yamim noraim, the Days of Awe and is part of the framework of the Asseret Yemei haTeshuvah, the Ten Days of Repentance.  Both of these names include Yom Kippur as it too is part of the Days of Awe and there are ten days from Rosh Hashanna until the Day of Kippur. This time is for serious reflection, self examination, and reconciliation.   It is a time for us to consider our  sins and look for forgiveness from people we have hurt and from God. 
Rosh Hashanna also is a great celebration of time.  We celebrate a New Year, the gift of another year for humanity, and looking to the future with a hopeful heart.  It is the festival of Creation when we fete the world for all its God-given majesty.
The Meaning
Like the secular calendar the lunar calendar, the Jewish one, has twelve months.  Coming in the month called Tisray, Rosh Hashanna inavriable starts at the beginning of autumn.  While the solar date will change from year to year the lunar date never varies.  On the eve of Rosh Hashanna there will be a new moon.  In the holiday itself we say, HaYom Harat Olam which means today is the birth day of the world.  Today is the time we measure the world's birth.  It is the anniversary of the world.
Torah: In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, there shall be a rest day for you, a remembrance proclaimed with the blast of horns, a holy convocation. You shall not do any labor and you shall offer a fire-offering to the Eternal. (Leviticus 23:24-5) 
In the Torah Rosh Hashanna is called the seventh month because we measure our time by the anniversary of our freedom, Passover.  Think of it this way: January 1 is the new year while July 4 is the celebration of America's birth.
Another name for Rosh Hashanna is Yom Teruah, the Day of the Blast.  Rosh Hashanna is associated with the blowing of the shofar, ram's horn.  Throughout the history of the Jewish people the hsofar has been used to call the people to war, summon them for a urgent convocation and announce the new moon.  The sharp shofar blast calls us together and makes a grand  announcement on Rosh Hashanna: the king is here!
There are three primary kinds of sounds emitted by the shofar.  One sounds like an attentive call (Tekiah), another is akin to a broken heart (teruah) and the last are like tears (shevarim). In all there are one hundred blasts on Rosh Hashanna.  It is a great mitzvah to hear all of them.
Maimonides adds another dimension to the sound of the Teruah.  he says it is an opportunity to feel the sting of fleeting time.  He says, “Awake all you who are asleep; search your ways and mend them in repentance.” In other words, the shofar shakes us out of lethargy.
Yom HaDin is yet another name for the holy day.  Yom haDin means Day of Judgment.  We know from the announcement made by the shofar that the King has arrived.  The Day Of Judgment underscores the idea that we are in the presence of the Holy One, the Master that knows all.  It is useless to give excuses or hide.  All is revealed the the Lord.
As declared by the Unteneh Tokef the remedy to all personal inadequacies is Teshuvah, Tefillah, Tedakah (Repentance, Prayer and Charity).  These alone will redeem us from our flaws.
The powerful tale of the Akeidah is read on Rosh Hashanna.  It tells of the unflagging faith of Abraham, our father.  His willingness to go to any extreme for God is a paragon of devotion.  We consider ourselves- what we do for God in his light.  The story ends with Abrham sacrificing a ram to God.  The shoar that means so much to the holy day is a reminder of that act, Abraham's faith, and God's unbroken promise.
Observances
It is customary to greet one another with the words, L'Shana Tovah Tikateyvu, "May you be written for a good year."
Apples are dipped in honey as we say, "May it be His Will that this New Year will be as sweet as these apples and honey."  We eat round hallahs instead of the usual long ones.  These symbolize the fullness of another year.
On the first day of the holy day (unless it is Shabbat) we perform Tashlich.  We go to flowing waters and say a few short prayers.  It is primal, immediate as we shake out our pockets and declare: 
Who, O God, is like You? You forgive sins and overlook transgressions.
For the survivors of Your people;
He does not retain His anger forever, for He loves kindness;
He will return and show us mercy, and overcome our sins,
And You will cast into the depths of the sea all their sins;
You will show kindness to Jacob and mercy to Abraham,
As You did promise to our fathers of old.
Finally, we take to heart the idea of Teshuva and turn to people we have wronged and make up to them.  We ask for forgiveness.  Not only that but is also customary to go to the cemetery and do that same for those who have passed.

A Thought to Heal the World

 "All those who do not visit the sick are like those who are guilty of shedding blood"  ~ Nedarim 40a

This powerful admonition flies across the ages to reach out to unborn generations.  what does the Talmud mean when it emphatically ascribes such guilt to those who ignore the ailing?
Level One: We take away the terrible loneliness of those who suffer when we attend to their needs.  By bringing them flowers, washing their feet, massaging their shoulders, or just speaking with them we assure them that they matter.  We communicate in a powerful way that their life counts.  They are not alone.  They have not been abandoned.  We care enough to make time to come and visit.  That act alone signals tremendous internal healing because it states that they are important.  Staying away leaves them feeling cast away like refuse, bereft.
Level Two: Who is not ailing?  Who lives such a static existence that they are not reduced to wondering if they matter?  Does not every person have such doubts?  Don't we all suffer from insecurity?  Lack of personal self-worth?
In this sense we are all sick.  We all suffer from the same inadequacies and internal pain.  What we need, others need.  Where we are lacking, others are lacking.

Bikkur Holim

 It is a mitzvah to visit the sick.  What that means in legalistic terms is that we must do this command from Above: God ordained it.   The problem is frequency.  The Torah does not reveal its hand when it gives the mitzvah.  How often must we visit the sick?  Every day?  Every month?  One a year?  Do we go when called?  Or do we seek out the ill?

Also, who are the sick?  There are many varied kinds of illnesses.  Is mental illness included?  What about someone suffering from addiction…is this considered sick?  What about a woman in childbirth or a person going through a divorce – do these count as illness?  If so, we may want to include job loss and infirmity like old age and change of life.  There are days – you know the kind – when the car gets flat, the water heater breaks, we get a pink slip….

Who could forget the myriad issues that children bring?  Each day brings fresh problems to solve, some worse than others.   Parents provide their own obstacles to the ever-expanding heap of things that could be called sick.   

If all these life circumstances could be labeled as sick we are all frequent visitors to that realm.   We may be sick for months or several times a day.  

“It is taught: On visiting the sick there is no fixed amount.”   ~ Nedarim 29b

Perhaps the reason why the Sages do not set the amount of time we need to address the ill is because the need is ongoing and universal.  Make the call you have been putting off, send the letter that you have been thinking about, go spend time with someone who needs you.

On Prayer

 "God will support him on the bed of illness ..." Ps. 41:4

Rav Dimi taught, “All who visit the sick infuse them with life.  Ana all those who refrain from visiting the sick bring about death.”  Nedarim 40a

Does Rav Dimi’s teaching mean that prayers contain the power of healing to make people well?  When we offer our prayers on behalf of the ailing do they shoot straight up to God and cause the Hand of the Universe to move saving them from their affliction?  

Are prayers that powerful?  Do they also prop up the living to the extent that people die from lack of people praying for them?

Perhaps those who are so unfortunate to have no one pray for them are forgotten by God?  Or maybe if they are too ill to pray for themselves and no one will pray for them they will die a silent spiritual death?  The universe will not note their passing.

Rav Dimi may also mean that prayer galvanizes the dwindling spiritual energies of the sick.  With our added words and focused prayers they become stronger as their prayers ride on the backs of ours.  Could this be true?

It may be that our prayers reinforce their waning strength.  The real power of prayer would then be that it sends to the weak an invisible message of hope that enables them to surmount the obstacle of illness.  Prayer is almost a tactile weapon that directly impacts the person prayed for.

So which one is it?  One of the above?  All of them?  None?

 

I suggest it does not matter.  The only thing that counts is it changes both the one who prays and the one who is prayed for.  What else matters when prayers said for another are enough to change lives?

Stand for God

 An old proverb has it: position is everything in life. Muslim prostration reflects the belief of Islam that God is everything and humans are nothing. Christian kneeling reflects the belief of Christianity that humans need help in being reconciled with God, that God has to get down to our level in order to forgive human flaws. And Jewish standing during prayer reflects the assertion that even sinful, flawed humans possess a basic dignity that we don’t need to discard in order to become one with God. 

When the great early-20th century philosopher Hermann Cohen rediscovered his Jewish heritage, one of the things that most impressed him was this point: that Jews stand during Yom Kippur.  That God doesn’t want us to come to him without dignity, facing the earth.  Rather, God forgives us while we’re standing erect, with our faces looking ahead towards the future, and with our eyes directed towards heaven. 

 

I hope that during Neilah you will appreciate this truth. Confessing what we’ve done wrong and asking for forgiveness doesn’t mean throwing away our self-respect.  It means affirming our self-respect. That is why we stand, assuming the physical position that affirms our dignity as human beings. They used to tell how the old Modznitzer Rebbe would sing the confessional of the Al Het to a waltz tune. When people asked him why he used a happy melody rather than a sad one, he replied:  “If the king asked you to clean up his throne room, wouldn’t you be happy for the honor to do it?” 

 

What we can Achieve

 A rich and poor child attended school together. One day the wealthy one brought in a fine leather wallet. The other students gaped and were envious of the beautiful object. The other children began to their save money so they could buy one just like it. The poor one had no chance; it was hard enough to just get fresh pencils and a backpack. That child felt miserable…

The child went to the local storekeeper, put his meager change on the counter and said, “This is all the money I have. Can I please have that wallet?”

“So you do not have another penny?” asked the owner. “Tell me, if you have no more money, what good is the wallet to you? You have nothing to put in it.”
 
The storekeeper makes sense. As adults we would say the same. And yet, there would be a small inner voice that understands the cry of the child who yearns to be like everyone else, wants to have what they
have, and does not wish to stand out as different.  The child has grown up but still struggles over the same issues. We want and cannot always have what want.

 It has been said by many pundits and economists that the economic slump that we are in is largely due to living beyond our means. We wanted the lovely wallet, could not afford it, but got it anyway.  Everybody felt the same way, including the banks. We went out and bought what we should not have purchased.

 Looking around it is easy to fall prey to desiring what others have.  Just watching television is an exercise in restraint as commercial
after commercial tells us “If we order now….” We are barraged by billboards, ads on radio and on the Internet that imply satisfaction and contentedness if we -- along with the rest of the country -- buy what they are selling.
 

 Sociologist George Ritzer has called this phenomenon the “McDonaldization of America.” In this new world everyone gets the same car, same house, same TV, and the same everything. One city  looks like another and states lose their individuality until all America looks alike.
 
On an individual level, Talmud has a distinctly different idea. “Man strikes many coins from one die and they are all alike. The Holy One, blessed be He, however, strikes each person with the same die as Adam but not one is the same as the next.”* Not only does our faith tell us about the uniqueness of our formation but it declares we each play an indispensable role in the universe. In other words, we have special gifts that only we can give to the world. In the absence of that gift the world is incomplete.

 What this all means is that we are not supposed to look for ways to be like one another. Instead, we are called by God to seek out our own destiny. Certainly, others will play a role in that process but it is our journey towards becoming whole, not theirs.
 
 “According to the effort is the reward.”** Our task is to bring about the fullest self we can achieve. There is no one who can do this but  you: you are one of a kind since the inception of Creation.

 *Sanhedrin 38a
 **Avot 5:26