Rabbi Schwartz's Sermon for Yom Kippur 5776

THE WORK OF OUR HANDS

YOM KIPPUR 5776

RABBI BARRY L. SCHWARTZ

In early July an 8-year-old boy from Baltimore named Zion Harvey became the world’s first recipient of a pediatric bilateral hand transplant. Zion was only 2 years old when he nearly died of a massive sepsis infection that forced the amputation of his hands and legs and compromised his kidneys. He received a kidney from his mother Pattie. In 2012 he visited Dr. Scott Kozin at Shriners Hospital of Philadelphia, who made the daring suggestion that rather than be fitted with a prosthesis Zion be considered for the double hand transplant. He underwent the daunting operation at nearby Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia under the direction of Dr. L. Scott Levin. Ten attending surgeons worked ten and a half hours, with a support staff of thirty. Today a team of physical and occupational therapists is teaching Zion to once again use his hands. Zion is one remarkable kid, with an irrepressible spirit and incandescent smile. If you haven’t seen his story on YouTube, watch it. You will cry.

Long before fingerprint ID, our ancestors realized that our hands are uniquely our own. They help define each and every person. The words of our millennia-old liturgy, words that we recited Rosh Hashanah morning and this morning, contain a striking phrase that you miss if you don’t know the Hebrew. In the U’netaneh Tokef—“Who Shall Live, Who Shall Die” section we read, “You open the book of our days, and what is written there proclaims itself, for it bears the signature of every human being.” The term for “signature” is hotem yad, literally the imprint of our hand: our palm print. In metaphorical language that recognized every person’s unique set of hands, the liturgy is suggesting that God remembers our every deed by examining the Book of Life that is the work of our hands, our own actions.

Three years ago an international team of scientists announced that some of the famous cave art from Spain and France was far older than previous thought. And it turned out that the oldest of the old, earlier than the stunning murals of bison and horses, was a simple red stencil hand print at El Castillo. Almost 40,000 years ago a Stone Age man or woman held up his or her hand and drew its outline, saying “this is me, I am here”.

Is it any different than your child saying, “Look Mommy, look Daddy. Look what I made,” and proudly holding up their hand print. What do you do? You hang it on the refrigerator, for everyone to see. Once caves were sacred space; now it’s the kitchen. How little has changed in forty thousand years.

Even before we speak we signal with our hands. The Talmud says that we enter the world with ours fists clenched and leave it with our hands open. Think about the implications of that one for a moment—there’s a whole sermon there… which I will give at another time.

As humankind advanced, our hand print evolved into our signature. The remarkable dexterity of the human hand, so crucial to primitive tool making, now enabled writing. Why is it that we still seek an autographed book or baseball? The signature on an object immediately personalizes and connects to people. That was the copy of the Emancipation Proclamation that Lincoln himself signed. That was the ball that Babe Ruth autographed. The signature differentiates that document or ball from every other one.

Leonard Nimoy died this past year. His Vulcan hand salute on Star Trek, “live long and prosper,” was known the world over. Most of you probably know (but just in case you don’t) that the salute was taken from the priestly benediction that Nimoy saw when attending synagogue as a boy. To this day in traditional synagogues the cohanim still raise their hands during this prayer and form a “Shin”, which stands for Shaddai, one of God’s names. It’s the same reason that a “Shin” is drawn on the outside of every mezuzah parchment. I wonder how many Trekkies realize they are signing a Hebrew letter and copying a synagogue ritual when they make the Vulcan salute?

True Trekkies will remember a poignant image from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The Starship Enterprise had been gravely damaged. Scotty can’t do anything. There’s only one hope: someone must enter the radioactive nuclear chamber and manually repair the power source. It’s a suicide mission. To do so means certain death. Spock, that curious mixture of logic and compassion, goes in and locks the door. He saves the Enterprise. As he stands at the protective glass partition, already dying, mouthing his last words to his best friend Jim, he puts his hand against the glass in salute. Then Jim does the same, mirroring Spock’s hand. No further words are needed. It’s hand to hand; heart to heart.

By the way, if you visit some very traditional Jewish cemeteries you will occasionally see an engraved set of hands on the tombstone, held up much like Spock did. It’s highly unusual to see anything but Hebrew letters on Jewish tombs. But the sign of the hands was an exception reserved for cohanim.

The Bible is replete with images of hands: the right hand of might, the wicked hand, the bloodstained hand, the upraised hand of prayer.

Perhaps the most dramatic is the story of when Jacob conspires to steal the blessing of the firstborn of his brother Esau from his father Isaac. Jacob needs to impersonate his hairy brother before his blind father, so he wraps his hand in goatskin. When he meets his father, you can sense the shadow of doubt that passes over the aged patriarch at the moment of deception. “The voice is the voice of Jacob,” he says, “but the hands are the hands of Esau.” The hands win, and Jacob receives the blessing intended for Esau, and nothing is ever the same.

But there is another phrase from the Tanakh that I want to share, because it gets to the heart of what I want to say on this Yom Kippur. The Psalmist (115:7) speaks of the person “who has hands but does not touch.” Our hands have so many uses, but ultimately it is the simple power of the human touch that is most significant. I mean this physically and metaphorically.

When the liturgy says that God is looking for our imprint, consider that first and foremost we are being asked: have you reached out to another? Have you touched another’s life? Have you made a difference?

Family, friends, colleagues, clients, customers, casual acquaintances, even adversaries… the possibilities are all around, if we pursue them.

Have you taken their hand? Shaken their hand? Held their hand? Patted their back? Stroked their hair? Given them a hug?

“Who has hands but does not touch.” How awful to be invisible and untouched… and how much more so when you have the opportunity to touch and do not.

Audrey Hepburn, who I have never quoted before, said, “As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

A story is told of two God fearing people at the gates of heaven. God says to them: you both claim to be faithful servants. Now show me your hands. The two look at each other in surprise. The first puts out his hands; they are totally smooth. The second puts out his hands; they are full of scars. The Almighty ushers in the second, saying “well done”. The Almighty signals for the first to wait. “Why am I being detained?” he queries. God looks at his hands again, and then says, “Was there nothing worth fighting for? Was there nothing worth serving? You have lived a long life, and there are no scars?”

The folksinger Jewel has a beautiful song called “Hands”. In the last line she daringly suggests that “we are God’s hands”.

Would that we remember that as we go about our lives.

That remarkable little boy, Zion Harvey—he’s one of most articulate kids I’ve ever heard. He talked about how he managed to do so much without hands. He talked about what he wanted to do with hands. His goal is to one day swing on monkey bars. Toward the end of one interview he sensed a question that the interviewer did not explicitly ask: what would happen if the surgery does not go as planned, if the new hands do not take? He said, “And I’ll be fine if they mess up. Because I will still have my family.”

Zion Harvey touched thousands even before his new hands. I am sure he will touch thousands more.

Before I close… a personal note. I have wanted to give a sermon on hands for a long time. The reason is one some of you may suspect. My wife Debby is a hand rehabilitation therapist. These days she travels around the country and around the world teaching occupational and physical therapists the splinting of the hand. Before that she spent twenty years in the clinical setting. And part of that time she worked at Shriners Hospital in Philadelphia with Dr. Scott Kozin, the surgeon who first suggested Zion Harvery’s surgery and assisted with it.

So I knew this was time to give that sermon. And although I don’t usually dedicate sermons to individuals, this one is dedicated to Debby, my partner for the last 35 years.

The ancient Psalmist, the same one who spoke of hands that do not touch, concludes the 90th Psalm with a beautiful prayer, as I do now:

Vayehi noam Adonai Eloheinu aleinu; u’maseh yadeinu konena aleinu; u’maseh yadeinu konenainu.

May the favor of the Lord, our God, be upon us; let the work of our hands prosper; O prosper the work of our hands!

Rabbi Schwartz's Sermon for Kol Nidre 5776

LEGACIES

EREV YOM KIPPUR 5776

RABBI BARRY L. SCHWARTZ

Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron’s iconic career records for home runs on August 7th, 2007. Do you know what happened to the ball? It was put up for sale on an on-line auction. On Sept. 15th of that year the fashion designer and billion dollar lifestyle company head Marc Ecko payed $752,467 for it.

Then Ecko, who, by the way, is Jewish and was born, raised, and lives here in New Jersey, did something quite interesting. He created a website to let fans decide what to do with the ball. He gave them three options to vote for: donating it to the Baseball Hall of Fame untouched, donating it to the Hall of Fame with an asterisk branded on its surface, or launching it into space forever.

Well, 19% favored chucking it into space, 34% preferred to see it donated to the Hall as is, and 47% voted to brand it before donating.

So, majority wins, that’s exactly what Ecko did. Home run ball #756 sits in Cooperstown with a permanent asterisk.

Some applauded the stunt; others decried it. Hall of Fame pitcher Ferguson Jenkins said, “Why brand it? It’s an accomplishment of 21, 22 years. It hasn’t been proven that Bonds used steroids. It’s a cruel world we live in.”

But fellow Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer said, “I think time will sort out how you want to view it. The fans have a pretty good sense of what has gone on.”

Ecko himself said, in a bit of an understatement, that the poll results prove that fans believe Bond’s feat was “shrouded in a chapter of baseball history that wasn’t necessarily the clearest it could be.”

When I do a unit on integrity and cheating with my confirmation class, I have my students debate what should have been done with the ball. It makes for an interesting exercise. What intrigues me most is the issue of legacy. How should Bonds be remembered?

As a sports fan I find myself thinking about this question a lot, maybe more than I should, but there are so many provocative cases.

But before I share several of them, I must note that today marks the 50th anniversary of perhaps the greatest Jewish legacy sports event of all-time. Yes, it was on this Yom Kippur in 1965 that Sandy Koufax refused to pitch in the World Series.

As Koufax wrote in his autobiography: “There was never any decision to make, because there was never any possibility that I would pitch. Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish religion. The club knows that I don’t work that day.”

The writer Zev Chafets reported twenty years later, while doing research for a book: “I was told by hundreds of Jewish men across the United States that their most important Jewish memory was of Sandy sitting out the Series.”

Rabbi Daniel Pernick wrote recently: “Two specific events produced more Jewish pride than anything else in the turbulent decade of the 1960s—Sandy Koufax’s refusal to pitch on Yom Kippur in 1965, and not quite two years later, the Six Day War in June 1967. To this day, the name Sandy Koufax is uttered with awe-both because of his athletic prowess and his courage to stand true to his values.”

Now to the flip side:

Lance Armstrong was once a hero of mine. I read his book and actually gave a sermon about why he was a genuine hero. All the good work he did in the fight against cancer—how does that measure up against the lying and deception we now know went on for years?

What will be the ultimate legacy of all those players who confessed to using performance enhancing drugs or did not confess but are strongly suspected of doing so?

What will be the ultimate legacy of athletes who came to great achievement legitimately, but then broke other rules, like Pete Rose?

What will be the ultimate legacy of athletes who came to great achievement legitimately, but then broke social mores, like Tiger Woods?

Or consider the cautionary tale of Joe Paterno. In the course of three months, three years ago, the legendary coach lost his job, his reputation and his life. The NCAA initially punished both him and his team not because they did anything wrong, but evidently because they did not do enough right—in taking stronger steps to stop Jerry Sandusky’s abusive behavior. They stripped Penn State of 111 victories. This past January they reversed themselves and restored the wins. Sports Illustrated wrote a piece about it entitles, “It’s Complicated” with the tag line, “Joe Pa got his wins back, and his statue may follow. But legacies aren’t so easily restored—or defined.”

Paterno himself said in 2011: “This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight I wish I had done more.“

Respected sportswriter Tim Layden concluded his piece, “Stripping the victories was a punitive act with no connection to the crime. But the wins don’t exonerate Paterno. They add a thin layer atop an already complex legacy, comprised of the very good and the very bad.”

There’s that word again—legacy. And today, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is really about this—what do I want my legacy to be?

How can I make amends for the bad, and elevate the good?

How can I tip the scales of justice and compassion in my favor?

How I can I add a fresh chapter to the Book of Life that will be to my merit?

The most perplexing and problematic portion of our prayers… is also the most powerful and provocative. Why? Because it deals with our legacies.

It came earlier in our service and its worth delving a little deeper. When we started the U’netaneh Tokef section we said, “On Rosh Hashanah we reflect, and on Yom Kippur we consider: Who shall live for the sake of others; who, dying, shall leave a heritage of life.”

The traditional “Who Shall Live, Who Shall Die” prayers mince no words. “You write and You seal, You record and recount. You open the book of our days.” But then later, “and what is written there proclaims itself, for it bears the signature of every human being.” God may inscribe the Book of Life, but we generate the content. We sign off, as it were, on what is written. Our tradition argues that there is a Judge and there is judgement. But it also makes clear that we supply the facts—the evidence.

And there is more: the liturgy continues, “On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed: who shall live and who shall die… who shall be secure and who shall be driven… who shall be tranquil and who shall be troubled… who shall be humbled and who shall be exalted,” and then the punchline, maybe the most important line of the entire High Holidays: “But repentance, prayer, and charity temper judgment’s sever decree.”

There are acts that we can do to actually reverse, or at least mitigate, our misdeeds. There are steps we can take to address a tarnished legacy. They are three in number and endless in potential: teshuva—repentance; tefilah—prayer; tzedakah—charity.

I could, and should, give a separate sermon on each of the three. Maybe next year. For now, I emphasize one basic point: Legacies are earned, not given. Legacies are an open book, not closed. Legacies are a life-long endeavor, not instant.

It’s not too late to temper the decree. It’s not too late to make repairs by making amends. It’s not too late to add a new chapter.

Besides Yom Kippur, when is another time that we speak about legacies? At funerals, during eulogies. Many, many times I have officiated at the funeral of an ordinary person, who achieved neither fame nor fortune. After all, how many will do that? And some times there is not a great deal for me to say, though I try very hard to listen to the family, and encourage them to speak as well. But other times, I do have a great deal that I can say. And I may need to limit myself because there a line of others who want to talk as well. Again, the person led an ordinary life, career-wise, wealth-wise, accomplishment wise. But the eulogies come pouring forth. You say to yourself: there is something extraordinary happening here. What is it that separates the ordinary from the extraordinary in these modest lives?

Our tradition has a word for it, or rather a phrase: keter shem tov—the crown of a good name.

The one who gave and asked nothing in return. The one who would give the shirt off their back. The one who loved freely and unconditionally.

The one who offered before being asked. The one who stood loyal and tall. The one we called a true mensch.

The one who made mistakes but admitted them. The one whose scowl ended in a smile. The one who laughed not at you but with you.

The full Talmudic teaching says, “There is the crown of royalty; there is the crown of the priesthood; there is the crown of scholarship… but the crown of a good name exceeds them all.”

It’s an extraordinary statement about legacy. Judaism has deep respect for royalty, for clergy, and certainly for scholars. We applaud those who devote themselves to leadership and to learning. The just ruler, the gifted healer, the inspired teacher… these are legacy makers.

But the accumulation of power, prestige, and even scholarship for its own sake—divorced from their ethical moorings—that’s a blot on one’s legacy, whatever the achievement.

Some will merit many crowns, but the one within reach of all exceeds them all. The greatest crown can be worn by the common man. The crown that will make all the difference in how we are remembered. The crown of a good name.

On this Yom Kippur we pause and reflect on the legacy we are already creating and will one day leave behind.

Few of us will be elected to any Hall of Fame save one, the circle of our family and friends.

Swing for the fences; hit a home run. Just make sure there is no asterisk on it.

Religious School News—Coming Together After a Tragedy

From the pages of Kadima, the Newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

Religious School News from

Annice Benamy, Religious School Director

Coming Together After a Tragedy

We have memories of where we were for significant events:  I was teaching music in Room 200 in Cleveland, Ohio when 9/11 took place. I was in high school marching band when the TV show “Dallas” questioned “Who shot J.R.?” I was at home getting ready for bed when I heard the news about the death of Princess Diana.  I was on Facebook when I heard about Sandy Hook.  Where were you when you heard about the shooting at Sandy Hook?  Facebook is filled with petitions to sign for every cause – tax cuts, better education, progressive Judaism in Israel, and now better gun control laws. The petitions I sign make their way to Washington DC to that my lawmakers know my name and my beliefs.  I advocate for so many causes to advance our country in the 21st century.  I invite you to do the same.  Take a stand.  Sign your name when a petition comes before you to show your commitment to our world, our country, our community and to our family.

From: www.urj.org                                                      
Prayer:  When Burdens Are Too Heavy We come to You, O God, for your gracious help. You dwell within our heart, You feel our distress, You know our pain, and how burdened we are. Give us strength to bear our burdens with courage, wisdom, and grace. Help us to be true to our better self, to discern our real work in life, and to do it with all our might. When our struggle within our own heart, stay by our sides. Then we shall be able to say with Your prophet (Isaiah 40:31) “But those who hold fast to the Eternal shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

May our work, and the ties that bind us to family and friends, make life rich in meaning for us. so that each day we live may be yet another step leading us nearer to You. Amen




Recommended Books 
 A list of books for talking to your children about death:

Lifetimes: The Beautiful Way to Explain Death to Children by Bryan Mellonie and Robert Ingpen


It Must Hurt a Lot: A Book about Death and Learning and Growing  by Doris Sanford


The Bug Cemetery by Frances Hill


Goodbye Mousie by Robie Harris


When Dinosaurs Die: A Guide to Understanding Death by Laurei Krasny Brown and Marc Brown


Tough Boris by Mem Fox


When a Pet Dies by Fred Rogers


A Candle for Grandpa: A Guide to the Jewish Funeral for Children and Parents by David Techner and Judith Hirt-Manheimer


The Tenth Good Thing About Barney by Judith Viorst


Daddy's Chair by Sandy Lanton


Where Do People Go When They Die? by Mindy Avra Portnoy


Rabbi Schwartz's Sermon for Rosh Hashanah Evening 5773

THE BOOK OF LIFE

ROSH HASHANAH 5773

RABBI BARRY L. SCHWARTZ

Every morning I arise at dawn, hop on my bicycle, and ride down to Overpeck Park. As I hit Fort Lee Road, I pass the giant utility poles that are home to the parrots of Leonia. They squawk their greeting, and I tip my helmut hello. On my right I pass the Leonia section of Overpeck. The 6:00 AM walkers are already doing their loops, just as the sky is alighting.

I cross over to the larger Ridgefield section of Overpeck, and begin my own triple loop, each about 2.5 miles long. As I round the first bend, the tip of the Manhattan skyline comes into view. It never fails to surprise me. I pass the ball fields and there on the horizon is the Empire State Building, and further down, the new World Trade Center.

The sun is just coming up, and often it shines on the side of those skyscrapers, casting them in striking hues. Turning again, I ride along the river, the dawn sky reflected in a palate of pinks and oranges over the water as the sun rises.

The water is placid, the sky is brilliant; the birds wing their way over the water.  Sometimes a sculler glides along, causing barely a ripple. All is well with the world…  except it isn’t.

The Leonia section of Overpeck Park, as many of you know, contains a memorial to those lost in 9-11. The Ridgefield section of Overpeck Park once revelaled a glimpse of the twin towers that are no more. Every morning that I take my idealic bike ride the subtle but persistent reminder of our national tragedy is there. The reminder that our beautiful world is also a troubled world is there.

This week we are celebrating the Jewish New Year. That’s why we’re here. But this past week also marked the 11th anniversary of 9-11. The commemeration this year was so much more muted than last year, for the tenth anniversary. That is understandable.

But for me the anniversary of 9-11 is not muted—for two reasons:

My visit the week before last to ground zero, 

and my worry over a nuclear Iran.

Permit me to explain why each affects me deeply, and the lessons they impart, as we gather in prayer and reflection at this new year.

A meeting connected to my work at the Jewish Publication Society brought me to a building next door to ground zero. I had not visited ground zero before, so I arrived early to visit the site. It was a weekday morning, but already hundreds of people were lined up. I heard languages from around the world. As you make your way to the entrance you see photographs of people gathering in the wake of 9-11, and holding vigils on every continent.

Ground zero is not a quiet place these days. It is a booming construction site. But once you enter the Memorial Park, the surrounding noise seems to fade away. You come to the edge of the memorial pools, water cascading along the sides. First I am struck by the enormity of their size. These pools represent the exact footprints of the twin towers. They are huge, and 30 feet deep. The void that absence creates is so palpable.

Then you come to the edge and you begin to see the names of the deceased. You begin walking around the edge of the square. Row after row of names. I begin to read one, then tens, then scores. There are hundreds of names; hundreds of hundreds. There are too many names to possibly read.

But seeing each individual name you begin to realize the enormity of the loss. Every name a precious soul. Every name a whole universe. Every name beloved by someone who grieves to this day.

The water streams on; as life goes on. But the falling water is also, I think, our tears. They never run dry.

Away from the pool are a grove of newly planted trees. In the words of design jury chair Vartan Gregorian: “The voids left by the destruction are the primary symbols of our loss. While these voids remain empty and inconsolable, the surrounding plaza’s design has evolved to include teeming groves of trees, traditional affirmations of life and rebirth. The result is a memorial that expresses both the incalculable loss of life and its regeneration.”

In the front center of the grove stands one tree taller than the rest. It looks healthy and vibrant, but support cables are by its side and there are scars on the trunk. This is the Survivor Tree: the calloway pear tree found as the only living thing at ground zero. Rescuers, looking in vain for signs of human life, found none. But then they found this scorched eight foot stump, and thought it too was dead, until they saw the roots were still intact. Carefully they removed the charred tree and brought it to the Parks Department Plant Nursery in the Bronx. For nine years the tree was nursed back to life, almost succumbing a second time during a particularly bad storm. Two seasons ago it was brought back to ground zero. Last year President Obama laid a wreath at its base. The Survivor Tree is now 30 feet tall. This year it blossomed, on the first day of spring, astounding New Yorkers.

I have a picture of the survivor tree that I took on my cell phone. I will pass it around. Behind it is the new World Trade Tower. The new tower is some 93 stories tall, and due to be completed in 2013. From the ashes, life. The irrepressible life force of a tree. The irrepressible life spirit of a nation.

We Jews can relate to that. We know what it is to face tragedy, and to overcome tragedy by affirming life in its wake.

As Jonathan Saks, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, writes in his book To Heal a Fractured World:

What was it about Judaism that led Jews, in circumstances that should rationally have led to despair, not merely to survive, but to respond with a new burst of creativity? For that, historically, is what happened. The division of the kingdom after Solomon led to the flowering of prophecy. The destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian exile reinvigorated the study of Torah. Responding to the destruction of the Second Temple , the sages created the vast rabbinic literature: Mishnah, Midrash and the two Talmuds. The encounter with… Christianity gave impetus to Jewish bible commentary; with Islam, to Jewish philosophy. The crusades led to new forms of north European Jewish pietism. The Spanish expulsion evoked the mysticism of Safed. The Holocaust, in human terms the worst tragedy of all, led to the single greatest affirmation of the collective Jewish will to survive: the birth of the State of Israel.

Our common scripture and our common history cherish life; venerates life. Amidst the cleared away rubble ground zero is coming to life again. The museum that will tell the story is not open yet, but if you want to glimpse some of that story, if you want to sense the inexhaustible life affirming potential of everyday people, then stop in at St. Paul’s Church just a block away. The story of their ministry in the wake of 9-11 is inspirational. People of all faiths joined hands, night and day, to comfort the afflicted and assist the rescuers. Three months after 9-11, the church helped sponsor the lighting of a Hannukah Menorah at ground zero. Light against the dark.

Which brings me to my second reason for speaking on the eve of this new year. Our beautiful world is still a deeply troubled world. Thomas Friedman wrote that our greatest failure prior to 9-11 was a failure of imagination. Our failure to imagine how committed to evil some people can be. Our failure to imagine how such people will employ any means to justify their ends. Our failure to imagine that there are religious fanatics who cherish not life, but death.

Today I am haunted by my perception that we are still failing that test of imagination. We just don’t want to believe that there are people who hate us. The Islamic republic of Iran has said, repeatedly, that America is the Great Satan and Israel the Little Satan. Its president, the head of state, has said, repeatedly, that he wants to wipe Israel off the map. Its top cleric has said, repeatedly, that Israel is a cancer to be eradicated.

We don’t want to believe it because we are not hateful, spiteful people. We don’t want to believe it because our religious traditions abhor the very notion of suicide bombers and the slaughter of innocents. We don’t want to believe it because we forget history very quickly.

Well, even as the Jews rise from the ashes time and again, we are haunted by history. We are told to remember, remember, never to forget.

So we remember that, in the lifetime of many of us here today, people of good will did not, could not believe what a man named Hitler could do.

What an emperor named hirohito could do... What a supreme leader named Stalin could do… What a chairman named Mao could do… What a regime called the Khmer Rouge could do… What a tribe called the Hutsis could do… What a clan called the Janjaweed of Darfur could do… What a mullah named Omar and a shiek named Bin Laden could do…

How much history do we need to forget in order to delude ourselves once again?

And as noted columnist Charles Krauthammer, a man I respect but rarely agree with, argues, relying on a theory of deterrence like that of the mutually assured destruction doctrine of the Cold War era is dangereously misguided. He gives three reasons:

1. The Soviet quarrel with America was ideological. Iran’s quarrel with Israel is existential. The Soviets never proclaimed a desire to annihilate the American people. For Iran, the very existence of a Jewish state on Muslim land is a crime. an abomination. 

2. America is a nation of 300 million, Israel 8 million. America is a continental nation; Israel, a speck on the map. As former Iranian president Rafsanjani has famously said: “Application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.” 

3. Irans’s clerical regime rules in the name of a fundamentalism for whom the hereafter offers the ultimate rewards. The classic formulation comes from Tehran’s fellow Jiahdist Al-Qaeda: “You love life and we love death.” Try deterrring that.

We just can’t wrap our heads around that . “You love life; we love death.” We don’t want to believe it because it runs counter to everything we have been taught. To our deepest values. To our most cherished principles.

I know this is grim stuff, but with the window of opportunity rapidly closing, can we begin the new year by avoiding the most dangerous situation in the world? Never mind the existential threat to Israel?

We pray that our leaders, here and in Israel, will be determined, wise and courageous as they wrestle with the weighty decisions that must be made, and will be made.

Allow me to close on an optimistic note. Al-Qaeda and Teheran are right about one thing. We do love life.

Look at the words we read in our prayerbook this evening: “Zochreinu l’hayim: remember us unto life, Sovereign who delights in life, and inscribe us in the Book of Life, for Your sake, o God of life.”

We love life, as that pear tree that would not die loves life. As the victims loved life. As the rescuers loved life. As the rebuilders love life. As our Jewish heritage loves life. As our nation loves life.

Life will find a way. It always does.

We will write ourselves into the Book of Life, because that is who we are.

 “There shall come a time,” Isaiah said, “when none shall hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain. When they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. When every man shall dwell under his vine and fig tree, and none shall make them afraid.”

On this Rosh Hashanah we say, as we do each and every time we raise a glass: L’Hayim! To life!

Lily and Emma Arang B'not MItzvah

Congratulations to the Arang family on the Bat Mitvah of Lily and Emma Arang on June 2nd!

From the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno, a message from two of our recent B'not Mitzvahs:

Lily and Emma Arang

For our mitzvah project we decided that we would donate money to the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition.  We had debated over many different ideas, but after hearing about the loss of Stefanie Jacobowitz, we wanted to donate in her memory. Stefanie was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and quickly after that the cancer spread. This just showed how deadly ovarian cancer is. We donated 5% of all our gifts to the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition. 

On behalf of Congregation Adas Emuno we offer our gratitude for their good deed in loving memory of our fellow congregant, Stefanie Jacobowitz.