Sermons

On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed. Throughout our High Holy Days, our liturgy puts this phrase on repeat. On Rosh Hashanah this year, we talked about what happened in Israel on October 7th, 2023. We revisited and visited the collective trauma that much of the Jewish world is still going through, We talked about the surprise attacks, the morning of infamy. On October 7th it was written…it was written, that which has been written so many times throughout Jewish history. Before October 7th, 2023, there have been many instances of those trying to blot out our name from the Book of Life as a people. The Holocaust of Europe during World War II is one of the most recent and horrific examples, but certainly not even remotely close to the only one. We know that the Jewish people were exiled from their homeland in 586 BCE by the Babylonians. After eventually rebuilding the destroyed first Temple, the Romans this time caused the destruction of the temple in the year 70 of the common era. Jews were forced again into exile; An exile that some say still exists to this day, save for the Modern State of Israel. Jews in Spain and the Iberian Peninsula, who were so prosperous during Medieval times, were eventually expelled from Spain in 1492 by the Catholic King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Some were forced to convert, or they faced certain death. In England, King Edward I’s Edict of Expulsion forced the Jews to leave in the year 1290. 

Antisemitism, often referred to as “The oldest or longest hatred” has been in existence for what is now thousands of years. From descriptions and depictions of Jews as “Christ Killers,” to the simple accusation of distrust, dislike, and at best, disinterest in groups outside of Jews, stereotypes and prejudices abound. One of the more outrageous accusations is the Blood Libel. I have to admit, I had not directly been exposed to a modern-day blood libel believer (at least knowingly) until the last high Holy Days. Meghan was involved in a small fender bender on her way to one of our services. She got to talking to the occupants of the other car, and was having a friendly conversation with a daughter and her mother. They were wearing hijabs, so they were likely of the Islamic faith. Meghan was dressed for the holiday here at Temple, and the women inquired as to why she was dressed nicely. “I am on my way to Temple. We have high holy day services today for Rosh Hashanah,” Meghan replied. The older woman began to look uncomfortable. She said, “Oh no.” Meghan replied with a truly concerned, “What’s wrong?” The older woman replied…”I don’t like what they do with the blood. How they sacrifice with the blood.” Her younger, more modern daughter looked embarrassed, and gave her mother a quick and curt “Mom!”, before moving on. The older woman was referring to the Blood Libel, where in it is *FALSELY* believed that Jews abduct non-Jewish children and use their blood for Passover rituals, more specifically using their blood for unleavened bread making. Meghan, in a state of dazed disbelief, assured this woman that we were not sacrificing children and using their blood as Jews. Jews have been depicted as having horns, and more than a handful of people have told me of experiences where someone, upon finding out they were Jewish, has legitimately asked “Where are your horns?” 

The historical stage has been set many times. It has been written. We are now at Yom Kippur, where the book of life is sealed, the gates close with neilah, and we move forward into a world wherein God’s decree will likely reign supreme. October 7th in Israel again put our names into a strange section of the book. OUR JOB IS TO PREVENT THE SEALING of a future of antisemitism abound. We talked about the pen being put to the book’s paper during Erev Rosh Hashanah last week. We mentioned the 873% increase in antisemitic incidents over the past ten years. We talked about 2023 containing the most antisemitic incidents on record since recording these events began. Our college campuses became hotbeds of antisemitism, often referred to as anti zionism, which I have become convinced is a thin veil in semantics covering up blatant Jewish hate. Many universities, so widely respected and lauded by so many for so long, became uninhabitable for many Jewish students. Many university presidents, standing before the House Education committee, failed to condemn and label the calls for Jewish genocide as a violation of school policy. One of the Rabbis I happen to follow closely, Rabbi David Wolpe, was doing a year as a visiting scholar at Harvard’s divinity school, and he stepped down from the university’s antisemitism advisory group. A respected rabbi, feeling obligated to resign from an Antisemitism advisory group, wrote of his reason: “the ideology that grips far too many of (Harvard’s) students and faculty, the ideology that works only along axes of oppression and places Jews as oppressors and therefore intrinsically evil, is itself evil.”

Our Torah reading this morning comes from Deuteronomy. It begins with the words, “You stand this day, all of you, in the presence of Adonai your God.” 

I stand here this day before God and before all of you with this message and this confession. I am tired of qualifying, I am tired of making small excuses. I do not want to begin any conversation about Israel and the way that our country’s lauded institutions of higher learning have handled its very existence with a feigned sense of apology on my tongue. We do not have to agree with everything that the state of Israel does in order to love it. We do not have to agree with everything America does in order to love it. This is not political. This is survival. 

I was with my middle and high school best friend on another infamous day: 9/11/2001. We were sophomores in High School. He was a large part of my younger years, and we still stay in touch, but not as much as I truly would like, to be honest. My friend just so happened to be half Afghani. His father and uncle escaped from Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan war in the early 1980’s, before my friend was born. Upon hearing the news that Afghanistan was even associated in any way with 9/11, my friend had a look of horror on his face. He knew what might be coming his way. He wasn’t wrong. Some of the things I heard said to him by other young people, in a school environment, are not appropriate to repeat from the bimah.

Why do I bring this up? Sometimes the events of the world inscribe us in the book, and we must work vehemently to make sure that these sentiments, these words, these thoughts, these pen strokes of generalization and reductive conclusions are NOT sealed. As rockets fly in the middle east, we are not the explainers and apologizers of Judaism. We love our neighbors with the mitzvah of v’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha, but we must protect ourselves. Never again should we feel unsafe being publicly Jewish, as my friend should not have felt unsafe in his own skin. The Jewish Federation of North America released the results of a poll in the months following October 7th. American Jews now feel less safe and are worried about increasing levels of antisemitism..after being attacked. After being victimized. Around 70% of Jewish respondents said they feel less safe than they did a few months before. None said they feel safer. Three-quarters of Jews were concerned that their communities would face security problems as a result of the war.

Elie Wiesel, famous author and holocaust survivor, warned us about silence. He said: “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever people are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.” SHEMA KOLEINU, Hear our voice. The first words of our Haftarah reading this morning come to us from the prophet Isaiah- “Cry from the depths says God–do not hold back, lift up your voice like the shofar!” 

We need the world to hear our voice…Shema Koleinu. The prophet Isaiah, whose book we read from this morning, also asks about the fast that God desires? What is the fast that God desires? Perhaps we must fast from fear. We must fast from silence when allyship is fruitful. We must fast from complacency. We must fast from the belief that God will take care of everything without us meeting God somewhere in the middle. There is a theme that runs through these High Holy Days that resonates like the piercing sound of the Shofar. We have to lift up our voices, to demand that others voices be lifted up as well. Rabbi Gerald Wolpe, of blessed memory, wrote of this responsibility in a short anecdote. He wrote: “A man once cried to God, “Lord, the whole world is in such a mess–everything seems wrong. Why don’t you send someone to help and change the world? The voice of Adonai answered: “I did send someone. I sent you!”

On this Yom Kippur, on this day of atonement, let us all be blessed with the clarity and strength to see the writing in the book. To lift up our voices and let it be known that we will not accept a fate as a people that we have not written in concert with our One God. Let us stand before God and fight the script that history and the world seems to have written in a permanent pen of repetition. We are here, and we are not going anywhere. Let us refrain and fast from the words of qualification and explanation. Our Jewishness does not need apologetic sentiments. We should never be forced to hide again. We will lift up our voices, stand before the open ark of the world, and sing out loudly AVINU MALKEINU- SHEMA KOLEINU. Our parent, our sovereign, hear our voice! This is the ancient voice of our people…we are here. We will seal the book with the hand of God holding ours.

G’mar Chatima Tovah- A good Final Sealing.

– Rabbi Josh Gray

I was just talking about blue cars, and now I see them everywhere! Have we ever had something like this happen to us? The frequency illusion can often lead to the equally deceptive recency illusion. This cognitive bias can make us believe that something we have only recently become aware of is actually a new occurrence, when in reality it may have existed for quite some time. So if I just learned that blue cars exist, and I am now primed to think about blue cars, I am going to notice a whole lot of blue cars. Fairly recently, I was convinced that I had fallen victim to this cognitive bias, to the frequency illusion, also called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. 

When did this happen, you ask? I was thinking about sermon-writing for the High Holy Days. I was poring over material in my head. Here is a truncated sample of an internal dialogue that I was having as I was going through topic after topic. “There is so much antisemitism to speak of. Of course we talk about October 7th…we surely did on Rosh Hashanah, and we will on Yom Kippur Morning. We need to discuss the state of affairs in Israel. We also need to talk about American Jewry. Wait, is this all too much to talk about the whole time? There needs to be balance. We need to infuse some hope and light into these talks. I want people to leave these services with a feeling of being lifted up. You need personal stories. Stop making this about you. Make it about everyone. That is too vanilla. Well you are only you, so only you can use your voice.” ENOUGH- DAI, as we might say in Hebrew!

It was time to put down the mental load for the night and to relax, refresh, and try to watch a movie. Cue Netflix. I opened our family Netflix account and started scrolling through the movies. This might not be relevant, but there are some very odd movies and shows on Netflix. I eventually stumbled across a film from 2011 that I remember hearing about when it was being promoted 13 years ago, but never watching. I really never thought much of it honestly.  It had Matt Damon and Emily Blunt as the stars, and some great supporting actors like Anthony Mackie, whom I tend to enjoy watching. “The Adjustment Bureau.” That’s the name of the movie. I had no expectation besides the fact that I had seen previews for it 13 years ago. I had no idea what the reviews stated, what people thought of it. If it was fresh or rotten;I just clicked play and sat back ready to cleanse my mind for 1 hour and 45 minutes. Not to think about what we will call “Jewish topics.” Movie begins, and it hits me. IMPOSSIBLE. This movie is Jewish. It’s so Jewish. Some might accuse me of falling victim to the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, frequency bias. “Oh a rabbi sees Jewish messages in the movie he is watching. How unique!” I get it. But trust me, this did not seem like one of those moments. 

Spoiler alert For those of you who don’t know the movie, but to be fair, you have had 13 years, so I am going to go ahead. Matt Damon plays a rising political star who hits a rough patch in his career, and is preparing to give a concession speech when he comes across the absolute love of his life in a Waldorf-Astoria bathroom. The woman leaves in a hurry and he never gets her name or information. He runs into her “by chance” on a city bus some days later. It is then he is taken into custody by a strange group of government-looking agents…you know the ones who are always wearing suits and fedoras. They take him to a strange and undisclosed location, and tell him that he has gone off of his “plan.” These adjustment bureau workers track these plans on iPad looking devices. Matt Damon’s character is told that the chairman does not want this plan divergence to happen. Damon is never to see this woman of his dreams ever again, and he really isn’t supposed to see behind this curtain; in fact, he is not supposed to know all of this orchestration even exists. Well, in true Hollywood Fashion, the “Adjustment Bureau” workers do all they can to keep Matt Damon on his life’s plan. Damon and Emily Blunt continue to find their way to one another. Eventually, the chairman, the one whose office is upstairs, decides to change the plan due to the strong will of the main characters. Love wins, and the one in charge, whom we never actually see, alters the plan of these two individuals. 

I am convinced that the adjustment bureau is Jewish, with a focus on Jewish angels; Malachim. The “workers” on the ground were guiding presences, but admitted that they did not have much power themselves to divert course. I thought I was probably just attributing this viewing experience to Judaism because of what I do and the world I live in, but I searched online, and I was not alone in this feeling. Free will, determinism, do we have it? Can we change trajectory? Angels are sometimes sent to execute a Divine plan, but are said not to truly possess free will themselves. Damon, via the malachim, is Bargaining with God to change an outcome. Hello Abraham. Hello Moses. Judaism is everywhere. Tomorrow afternoon, we read of Jonah’s attempt to flee God’s command to go to Nineveh; when he just wanted to run away from his Godly responsibility. We will be reading a variation of what I did on a micro scale that night while sermon-storming and Netflix-watching. I wanted some respite, to escape for a moment, but God was there in a Netflix movie. This connection actually gave me a lot of comfort. 

Tonight we meet as souls all on a path, all with seemingly divergent plans, that somehow intersect at this very cross-section of time. We heard the beautiful and haunting melody of Kol Nidre-All Vows. We listened together, all probably feeling differently…being disparately impacted. Kol Nidre is mysterious, the exact origin is debated, and it was even removed from the Reform movement’s liturgy for some time beginning in the 19th century, before being reintroduced in a restructured manner in 1945. The origins of the Kol Nidre and its words are still shrouded in quite a bit of mystery. The earliest known written version is in the Siddur of Rav Amram Gaon, who lived in the ninth century, but its exact purpose is again, quite up in the air. Some would say that a vow, or a neder, or an oath (shevua) was often self-imposed to ensure that an agreement would actually be kept, and be given some legal fortitude. Sometimes, however, these vows or oaths were made hastily, out of anger or impulsive emotion; this would require a reprieve from these agreements. Cue Kol Nidre. There are many who have claimed that the reason for Kol Nidre can be traced back to the days of the Spanish Inquisition, and the conversos (Jews who chose to convert to Christianity rather than face expulsion or death, but remained truly faithful to Judaism). These individuals would recite Kol Nidre secretly on Yom Kippur, releasing them from vows made that were not heartfelt or spiritually valid. While the latter is a nice story, the prayer, as we mentioned, pre-dates the inquisition by at least 500 years. What we do know is that we ask God to forgive our vows made that we do not want held up, “MiYom Kipporim zeh, ahd Yom Kippurim- from this Yom Kippur to next Yom Kippur.” 

Why do we ask for forgiveness and release from our vows? Like the Adjustment bureau reinforces, our plans can change. The God of our tradition seems to be more flexible than we think. Sometimes we use strong language in a direction that we regret. The God of our tradition tells us that we are not stuck forever. There is no iPad looking device with a plan on it that we must adhere to stringently. We can download new software, we can desire new things, we can alter the plan. Perhaps the plan has something to do with the Book of Life. If the Book of Life, ha-sefer chayim was written in stone, then changes could not be made to it every High Holy Day season. 

We are all here together for much of the next 25 hours to serve as our own sort of Adjustment Bureau. We are here to pray in the first-person plural…to take responsibility for not just ourselves, but to support one another…to allow one another the space to miss the mark, to acknowledge that, and to lift one another up in the direction of heaven. We can be angels to one another, helping to spruce up what our plans might be for this new year of opportunity and possibility. While we are told to avoid oaths and vows if possible, can we find any joy in the fact that our God allows us to live a life full of passion and emotion, while also allowing us space for correction and reflection? 

Our story does not cut to the credits after 1 hour and 45 minutes, so we are not sure of the exact manner of the ending, and we ask those questions on these holy days. We are curious about the plan, but petition God to allow us to change it for the good. We are Jonah jumping out of a boat headed across the world, we are Abraham bargaining with God for a merciful minyan, we are Moses asking God to give the stubbornly stiff-necked and wandering Israelites another chance. We have power if we work in partnership with one another and with God. We can make change even when it feels futile. George Nolfi, who made the film “The Adjustment Bureau” had an interview published in the Jewish Journal. He said, “If God is benevolent, all-powerful and all-knowing, why do we feel thwarted all the time, and why do all these bad things happen?”  The movie gives a potential answer to that which is, we wouldn’t be able to understand, appreciate or use our free will if we didn’t also encounter obstacles to it.” 

As the credits roll at the end of this Day of Yom Kippur, I hope we will all take a moment to stay in our seats and acknowledge the fact that we need one another to make the movie of our lives successful amidst all of the obstacles of the world, both micro and macro. The best boy, the key grip, the gaffer, the director of photography…these are not peripheral, but essential people on the set of a film. They might be off screen, but they are there. The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, the Frequency illusion: I am convinced there is no cognitive bias involved here. Judaism is everywhere, and we just have to open ourselves up to the possibilities that exist, even outside of our own perception of our plan. Live fully within the power of this day and within the power of your life. You have a whole crew here to help you adjust if you need to, and a God who is ready to accept you and love you with open arms, no matter how far off the course you feel you have been. Perhaps we all should fall victim to the recency illusion, wherein we perceive the presence of something we have just learned about everywhere, or with much more frequency. We can learn more about God and our relationship with God every moment of every day. Let’s make this part of the plan from this Yom Kippur to the next Yom Kippur. 

G’mar Chatimah Tovah.

-Rabbi Josh Gray

Shana Tovah and a Happy New Year to all of you friends and family. I hope you feel welcome and at home here at Temple Isaiah. I want to express to you something right away as we begin these holiest of days and the moments that will define them, together: I am glad you are here. I really am. These are not empty words.I promise you I am not exaggerating when I tell you that the stakes have never been higher. You have never been braver, and we have never needed you here more than we need you right now. Being Jewish, and embracing Jewish identity has never been more confusing, more complex, more meaningful than it is right now. You have decided to show up for High Holy Day Services in the most Jewish of spaces possible. It is not just a matter of where you are that is remarkable, but when you are here. We have to talk about this. We have to have this discussion. You arrive at these High Holy Day services, the first we have had in the wake of one of the most horrific moments in Jewish history, and certainly the most horrific in Jewish history since the darkest days of the Shoah. We all know the date. We all know of October 7th, 2023-22 Tishrei 5784. The irony of that day being Simchat Torah (joy in Torah) is not lost on us. By now we have all likely heard multiple accounts of the infamous morning and its aftermath, the cries, the screams,the horrific images, the videos we wish we could unsee, and anecdotes we never wanted to hear. The children snatched from families…entire families violently stolen from communities and kibbutzim. I do not need to recount all of those atrocities here today…Not because I shouldn’t but because the taste is still in our mouths.

It is not the events of October 7th alone that inform us. Not the crimson stains in homes, or the eerily empty cribs and abandoned community centers. No. It is the global shockwaves that still can make us feel as if we are treading on a rickety bridge. It is the echoes of chants “from the river to the sea,” the claims of a genocide, the gutwrenching calls for the continued October 7ths. October 7th after October 7th. Calls from spaces in our own country that we considered safe. Places that seemed inviting. Places that perhaps, we frequent or frequented. I attended a meeting with the Anti Defamation League on antisemitism before these High Holy Days. 2023 saw the most antisemitic incidents on record…ever in this country. There was an antisemitic incident in the US every hour in 2023. In the past decade, antisemitic incidents have risen 873%. We are learning that we cannot truly begin to process a traumatic experience when much of the world does not want that experience to end. There is no decompression while we are still being pressed. When the greater world feels as a knife-wielding, wild-eyed Abraham, and, we, the Jews are a bound up Isaac, the trauma is kinetic, it is in motion. We so often during the next ten days mention Ha-Sefer Chayim, a book of life. We pray with words as if names will be written in the book of life or not on Rosh Hashanah, and then the decree will be sealed on Yom Kippur. God will decide who will live and who will die, and how. All the while, many of the names of those who were hastily scribbled unfairly into a book of death with blood-red ink sit in the back of our sanctuary on an easel. 

In an article entitled “October 7th: The Jewish Collective Trauma Response” Talya Gordon writes: “I don’t have the answers for how or even if we will be okay. Right now, all we can do is sit with the pain and be honest about how we are doing. We are not okay.” Gordon goes on to explain how we need the world to help us, how we do not even have the time to process and heal from the trauma. The world moves rapidly, and we have to keep on moving. Just keep on moving. One of the most famous of trauma responses is “freeze,” of fight, flight, freeze fame. Before we can thaw from our frozen moment, we must recognize the past. One of the themes of our day is Zichronot…remembrances. Remember we must. 

Let’s recount: 7th of October 6:29 AM, Negev Desert outside of Kibbutz Reim. Nova; a music festival. A celebration of life’s joys, of music, of holiday, of being free and able to dance. Hamas terrorists enter and murder 364 people. About 40 are taken as hostages into Gaza. In total, over 1,200 souls were lost that day. To put the power of this day into context of the music festival’s turn toward massacre, many have called this moment the time “when the music stopped.” We have heard calls through tears of anguish of our Jewish desire to dance again. To move again. We might have been momentarily stopped from dancing beginning on October 7th, but we always seek new ways to return to free movement in time. Sometimes we have to change steps, we change tempos, we waltz in 3 if we have to. For some, to function again will be a high art form. 

On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, we will read the Akeida, the binding of Isaac. Reading this section of Torah is powerful, but after October 7th it strikes me with a sense of panic. Abraham, so willing to sacrifice Isaac, his own son, places him on “ha-mizebeiach,” the altar, and stretches out his hand, takes his knife to slay his own son. Our Torah says that at that very moment, a messenger stops him by crying out, “Abraham, Abraham!” Abraham replies with, “Hineini.” I am here, or here I am. Isaac is spared. Where was God on October 7th? Why didn’t God do the same? Didn’t God cry out? The knife was lowered. Precious blood was shed. I believe that God did cry out. God cried out with all of God’s might. Abraham was listening to God. The terrorists were not. This is the difference. Shema Yisrael. 

On Rosh Hashanah, some read the words of our prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah was prophesying during the destruction of the first Temple of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, and also the subsequent Babylonian exile. Jeremiah, while so often offering solemn words, also offers hope and comfort in our reading. When discussing our peoples’ exile, he also mentions our eventual return. He writes of this occasion specifically, “Then maidens will dance with delight; the young and their elders together. Their grief I will turn into bliss. I will comfort them and gladden them in their time of sorrow.” These words of comfort are about the return from Babylonian exile; they are also about October 7th, 2023. These words leap off the page. “Then maidens will dance with delight.”  We will dance again without fear of harm. “The young and their elders together.” A 9-month-old Kfir Bibas, a 4 year-old Ariel Bibas, their mother, Shiri, and father, Yarden will be together, safe and alive. A family, one of so many, will never be torn from each other so catastrophically ever again. Our tears of grief will turn into tears of joy and laughter. I will comfort and gladden them in their time of sorrow. 

I am not up here to talk extensively about the politics of Israel and the middle east. To try and dissect what happened in Gaza after Israel exited the strip in 2005, and what led to the violent takeover by Hamas in 2007. I am not here to try and figure it out while you all listen to my perspective. How the existence of Israel as a state became political, a matter of policy is the problem. Most of us are well-aware of the fact that Israel is an ocean of world Jewry, and what happens there sends not just ripples across the Jewish world, but tidal waves, tsunamis, whether or not we like it. We are forever linked to the Jewish state. There is quantitative data from multiple agencies, perhaps most notably the ADL, which tells us of an increase in antisemitism, both in acts, and in speech, that goes into the hundreds of percents. Not in Israel. Here.

There is nothing good about what happened on October 7th. There is good that has happened afterward. We have seen those who felt disconnected from their Judaism find their way back…feel a sense of protectiveness and identification that they had never felt prior. We have been involved in acts of lovingkindness in the form of monetary giving to organizations like Magen David Edom. We have connected students in our religious school with pen pals living in Israel. We have seen humanity at its most vulnerable and at its most beautiful. Many of the student pen pals from Israel wrote of the sirens that go off when enemy rockets are detected entering into Israel. These rockets signal that residents should get to safety. They awaken people from slumber, and they cause them to act. 

On Rosh Hashanah, we awaken our souls with the sound of the Shofar. The Shofar represents so many emotions. The single blast of the T’kiah, representing our stability, our constant. The three medium-length blasts of shevarim are our pains…our cries. Shevarim means “broken.” We allow ourselves to go to our broken places…to be unafraid to approach them. We are brought to attention in what I perceive to be a joyful and playful manner with the nine staccato notes of the Teruah. Finally, the long blast of Tekiah Gedolah leaves us in awe. It centers us while simultaneously shaking us to attention. As we hear the blasts of the Shofar during these high Holy Days, let us take back the sirens of panic, rockets, and pain for the purpose of holiness and renewal. 

Let us go on this journey together, the remarkable and ever-evolving story of the Jewish people…through triumph and tragedy. Thank you again for being here, for celebrating together when it could be easy to stay home, to tune out, to hide. The sirens pierce through regardless. Let us take back the siren sound of shofar, and when all is said and done, let us move. Let us dance. Let us honor the trauma and let it create new strengths. Even through difficulty, we find the sweet center that is the neshamah, the soul of it all. 

Shana Tovah U’Metukah- A sweet and happy New Year!

– Rabbi Josh Gray

Turn your eyes

From the skies now

Turn around and look at me

There’s a light

In my eyes now

And a word for what you see

I was a boy soprano at 11 years old. For those not familiar, a soprano is the highest voice part in the world of singing.I knew that I loved to sing, and I just happened to be able to sing very high. I was also very into athletics, and these two worlds began to collide in a not-so-pleasant manner during these sensitive and tender years. There was a very nice community theater group up where I am from in the northern part of eastern New York, and they were putting on a production of the musical, “The Secret Garden.” There are not so many roles for 11 year-old boy sopranos in musical productions that I know of, but there was one in this production. I remember getting the music for the audition, buying the CD, and listening to the songs over and over in my little black boom box. The melodies were hauntingly beautiful, with soaring operatic themes, and just the right amount of heart. I listened to “Colin’s” songs. Colin was the name of the boy who I wanted to play. I eventually knew those songs like the back of my hand, I auditioned and… Upon hearing the news, “You got the part”you might as well have told me that Ed McMahon was at the door, and that the whole publisher’s clearinghouse thing was actually happening to me. 

Through all of the jubilation, there was one complication: The rehearsal schedule was fairly intense, and I would be out most school nights. I had to quit the football team. I had to quit the football team to play a boy soprano role in a musical. Let me be clear, there is absolutely NOTHING wrong or strange about that. There is nothing to be ashamed of in any form or fashion. The other boys in the late 1990’s did not agree with this notion. You could say it was a different time. You could also say that I took a lot of flack for this decision. I call it a spiritual decision. We all make them. It could have been worse, but I definitely was on the receiving end of some cutting comments. I just kept going and sang out more. When “The Secret Garden” was over, I quickly jumped into another musical production. I found this magical song that somehow touched me so deeply right before I was to turn 12, right before my voice was to change, and I would lose that boy soprano to time. I stood on a stage and sang a song called “New Words,” a scarcely-sung piece by Broadway actress Liz Callaway. I did this as I held a plastic baby swaddled to perfection in my arms, I took center stage and sang with all of my heart to this baby. I was teaching the baby “new words,” with the most difficult word being, “Love”. Let me continue to sing a bit more of it: 

We call it love, my son

Say “love”

So hard to say, my son

It gets harder

New words today

We’ll learn to say

Learn “moon”

Learn “stars”

Learn “love”

Years later, as a father, I returned to this moment on stage when both of my children were infants. I sang this song to them. It would be nice to say that it always comforted and put them to sleep, but I can’t make that claim. I later learned that the character who sings this song is named, “Avi,” Hebrew for “my father.” 

Rosh Hashanah and the High Holy Days reminded me of this song, of the experiences that led me to this song, and the experiences that allowed me to return to this song. The sweaty sports clothes that I temporarily abandoned, the pressing of play, rewind, and replay on an old boom box of songs, the rehearsals, the practice, the missing the mark, the hitting the mark. It was all part of an experience that is similar to our Jewish year, and the sounds of our shofar. We have our ups and our downs, our crescendos, and staccatos, our voices changing and in transition, or, as we discussed last night, those rare terrible moments when the music stops altogether. But again and again we sing “Hashiveinu Adonai Eiliechah v’Nashuvah, Chadeish yamienu k’kedem-Turn us back, turn us back, O LORD to You and we will turn, and we will turn. renew, renew our days as before.” We sing this verse from the Book of Lamentations during these days of awe. We return to the peak of our human drama during the High Holy Days. We come face-to-face with what makes us holy, with who we are and who we want to be spiritually. We make spiritual decisions. We decide whether to join the musical, or to stay on the football team. We weigh the options as we account for our souls.

The thing about returning to days as before…I don’t really want to go back, to return, certainly not to the tense middle school lunchroom the day after everyone found out that I made the spiritual decision to quit the football team and sing in the play. Sometimes we just want to return to moments, to feelings, to God’s melodies of memory. We use these days to navigate our way back to the purity of soul that God provides for us in so many ways. I had no idea what being a father was when I was holding a plastic baby and singing to it as a tween, but I knew that I felt something…something greater and holy that I was able to hold on to, and something that I am always able to return to. 

Speaking of Return, last Rosh Hashanah I shared with all of you about my wife Meghan’s brain illness, her autoimmune encephalitis that she was afflicted with before, during, and after, our son Cameron was born. I explained in some detail the horrific process that led to her comatose state, and the uncertainty I went through in terms of what the future would bring. This all led to a moment that I shared with the congregation about falling to the floor in the still quiet of a night alone while Meghan was hospitalized. I talked of being close to God in this moment of prostration and submission. This telling resonated with so many, and the drama of the story is certainly something that grabs the attention of most. What I didn’t get into last year, was PART II…watching as Meghan struggled to regain her ability to tell time, to write, to do simple math… seeing the frustration on her face and in her eyes as she struggled to count backwards, or to tell the neurologist during a follow up exam what time “ten of 2” was equal to. I have never mentally shouted 1:50 more loudly than at that appointment in particular. She was alive, but I wanted her to fully return. It just took time, patience, and love. It wasn’t perfect, and I had my own soul-searching, missing the mark, and returning to contend with.

Again, I remember the toy baby, the song, the simplicity of it all. I watched my adult wife learn “New Words” again, as if it were the first time. AVI, my parent in God held me and lifted me while I did my best to hold and lift her. When I was weak and felt I couldn’t do it anymore, I could look back and see myself as that 11-year-old, so confidently holding that swaddled child. Singing soprano…but so strong, so elevated. I returned there when I had to.

I do realize that I was also watching creation, creation as we heard chanted today. After the creations of each of the first five days, God says “ki tov,” it was good. On the 6th day, when we humans were created b’tzelem Elohom, in God’s image, “ki tov” is missing. This tells me that we are not fully created yet, we are still in the process. It’s not “it was good’ yet! Our Torah tells us much by sometimes leaving the words out. We have to always find New Words to continue on the path towards completion…toward Teshuvah, toward return to the source of creation.

I won’t stand up here today and tell you that the world is not painful. We spoke much about that pain last evening. Joyful Judaism, as we so often discuss, does not mean sugarcoating the hardships of the world. The Joyful Judaism that comes to a Crescendo Fortissimo on these High Holy Days is the Judaism that acknowledges the difficult path, the sleepless nights, the losses, and near misses. It acknowledges the liminal space between a boy soprano and a voice that is changing and has no idea what it is doing except for struggling to find a stable note. It is also the 20-something year old who returns to that uncertainty as he holds his actual swaddled newborn baby and hopes for a return to the family that keeps his voice strong. Joyful Judaism exists in the moments not just when we feel God, but also when we return to moments and realize that God was there. Hence our need for Cheshbon HaNefesh, our accounting for our souls on these days. We can find our moments of respite, of return, of God. Sometimes, even retroactively.

So, may we all be blessed on this Rosh Hashanah, this brand new year of 5785, to return again and again to the core of our souls, to find our moments of God to return to. To learn New Words. To find the moments worth returning to, and to create more and more moments that can be returned to in the future. Let us be blessed with the knowledge that the book of Life (Ha-Sefer Chayim) is not a book of affirmations, but one of real people and real life. We all began as that swaddled infant, and have all miraculously ended up here, this morning, together in the proverbial arms of God. Through it all, we have a chance to reset, to return, to renew. Just a few weeks ago, my son, who loves to sing, asked me if he was a tenor, if that was his voice type. I said, “maybe when you’re older. Right now, I think you might be a soprano.” I hope he can feel the power in that purity. I hope you all can.        

Shana Tovah u’Matukah

– Rabbi Josh Gray

It was the beginning of the school year at the turn of the century 2000. Luckily, we had all survived that bizarre Y2K ordeal, and the world did not end. I vividly remember walking into the auditorium at the high school sometime in the autumn. The room was so big and overwhelming, I recall always wondering how the auditorium fit in the building. From the outside, the high school did not look like it could even fit such a cavernous space inside of it. My peers and I were brand new high school freshmen. Wearing our newest shoes, the outfits that we thought were in style and would make the most significant impression…there was probably too much cologne. No, there definitely was too much cologne and perfume in the air. We all tried to assume an air of confidence as we sauntered in for a beginning of the year…well a beginning of High School assembly. The school tried, they truly did. There were some videos that we had to watch about what our high school experience might be like. I caught the curious eyes of some who I did not really know who would later become friends. Most of my memories are vague…snapshots. The only specific moment I can actually recall with pure clarity is a new song that the school administration played. In trying to be “cool,” the school was blaring this song during a portion of the assembly.

I had never heard something quite like this before. This was some intense rock music, and the voice of the lead singer was just wailing…screaming really, but somehow directly on pitch. It was like he was crying out from the depths of his soul. In its own raw way, it was actually beautiful to me. He screamed out these words: “Crawling in my skin. These wounds they will not heal. Fear is how I fall. Confusing what is real.” Wow. This is dark. This is intense. The band was called “Linkin Park.” The song was one of their early ones, appropriately called “crawling.” This piqued my interest, as my fascination with psychology and the extremes of human thought and behavior had already manifested itself. Linkin Park eventually had songs with lyrics that included:”In the end it doesn’t really matter,” and “I’m one step closer to the edge and I’m about to break,” and “I’ve become so numb.” 

During this early 2000’s era, it seemed as if all of my friends and peers were listening to the music of people who felt broken. Linkin Park went on to sell over 100 million records, so their message was clearly resonant. I could find the beauty in the raw emotion of it all, but looking back, it saddens me more than ever. Chester Bennington, the lead singer who screamed and sang so strangely and wonderfully died by suicide in July of 2017 at the age of just 41. Upon reading this news, I remember feeling more upset about this than I thought that I would. His voice was so important to some of my most formative moments. To make matters even more strangely tragic, just two months before Bennington took his own life, his band released a song called “One more light”–a soft, thoughtful, contemplative song that was quite a diversion from their usual style. This song had lyrics that included, “Who cares if one more light goes out

In the sky of a million stars? It flickers, flickers

Who cares when someone’s time runs out

If a moment is all we are? Or quicker, quicker?

Who cares if one more light goes out?

Well, I do”

Chester Bennington was one light that went out. According to recent data, deaths by suicide in the United States reached a record high in 2022. There were a recorded 49,499 deaths by suicide in the US last year, nearly 15 per every 100,000 people. These are just the cases that can be quantified. There are undoubtedly so many more. Chester Bennington was famous in rock and roll circles, but also notable to me because I realized that he had been telling the world of his feelings for decades. His feelings of BROKENNESS and disconnection. He directly asked, “who cares if one more light goes out in the sky of a million stars?” He said “I do.”…So do I. So does our Jewish tradition tell us to. Psalm 148 says: ‘HaRofeh lishvurey lev umechabesh le’atzvotam’ – ‘God is the Healer of the brokenness of heart and the binder of their wounds.’ There are so many who feel broken, disconnected, hopeless, lost. Working in suicide prevention myself, I have stayed keenly aware of the suicide epidemic that has plagued our country. Beautiful souls, so full of radiant light snuffed out far too soon. If we look at the issue of Brokenness through a Kabbalistic lens, perhaps we can see another side of this intense emotion. According to Medieval Kabbalists in our tradition, especially followers of Ha-Ari, or Isaac Luria, brokenness is actually innately ingrained in the world’s creation. The light of God was too great prior to creation, and a shattering occurred, spilling light throughout the entire world. This “shattering of the vessels” is called “Shevirat Keilim.” Rabbi Esther Hugenholz puts this concept into beautiful words when she states that, “Our world, according to this image, is both spectacularly beautiful as it is impossibly broken.” She just as easily could have been talking about Chester Bennington’s voice.

We put the pieces back together when we help to repair the world. We put the pieces back together when we engage in mitzvot. We put the pieces back together when we care about each other. Today we read from Deuteronomy, and in particular Parsha Nitzavim. Part of this portion says, “Adonai your God will bring you back from captivity and take you back in love. Adonai your God will return to gather you from all the nations where you were scattered…Should you be banished beyond the horizon, even from there Adonai your God will gather you up and take you back.” At face-value it seems as if God is talking about returning the Jews to their ancestral homeland, no matter where a diaspora would have them living. Perhaps we can look at this a bit more abstractly…Are there those whose lights have been scattered to recesses so distant that they feel as if they can never return. Return to wellness, return to joy, return to repair, return to God? Is part of our job as Jews and as decent human beings in general, to help others along the path of return? Sometimes we do lose lights, despite our best efforts to keep them going. Sometimes we lose people and we don’t know why. I would like to think that they do RETURN. RETURN to God, just perhaps not in the way that our earthly minds would have wished it to be. 

When I was sitting in the assembly listening to Chester Bennington’s soul-bearing pain, could I help him? Perhaps not specifically. He came to represent to me the fact that there are so many others like him that can be reached. If we can return from the corners of the earth to God, are we not reading that we can return to one another. If God is One, then can we not be active partners in returning light to vessels who feel broken, empty and lost? Suicide prevention education, active listening, knowing resources, taking it seriously…these are just some of the ways we can help God to return, renew, and replenish those who feel so broken. Perhaps this is the Mitzvah that our Torah tells us “is neither beyond your or far away. It is not in heaven…it is not across the sea…no this is so very near to you—in your mouth and on your heart—that you can surely do it.”

During these High Holy Days, we have said these words so many times: “Hashiveinu Adonai eilecha, v’nashuvah—Take us back Adonai; let us come back to You.” Where are we returning from? Many of us talk of atoning for “missing the mark,” or we consider doing better in certain areas of our lives in the coming year. All of this is worthwhile and absolutely important. I do wonder about those who aren’t looking inward, who aren’t engaging in cheshbon hanfesh (accounting for the soul)—because they feel that the pieces are too scattered and too shattered to even begin to pick up and piece back together. The Talmud has an Aramaic phrase that says “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh–All of Israel is responsible for one another.” I would expand this notion to include all people. If we all take an active part in caring for one another, who knows how many lives and lights we can save and restore? 

Every light deserves to be nurtured. Every soul deserves to be cherished. Every single person matters. As we found beauty in the profound angst of the Kol Nidre’s melody, so can we find beauty in the brokenness that exists in the world. Perhaps Chester Bennington was singing his own version of “Shema Koleinu—hear our call!” He was crying out from his beautiful broken soul, and my 14 year-old self never forgot his plea. How many others cry out? If you or someone you know needs help, ask. There could be nothing more holy than seeking to return. Returning to God is returning to health, to help, to life. “Who cares if one more light goes out? Well I do.” 

G’mar Chatimah Tovah

– Rabbi Josh Gray

“What am I supposed to say?” It cannot be too long, but it definitely should not be too short! You need to capture the gravity of the days, but not bog people down and be all depressing and solemn. At least not completely. Maybe a little. But remember joy. Don’t reuse any material, but you can build off of some of it. Current events? You can mention them, of course, but most of that gets political now. Speaking of politics from the pulpit? HA. Don’t even venture anywhere near that. You must remain neutral. You don’t want to offend anyone. “What am I supposed to say?” 

In 2016, Rabbi Debbie Bravo wrote an article entitled, “ The Perfect High Holy Day Sermon You will Never Hear.” I was, of course, intrigued. The piece was rife with the struggle to remain non-partisan, engaging, in-touch with congregants, but also spiritually elevated and meaningful. 

I wrestled, as we do. Am I supposed to say one thing to people who come in with certain beliefs, and one thing to another group who has a different set of beliefs? Some people agree politically in one arena, but are completely disparate in another. Can I find one thing that we might all agree on? Or at least a large portion of us would come to some form of consensus regarding? Rabbi Bravo ended her article with a strong statement; one that reaches out from the pulpit and addresses the division that seems to run counter to our desire to “return” on this day. one that I want to share with you right now: 

“Enough is enough, she writes. Enough with the hatred. Enough with the violence. Enough of the nasty politics. Enough with the media playing in to the political arena. Enough of the pettiness that will never make our country, nor our world, nor our lives any better. This year we cannot say dayeinu – it would have been enough; this year, we just need to say: dai… enough.” This was written in 2016, but does it still ring true today?

We cry out to God during our Yom Kippur prayers, “Avinu Malkeinu, kotveinu b’sefer chayim tovim–Avinu Malkeinu, enter our names in the Book of Lives Well Lived.” If we do not say “enough” to division, if we do not say enough to the illusion of separateness, if we do not say enough to the venom of negativity that drives us apart, how can we, let alone God, feel as if we are living a life “well-lived.” Can we truly be entered or sealed for good in a book of life, when we won’t even venture out of our section of comfort in the bookstore or library? How can we open up our eyes, open up our minds, and our hearts to those who do not believe what we believe. How can we open ourselves up to those who we think, simply…are wrong.

We read in our Haftorah on this Yom Kippur the words of Isaiah. Isaiah asks the ancient and the modern listener in terms of God…”Is this the fast I desire?” Does God care if we eat or not, if our fast is “filled with strife?” If “with callous fist you strike.” Do we sit in the sanctuary with those with whom we disagree? Perhaps there are those in our lives (in this room?) we used to speak to, but for some reason or another, we do not anymore? Is our pulling further and further away from one another, is this the affliction, is this the fast that God desires? When do we say…Dai…enough? Let us not leave here still separate from one another. I plead to God on behalf of all of us, which means I plead to all of you who are created b’tzelem Elohim, in God’s image. Where is Ha-makom? Where is the place? The place we can meet. The place we can return to?

Famed Jewish philosopher and scholar Martin Buber described us human beings as ladders placed on earth and touching Heaven with its top. We often think of God or the Divine acting upon us, acting upon human history. What about us? Do we not act upon God, act upon the Divine? Our actions and our words…our thoughts even. Do they not matter? 

Perhaps it is time to say enough, and then get back to some basics. I started crafting a little piece called “Find Your Baby Voice” for a blog that I used to update regularly until the great scholars Barney the Dinosaur and Peppa Pig dominated my screen time. I found my way back to this piece of writing, and it really struck me in terms of Yom Kippur’s messages. I studied classical voice and singing for quite a while after college and well into my 20’s, really getting deeply into the process of what could truly open up my vocal potential. I made a great deal of progress in my twenties especially, and found myself studying and singing the great pieces of Verdi, Donizetti, and Puccini. My voice teacher, The Maria Callas trained Marko, said something to me during one lesson in his Manhattan studio that I will never ever forget. I have even mentioned this concept to some of you before. He looked up at me (he was a man of small stature and huge voice), and he said in his heavy Greek accent: “Find your baby voice, Joshua!” “Go out into the city and listen to as many babies cry as you can. Listen to the babies and tell me what you hear! What do you notice! Go find the babies!” I left Marko’s home studio that day and did my due diligence. Grocery stores, department stores, strollers on the streets; I tuned in to every baby cry that I could hear. There were so many different types: The hungry, the tired, the overtired, and the plain “I am angry.” But they all shared something in common that hit me over the head. They were SO OPEN. The cries were pure, unfiltered; the voices ringing out without fear, self-consciousness, no hint of repression and suppression. No political views, no voting records, no interpersonal histories. A baby’s voice is a voice stripped of the experience of the world. The Bereishit or beginning of human life, devoid of strife. 

I worked hard to let go with Marko: to free my voice from years of talking in a voice too low to seem more masculine, or from hearing a nasty comment from a classmate or someone else. From carrying around a heavy bag both literally and figuratively, From anxiety, despair, grief…even happiness and joy. All of our experiences pile on, with the evil inclination (our yetzer ha-ra) seeming to be more powerful than our yetzer ha-tov (our good inclination). The most beautiful of trained voices, to me, is a voice that has been trained to be stripped of tension. To be free. The freest voice is beautiful. 

When a baby cries, it lets go. Perhaps we can think of the Days of Awe as a buildup of that tension, and this day of Yom Kippur as our safe place to let out a wail, a big cry. We literally beat our chests during the Ashamnu of the short Vidui (confession). We can become more in touch with our deepest selves. We strike near our hearts as we say: We confess! We betray. We steal. We scorn and on and on. We confess in the first-person plural. We might not have committed all of these transgressions as individuals, but someone in our greater community has. We do this together. We make it open and safe.We let go of all the negative tension that has been building up in our deepest neshamot over the past year. Sometimes we just need a good cry to let it all out. 

We strike our chest as we get things off of our chests. Rabbi Warren Goldstein describes Yom Kippur as the happiest day of the year. Why? This is a day to be liberated from all that has been bogging us down and holding us back. We let go. We strip away the past years buildup of allostatic load (or stress upon the body through the mind). What could be better than a clean slate, a fresh start?

This year, I entreat you to let go of the strife that is not productive. When voices all around us try to convince us to splinter, to engage in lashon hara (evil speech)…this is our time to say DAI, enough… find your baby voice. Your beautiful openness. Find the essence of the words “Elohai Neshamah Shenatata bi t’hora hi.” Underneath all of our masks, our shadows, our clenched jaws and stand-up straights…do we not all long for a reprieve? DAI. Enough judgment. Enough discord. Let us return- return home to at least say hello to our purest selves prior to experience. Let’s forgive if we can. We can be the place we wish to be. Ken y’hi ratzon, may it be so. As we are sealed in the book of life, I pray that this sealing comes with health, happiness, and a deepened sense of empathy and compassion. Let us come together. Perhaps that would be more than enough.

G’mar Chatimah Tovah

– Rabbi Josh Gray