Gut yontif, good morning.
How are you? If we were all on Zoom I would ask you to put in the chat one word that describes how you feel this morning. I can imagine a few of those words… overwhelmed, tired, anxious, worried...grateful…Thankfully, we are here together, in our expansive sanctuary that includes everyone at home and in person. And in these uncertain times, on this serious and holy day, I want to begin in a very Jewish way by telling a joke.
Do you remember the old joke about Rivkah and Saul? Poor Saul is nearing the very end of his life, and his beloved wife, Rivkah, is at his bedside with tears in her eyes. She leans towards him and whispers in his ear: “Sauly . . . is there anything I can do to make easier your passing into the next world?”
Saul raises his head slowly, turns to her and says: “Rivkeleh! Chocolate babka – no one makes it like you. The taste of it reminds me how much I love you. How I’d love to have just one more bite of it before I leave this world! Such comfort it would bring me!”
Rivkeh slowly leans back in her chair, wiping the tears from her eyes.
“Oh Saul,”she says, shaking her head . . . “for crying out loud, I was saving that babka for the shiva!”
I thought I’d begin with that joke, partly because we’re all thinking about food and can’t have any. And partly because today is a day to think and talk about – among other things – our mortality and loss.
Throughout these Yamim Nora’im or Days of Awe, we repeat the Untanneh Tokef prayer, reminding ourselves of the inevitability of death and the necessity of living with an empathic heart and a wise conscience. On Rosh Hashanah, we chant, our fates are written, and on Yom Kippur, they are sealed; but in between is our opportunity for teshuvah, to return again to the goal of each true heart – to become the good and kind soul we know we should be.
In embracing these ancient rituals, we embrace our ancestors who handed them down to us; those long dead, but alive again in us on this day. Can you sense them? We come to the synagogue, as they did, to hold and to be held, to see and to be seen by one another, despite every struggle, anxiety or loss. It’s a serious matter, as serious as death itself. And that is why, today. . . no babka.
This morning, we will say a prayer of remembrance for our departed loved ones, Yizkor. It is my first Yizkor since my father Jerry died in June.
After my dad’s burial on Long Island in a family plot, I returned to Beverly with my mom and Chuck.
This time, instead of being the comforter, I became the comfort-ed. For those seven days of shiva I read no emails, heard no real news about what was going on at TBA or in the world. We were in a cocoon; visited, fed, and cared for.
It felt like time out of time.
We had a morning and evening service and many of you came and put up with our lack of air conditioning. You came to make the minyan and to say AMEN to my Mourners Kaddish in a collective voice of support. Thank you TBA for being such a comforting community. Thank you for saying amen to my prayers.
As I spoke about on Rosh hashanah, saying amen to one another means showing up, seeing and being seen, supporting each other.
Throughout 5784, this community had great need of such support. We lost a lot of irreplaceable people. Some were here forever.
Marshall Sterman was part of a TBA founding family and grew up here. I will never forget the twinkle in his eye when he was about to disagree with me during Torah study.
Abe Kaufman was our shofar caller on Rosh Hashanah and a face that always made me smile at early morning minyan.
The beloved Natalie Glovsky at age 104 was also part of a TBA founding family.
We lost Eddie Goldstein - not so long after the death of his beloved Rosalee. Just this past week, Marnin “Munch” Feldman, he of the six beloved grandchildren who stood together on this bimah for the funeral and will carry him in their hearts for the rest of their lives.
Cantor Bruce Siegel – oh, what a loss! Last year at this time, he gave the most riveting, brilliant sermon on the book of Jonah. We miss him terribly. We miss the learned Rabbi Lee Levin, the charming, brilliant and passionate Jeremy Gross – Teachers and lovers of Judaism, each of them. Too young. Gone too soon.
Still others who were more recent arrivals in our community, Harvey Maibor, Don Kanter. Saul Gurman returned to TBA a few years ago. He was a World War II hero, who died recently at age 101.
We mourn them all. As for my personal loss, I am in the year of mourning for my dad. I say the Mourners Kaddish every day, usually with a zoom minyan located physically in New York City or with our TBA family. This ritual enables me to both acknowledge the pain of this loss, but also to heal through the support of my Jewish community – and to be connected with others who are doing the same thing. As Jews we honor the dead and support those who are mourning; we honor the holiness of the soul and the body.
We honor the Circle of Life and all it brings.
It’s that familiar phrase – the circle of life – that’s been on my mind lately, and that I’d like to talk about now by sharing a beautiful text I learned from Rabbi Sharon Brous.
There’s a rabbinic teaching, a Mishnah from the first or second century, that describes the ancient pilgrimages to the Jerusalem Temple. These pilgrimages were taken on the three festivals - Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot. People trekked for miles with great joy and anticipation, bringing offerings from their harvests or flocks. Imagine these crowds of people, our ancestors, ascending to the Temple, entering the courtyard, and then, as the ritual was, turning to their right and circling - counterclockwise - around the enormous complex. Tens of thousands moving together in a celebratory circle.
But not all of them. There was a smaller group of people who entered the courtyard through the same doors, but instead of turning to their right, they turned left and began circling clockwise.
Who were they? The mishnah tells us that there were four types of people: those in mourning; those with a sick person at home; those who had lost an important object; and those who had been excommunicated.
Imagine having a birds-eye view of these two circles of humanity. You’ll note that because the circles are headed in opposite directions, the people can see each other’s faces. And as they walk along, those circling right ask the people they see: “Why do you circle to the left?”
Of course, the question really meant: ‘Where do you hurt?’ ‘What is your pain?’ And if the one who circles left answers, “I do so because I am a mourner,” they are told: “May the One who dwells in this house comfort you.”
If they say, “Because I have someone sick at home” they are told, “May the One who dwells in this house have compassion upon them.”
If they answer: “Because I have lost something,” they are told “May the One who dwells in this house put it into the heart of the finder to return it to you.”
And if the individual says, “Because I am excommunicated,” they are told: “May the One who dwells in this house place it into your heart to listen to the words of your people so they may draw you close again.”
In this way, those in pain stepped into a circle of compassion. The rest stepped into a circle of empathy, offering a blessing as comfort and healing.
This past year, Jews around the world may have well felt like we are circling in both directions at the same time, through our grief and our need to just keep living and support each other. We are circling together, round and round, feeling like we are moving against the flow of the rest of humanity. Doing our best to stay in the dance.
But we can take heart in knowing that the Jewish people have always cycled through life. When we take a Torah scroll from the ark, we do a hakafa – we walk in a circle around the sanctuary so each may greet the Torah. At a Jewish wedding, the bride circles the groom - or in today’s egalitarian fashion, each of the couple circle each other- seven times.
And at the wedding reception, at b’nai mitzvah celebrations, at simchas of all sorts, what do? We dance the hora of course! A circle dance of celebration. And this is my opportunity to thank all of you who danced with me at my son’s bar mitzvah and again at my own little bat mitzvah, the celebration of me being here for 13 years.
I hope you’ll join us again for singing and dancing in circles on Sukkot with the lulav and etrog - the traditional native species of the Land of Israel. We circle holding the lulav and etrog just as our ancestors circled holding them in the ancient Temple, thanking God for the harvest and for life itself.
I hope you’ll join us again at Simchat Torah, when we do seven hakafot, seven circles, singing and dancing and lovingly embracing our Torah scrolls, as we begin the yearly Torah reading cycle once again from the beginning. We will unroll one scroll fully as we stand in a circle and hold it and once again behold the story of our people and the foundation of Jewish life.
And yes, it is amidst these holidays that are about joy that we must face the yahrzeit of so many murdered and kidnapped in Israel. It was Simchat Torah, a day of such joy, that those attacks happened.
So we will dance with the Torah scrolls, likely with tears in our eyes, seven circles, honoring all who have been lost or taken from us by living fully as Jews, while continuing the circle dances of life and joy.
We are all four kinds of people who circled to the left in the ancient Temple: the mourners, those who had a sick person in their family; those who lost something; those who were excommunicated.
We are mourners, personally and collectively; We pray for the sick in our lives, amongst our people, and throughout a very broken world. We have lost a lot this year - not simply physical objects; some of us lost relationships over different views of Israel and this war, most of us lost a sense of security in this world, as Jews, because the world changed on October 7.
As to the excommunicated, perhaps we see this not simply literally being kicked out of the community, but those feeling out of step or left out. We grieve the loss of our Israeli brethren and so many caught up in horrific violence in Gaza - we can hold both at the same time even though it is all so painful. Some have wondered, if we have a particular view - whether on Israel, the Israeli government or American politics - whatever that view is - do we have a place in the Jewish community?
Yes, all have a place here. As long as we also continue to care for each other even when we have differences; as long as we are all included in the circle and don’t leave others out.
Talia Werber (a teacher of creative writing and student in the Academy for Jewish Religion - also one of two rabbinical students who left the reconstructionist rabbinical school because of the anti-zionism they experienced).
Here is her poem, called This Jewish Rhythm - published in a supplement for the High Holy Days post-October 7.
My body doesn't understand rhythm.
It never did
Except a hora.
I can catch rhythm from my neighbors
My lantzmen,
My sisters
My circle
My mother used to dance
Oh how she used to dance
In a troupe
Her youth group
So vibrant, they were photographed,
Dancing
In the New York Times.
There was a time
That they would publish
Israeli dancing,
Back when it wasn’t so clear
So crystal-eyed
So narrowed, with fire and fury
Twisted by the not knowing that teaches
Indignation
How dare Jews dance
The only dancing I’d ever jump into
Was a hora
Every simcha
It’s a mitzvah
A call of the soul
Every Jewish soul
To usher in great moments of joy.
For every one of our people
To usher in moments of immense transition
With a dance
A circle
The chain will not be broken
The chain has not been broken
Even at the edge of the abyss
Even in the abyss
We will dance
One arm around a fellow
Or hand in hand
We will dance
We have danced
And we will dance again
Some of us can’t find the rhythm alone
So
We take each others’ hands
one footfall,
One step forward
Arms raised,
Arms lowered
A clap
And i take your hand again
In the spiral’s center
My lantzman holds the Torah
And hands it off to another,
And another,
The writers of our history, who dance with me,
Transmitting, generation to generation, a chain
That can’t be broken
When you spin, they say, find a fixed spot
For focus.
So you don’t get dizzy,
Fall,
Lose your way
What are we returning to?
We find ourselves in a familiar rhythm , the
Footsteps we all know
Back in the neverending loop, will it every end,
The abyss
The circle
Where we must be assertion
That just like any other humans we deserve to
Live
And we must never stop
This Jewish rhythm
This rhythm
This is the song of my grandfather, that he sang
Yesterday to my father
This is the dance of my mother, that she danced
Yesterday with me
While my grandmothers watched, with tears in
Their eyes and tissues in their hands
Ani od chai
Anu od chai
And we yet dance.
Gemar Hatimah tova, may we dance into this new year, together. And may we be sealed for goodness.
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