Rosh HaShanah Day 2 - September 24, 2025

In a year of transitions, Lizzie and I made a very important decision.  We cancelled Hulu Live and Netflix.  And with the $100 a month that we saved, we increased our donations to WNIT and WVPE, the Public Television and Radio stations.  And I have to say it has been great.  With PBS Passport you get access to all the great Masterpiece shows and I love British mysteries. 

  I recently finished the first season of Unforgotten, a cold case mystery series.  In this series, a murder committed 40 years ago leads to several suspects and in the each case, their families find out terrible secrets about their loved ones.  A white social worker married to a black man who runs a soccer club for disadvantaged inner-city youth is uncovered to have been an aggressive racist teenager.  A beloved Anglican pastor is revealed to have been stealing from the church for years in order to support the daughter of the 15-year-old he impregnated during an affair one year into his marriage.  And spoiler alert – sorry – the murderer was the humble wife who impulsively killed the young man and lover of her husband, a closeted gay man.

As these secrets were revealed, the show also catalogues the shock and despair of the families of the suspects.  Each family has to come to terms with the news that the person they love and thought they knew harbored an ugly and shameful aspect to their deepest self.

Watching the show, I became more despondent as I considered not the exciting reveals but the horror these family members had to confront.  How do you recover after finding out that all you thought you knew about a close family member was a lie? Your wife was a racist?  Your pious father rapist?  Your parent’s marriage was simply a cover up?   Is the very foundation on which your life has been based false?

And then it hit me: that is how I feel right now.  Don’t worry, Lizzie didn’t murder anyone.  But I have been in the deepest despair since last November, and even before that.  I too feel that so much of what has been the foundation of my emotional and spiritual life has presented itself as false.  And I have heard from members of this congregation similar cries of despair.

As an American Jew, there have been two polestars in my life.  That I am an American and that I am a Jew.  My family impressed upon me how grateful I should be to live in America.  A country that is in no way perfect but provided a refuge for my grandparents from Europe.  They came in the early 20th century, were spared the horrors of the Holocaust, worked and saved, living in tremendous poverty to give my father and my mother’s brother the opportunity for education.  My father worked during the day to provide for his widowed mother while going to night school, my uncle served in the US army for 4 years.  Both achieved professional and financial success, allowing me to go to school, forever, to attain my goal of serving in the rabbinate.

Raised in a proud Jewish home, I reveled in the deep and holy wisdom of our faith tradition, I was inspired by the nobility and resilience of our people, and after studying in Israel for three years and falling in love with this beautiful, lively, virtuous nation I almost chose to make aliyah, had my love for my family not been stronger.  

But reading the daily news for the last year, how does one not despair? 

A short headline list of the most recent news: Trump demands that Bondi, Attorney General, prosecute his political foes

Trump threatens Chicago with apocalyptic force

ICE Is Seeking to Ramp Up Deportations

Trump: Slavery not all bad

RFK Jr. pulls $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccines, claims they fail to protect against Covid19

And let’s not forget this recent disclosure: Trump’s family has made 3.4 billion dollars during his time as President.

And it doesn’t feel better to look at Israel’s news

Ahead of Gaza City Conquest, Israeli Ground Troops Say They're Treated Like Cannon Fodder. Israeli ground troops in Gaza report life-threatening equipment shortages due to budget limitations, even as billions are spent elsewhere.

Israeli Finance Minister Sparks Outrage After Saying Returning Gaza Hostages 'Not the Most Important Thing'

Starvation is everywhere: Gaza’s children strive to survive

Netanyahu slowed down cease-fire negotiations in order to stay in power.

And if I had read the newspaper today there would be more horrors.

The United States and Israel – the new Shandalands.  Is it not any wonder why like those families in the Unforgotten show I have been questioning the very foundation that my life has been built on?  Maybe some of you feel the same?

Where does one go, how does one confront such reality? Let’s begin with today.  It is Rosh HaShanah. On Rosh HaShanah, each of us is required to look within, to admit our failures - the failed promises, the insensitivities, the selfishness.  Our tradition tells us, all of that ugliness?  It is not who we truly are.  We are better than that, we can change, and God has faith in us that we can do good. 

אַתָּה בְחַרְתָּֽנוּ מִכָּל הָעַמִּים. אָהַֽבְתָּ אוֹתָֽנוּ וְרָצִֽיתָ בָּֽנוּ.

You chose us from among all the peoples; You loved us and found favor in us; You exalted us above all tongues, and You sanctified us with Your commandments; You drew us near, our Sovereign, to Your service and proclaimed Your great and Holy Name, You upon us.

Our faith tradition tells us that I am not defined by my sins, by my weakest moments, so neither is it fair to condemn this nation and the State of Israel, because of the current ugliness.  Is Donald Trump more emblematic of this country’s ethos than George Washington, Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King, Jr?  Is Benjamin Netanyahu more representative of Israel than David Ben Gurion, or Yitzhak Rabin or all the organizations and schools in Israel that have sought to bring Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians together for peace?

Of course not.  Thus, the question for us at this time is not “how could I have believed in the greatness of these two fallible and weak nations?” but when we are in the midst of despair, when we are existentially despondent where do we find hope?  Not passive wishfulness. Not optimism. As literary critic Terry Eagleton writes optimism is “a form of …a moral evasion” for it “does not take despair seriously enough.”  Hope is to be found in sources that affirm and motivate us to act on our faith that good is possible, that the arc of history is long but bends towards justice.  Where do we Jews find that?

Years ago, Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls, wrote a song that describes an approach to just such a moment in one’s life:

Well, darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety 'til I sank it
…
I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
The Closer I am to fine

(Sure now you wish you had a rabbi who could play guitar)

What Saliers is saying it that there are times when our fears become our security, in which we find comfort in dwelling in bitterness and anguish, and because it offers us absolution from the hard work of repair.  The goal is not to be found in one absolute but many directions that lead us closer to fine. 

Recently, I studied the book of Ezekiel, one of the great prophets.  Reading Ezekiel in and of itself does not discard despair. In fact, most of the book increases it.

Say Ezekiel: O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Sovereign God…See, I will bring a sword against you and destroy your shrines…I will cast the corpses of the people of Israel in front of their idols…Thus said the Sovereign God to the land of Israel: Doom! Doom is coming upon the four corners of the land.” Ezekiel protests Israel’s moral and religious failures to the Jewish communities of Israel and Babylonia.

But in the last 8 chapters of the book, Ezekiel offers up a vision of a redeemed Israel. In the penultimate chapter of his oracles, Ezekiel describes an Eden-like vision coming from rebuilt Temple.  A stream running out from the southern wall toward the east becomes a swollen river in which trees line both sides.  This river will mix with foul waters and purify them. Every living creature that swarms will be able to live wherever this stream goes. The leaves of the trees will not wither nor their fruit fail; they will yield new fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the temple. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”

This has been our history – a history of failure and return, of defeat and growth. In studying our history we find resources that can draw us out of despair. Is anti-Semitism dangerous today – yes, but we Jews have survived far worse periods of anti-Semitism, even in this country when almost 100 years ago the most popular radio show was Father Coughlin’s openly anti-Semitic Golden Hour.  Is Bibi Netanyahu’s government harming the people of Israel and Jews around the world – yes, but you know almost all the kings of Israel in the book of Kings were accorded the eulogy “he did evil in the sight of the LORD.”  Sadly, this is not a new phenomenon amongst Jewish leadership, yet today hundreds of thousands of Israelis protest weekly and refuse to accept the corruption and hypocrisy of their government.

 The medieval text Shevet Yehudah was not afraid to criticize the Jews of Spain during a most painful moment in their history – the Expulsion of Jews from Spain.  Throughout the book Solomon Ibn Verga criticizes his people who have been exiled from Spain in his life time.  He says in subtle and not so subtle ways that it is Israel’s fault for its expulsion because of the people’s arrogance and greed.  But he too concludes his book with an image from ancient Israel when the Temple stood and people cared for each other and treated each other well.  The author foresaw dark times in the immediate future but eventual redemption.     

Redemption can mean the act of being saved from the power of evil and also to compensate for a defect.  For us Jews the two are linked – when we compensate for our defects, the process of salvation begins.  Therefore hope for redemption is not a passive act but requires a diligent, industrious and vigorous initiative.

Besides our history where do we find such hope?  In the study of our sacred texts. The very essence of Torah study is to lift up redemption.  The first humans were created b’tzelem elokim, in the image of God.  From this Rabbi Irving Greenberg develops three dignities – all humans are of infinite value for God is infinite and a fraction of infinity is infinity.  All humans are equal as the Jewish text from the 2nd century, the Mishnah, teaches no person can claim greater lineage than another since we all come from that initial human.  And finally, all humans are unique for despite all humanity coming from Adam and Eve, no one person is like another.  This means Jews and non-Jews.  Are you not to share your bread with the hungry asks the Prophet Isaiah (58) rhetorically?  To which the medieval scholars known as the Tosefot explain (on Deut. 20:10) this means we are commanded to feed the poor of Gentiles as well in order to maintain good relations with our neighbors and for this reason God blesses us with peace.   A law about not cutting down fruit trees in war leads to a mitzvah, bal Taschit, which the great scholar Moses Maimonides noted, “does not apply to trees alone. Rather, anyone who breaks utensils, tears garments, destroys buildings, stops up a spring, or ruins food with a destructive intent transgresses the command 'Do not destroy.' So much of our Torah amplifies narratives and contextual precepts into requirements of compassionate conscience and benevolent behaviors.  We find hope in the way our scholarly ancestors studied Torah.

What shall we do then with Biblical texts that prescribe mass murder of the enemy, and exclusion in cases of taboo?  Years ago, on a panel on religious belief and human dignity at Notre Dame a student asked what is the foundation of my religious belief.   I answered that my ultimate religious faith is that the verses Love your neighbor as yourself, Love the stranger because you were once strangers and that human beings are created in the image of God are more true and authentic to the Divine speech than verses that permit wiping out all the people of an enemy city or outlawing homosexuality; that the Torah comes down to us through imperfect human hands which do not lack prejudice, yet nevertheless teachings that offer a vision of human dignity and demand we subjugate our worst impulses come through these human limitations to light a way before us towards a redeemed world.  Lo Bashamayim hee – it is not in heaven – we choose which Torah is Torah-true. 

  Another solvent that purges despair is the social component of social justice.  When we come together as a community to pray or to celebrate lighting the Hanukah candles, or to fast together on Yom Kippur, to mourn on October 11 or to celebrate at a birth, the shared groupness helps dissipate the anxiety by being together, observing Jewish life together, communicating together.  We are not alone; we are with fellow travelers. 

I have been very active in We Make Indiana and it feels good to know that despite the numerous disappointments we have faced in trying to work toward a healthier more wholesome community, we have had successes.  The most important has been the Mental Health Crisis Center, for which we now have evidence of the thousands of people it has assisted.  I had an epiphany at our last community meeting.  A group of about 60 folks from different congregations came to discuss issues of concern in our county. I was one of the youngest people in the room.   And what were the issues that most animated the folks in the room – public education, maternal health, climate crisis, clean water and clean energy, mental health, Medicaid.  These were not folks directly affected by maternal health – some in the room were great grandparents but they are concerned about the health of young mothers in this county.  They were long past public-school education but they care deeply about school children.  Climate change, clean water, clean energy, even Medicaid, these are not issues that will hurt them the most in the years they have left, but it will impact their younger neighbors.  And yet they are the ones coming together, seeking communal solutions for the welfare of all the community.  That gives me hope – to see people work for a better world for a future society, that is to plant trees for which you will never see the fruit - this is the essence of Jewish ethics. 

There is one final image that helps me dispel the hopelessness that I can easily fall into – it is a phrase in our hymn Adon Olam V’aharei kikhlot hakol, lvado yimlokh nora, hu hayah, v’hu hoveh v’hu yiheyeh b’tifarah:  When all is ended, God alone will reign in awesome majesty.  God was, God is, and always will be glorious in eternity.

The fact that God will always be, no matter how much we screw up, that God will always be is comforting to me. And it isn’t just God – the triumph of life continues ever onward.  70 years after atomic testing on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, a thriving and vibrant ecosystem has returned.  The Book of Job seconds this (Job 14:7)

כִּ֤י יֵ֥שׁ לָעֵ֗ץ תִּ֫קְוָ֥ה אִֽם־יִ֭כָּרֵת וְע֣וֹד יַחֲלִ֑יף וְ֝יֹנַקְתּ֗וֹ לֹ֣א תֶחְדָּֽל׃

There is hope (tikvah) for a tree: if it is cut down it will renew itself; its shoots will not cease.

I have found this to be true in my annual battle with a mulberry bush in my backyard.  A few years ago, I decided it had to go.  So I cut it down until it was just a lone stick standing out of the ground. And yet a year later, as the book of Job said, it renewed itself. I cut it back again.  The next year that empty stick bloomed with huge green mulberry leaves.  I have now reached an accommodation with it.  I cut down the branches every year, knowing that it will grow back.  I could uproot it completely.  But I have come to love its resilience, knowing that however many times I try to stamp it out, it just keeps coming back.  And so, every once in a while, after seeing depressing headlines about our government cancelling research into vaccines or firing FEMA and other government workers just as the natural disaster season gets worse, or another self-imposed tragedy is devised by the Israeli government, I go to my window and look at the mulberry bush, strutting with its plethora of green branches and leaves, impervious to my efforts to remove it.  And I get just a little closer to fine.