Category Archives: Upcoming Event

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Rabbi Goldstein’s Yom Kippur Yizkor Sermon

One of my favorite parts of my job is that I get to play. Being a rabbi in this community, I get invited to go talk to a lot of different groups of people. One of my favorite invites that I get is to go celebrate Shabbat at the JCC preschool in Scotch Plains. Spending a Friday morning, celebrating Shabbat with these hundred kids, seeing them sing Shabbat songs and bless the candles…it fills my heart with joy and makes me hopeful for our future.

I want to tell you a story of one such Shabbat. Now normally, I go and do my thing and have fun. But one Thursday evening I got an email reminding me that I was coming over the next morning to spend Shabbat with the preschoolers. In the email, it said that the theme of Shabbat was Gemilut Chasadim, acts of loving kindness.

So here was my challenge, to talk to preschoolers about being nice.  Okay… Talking to toddlers about being acts of loving kindness is like…well actually, I don’t even know to what it compares. It seemed to me that it would be like talking about nuclear physics to a group of ducks. I love children, but at times, asking kids to share and treat each other nicely is a difficult if not Sisyphean task.

As I woke up the next morning and went to the JCC, I was at a loss for how to talk about gemilut chasadim with any more depth than, it’s nice to share. I sat down in the back of the room and waited to be introduced. As I sat there I looked around at the kids. I saw them having fun, playing around (they probably should’ve been listening, but that’s okay). And then I noticed a boy wearing a batman t-shirt. Then I saw another one wearing a spider-man t-shirt and yet another couple of kids wearing superman t-shirt.

When it came my turn to talk to the kids, I asked them if they like superheroes. From the roaring response I got back, you might’ve thought that I’d asked them if they’d like ice cream or to watch TV for the rest of the day. I asked them if any of them wanted to be superheroes, and all of a sudden they went silent. They were shocked that they could be superheroes. One of the kids puffed out his chest and shouted, “I am a superhero!” And I said, “That’s right, you are!” And then I lowered my voice and leaned forward. I asked them, “So, do all of you want to know how to be superheroes?” Of course they did.

I told them the way to be a superhero was not to leap tall buildings in a single bound. It’s not about being invisible or having to save someone from a villain. They can be superheroes by saying something nice, by giving their friend a compliment, or making them feel better when they are sad. They can be superheroes by sharing and giving to each other. They can be superheroes by the effect they have on other people’s days and lives.

And you know something? They got it! For the next few minutes we practiced being superheroes and I heard them giving compliments to each other and even to their teachers. It was an amazing sight.

I’ve always loved superheroes. Since I was a kid I had comic books and viewfinders filled with stories of ordinary people being thrust into the spotlight and given a chance to be heroes. I read of people triumphing over their limitations for the betterment of their city or the world.

I want to tell you about a superhero; an eight year old superhero who was just like any other boy. His name is Sam Sommer and he is in fact a superman. The son of two Reform rabbis in Chicago Illinois, this boy became a hero to so many of us. In June 2012, Sam was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, AML. Many of us who followed Sam did not know him personally. We knew his parents; or we felt we did. You see, his mother and father kept a website and blog that detailed everything that Sammy was going through, what the entire family was going through. They wrote eloquently and heart-breakingly about their son’s struggle for survival.

Last December Sammy lost his battle with Cancer. He died on December 14th surrounded by his family. Thousands of people from across the United States and all around the world found ourselves crying for a boy we’d never met. We found ourselves unable to sleep because this superhero was gone.

Over the course of his short life, Sammy affected so many people. People all over found themselves drawn to this family. People from all walks of life hugged their children a little closer because they were reading of a family that was struggling. But what made Sam a superhero was not only the fact that he battled so valiantly, it was not the fact that he was an extraordinary boy. In fact, he was in every way an ordinary boy. But every ordinary boy and every ordinary girl is extraordinary. Sammy’s battle made us appreciate the small things in life, whenever Sammy’s mother wrote about the less than perfect aspects of her son, we could smile and relate. And we cried all the more so.

Sam died in December of last year, and this past April, at the most recent Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) Convention they held an event called “36 shave for the brave.” The plan was for 36 rabbis to shave their heads and to raise money for pediatric cancer research. In the end, over 70 rabbis shaved their heads. And this once modest fundraiser raised over 654,000 dollars for pediatric cancer research.

Sam Sommer was a superhero. In his short time on this earth, his amazing spirit has inspired people to become better parents, and to appreciate life more. His struggle has led us to pledge that we will continue his legacy and continue the fight against cancer in his honor and memory.

We don’t need to be invincible or live forever to be a superhero. We don’t need to live to the rabbinically proscribed 120 years to be a superhero. Because we don’t measure our lives in the number of days we have. We measure our lives in the impact of those days. In eight short years Sam was able to inspire hundreds of thousands of people. His battle brought national attention to a serious issue. And that is his legacy, an ordinary 8 year old superhero.

We have a gift, the most precious gift there is. We have been given the gift of life. It is up to us to use the time we have on this earth to transform ourselves into superheroes. We can transcend ourselves and our nature. We can triumph over our selfishness and shortcomings by helping those around us. We can be superheroes by making other people’s lives better. We can transform ourselves into angels and superheroes by helping others.

אלוּ דברים שאדם עושה אותם ואוכל פירותיהן בעולם

הזה והקרן קיימת לו לעולם הבאת ואלוּ הן: כיבוּד אב

ואם, וּגמילוּת חסדים והבאת שלום שבין אדם לחברו.

ותלמוּד תורה כנגד כוּלם

These are the precepts that a person performs and enjoys their fruits in this world and these are they: honoring father and mother, bringing peace between people, and acts of loving kindness.

May this be a year for us to work towards making a difference. May we be blessed to see our values put into action, and may we inspire others to act as well. May we be fortunate enough to see that our legacy is a good one, dedicated to helping others and to increasing God’s presence in the world. However long we have on this earth, may our lives be blessed to have an impact in this world and to help those around us. May we inspire selflessness and charity, may we be disguise ourselves in a cloak of honor and may we soar to heights of chesed. May the memory of Sam Sommer, the memory of an ordinary superhero inspire us to achieve greatness. And may his memory, and the memory of our lives always be for a blessing, and let us say…Amen.

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Rabbi Goldstein’s Kol Nidre Sermon

Quote in featured image attributed to Alan Moore’s Watchmen

A man goes to a doctor. He explains to the doctor that he’s depressed. He says that life seems very harsh and cruel. He says that, even surrounded by people, he feels all alone in this threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. The Doctor smiled kindly and says, “The treatment is simple. The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you right up.” All of a sudden, the man bursts into tears. He says, “But doctor…I am Pagliacci.”

That story was widely told around the time Robin William’s death. Many of you know the story already, but if you don’t, Robin Williams was one of the most dynamic and brilliant performers we have ever seen. A man blessed with God-given talent, a brilliant mind, and a successful career. Unfortunately, he was also a man who was tortured by mental illness and addiction for most of his life.

When I was a kid, Robin Williams was like a God to me. Much to the dismay of my teachers, all of my friends and I knew his comedy routines and monologues by heart and we performed them with glee. Yes, we could recite lines back and forth from most of his movies, but none of us could ever know the pain that he felt.

After his death, many people talked about his suicide and the choice he made to end his life. One talk radio host seized upon the opportunity to turn it into a referendum on politics and happiness. But let me be clear about something, let me state something here and now, unequivocally.   Robin Williams did not kill himself. Let me repeat that. Robin Williams did not kill himself. He died of a horrible disease; a disease from which far too many suffer, and far too few understand.

One of the things I love most about my job is the weekly class that I teach on Thursday mornings (11:30, don’t miss it). Every week, before we begin we go around the table and talk about what’s going on, we schmooze. We talk about the ailments from which this person or that person is suffering. As one person put it, it’s an organ recital. But one thing we don’t talk about, the one thing that no one brings up, is how people are doing mentally.

It’s only the rare, brave soul who is open with their struggles with mental illness. Even though we’ve come so far in our society, there continues to be a stigma. There continues to be the perception that struggles with depression, with addiction or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, are a matter of choice. They are no more a matter of choice than the person who has cancer.

The lack of dialogue about mental health has led to some incredibly unsophisticated thinking. There is still a stigma for those who suffer from, or are treated for mental illness. Out of ignorance, people associate much of mental illness to parental failure.  At times our culture is so focused on the physical, focusing on what we look like, so focused on the surface, that we lose sight of the mental and the spiritual.

Today is Yom Kippur. Today we ignore our physical needs, our physical appearance. After this afternoon, we won’t eat, and we won’t shower for 25 hours. Instead of wearing our nicest shoes, we wear sneakers or some other non-leather shoe. Today is the day that we attempt to demonstrate that, in spite of the fact that our souls are housed in flesh, we can transcend our physical existence to become Godlike souls. Today we acknowledge the fact that our being is not just one element, we either neither purely physical nor spiritual. Our physical and spiritual existences weave together to create the totality of our being. We are body, we are mind and we are souls. And just like our bodies can be healthy or sick, our minds and our souls can feel affliction.

The Jewish tradition has known about mental illness since the time of the bible. After the death of King David, the new hero of the bible was Elijah, Elijah. A miracle maker, we see that he is able to revive a boy thought to be dead, he is able to defeat the 50 false prophets of Baal, and yet even he is not free from torment. After his great victory against the prophets of Baal, Elijah is told that the queen, Jezebel wants to kill him. Instead of fighting, his reaction is quite curious. We are told, “When he heard that, he arose, and ran for his life, he came to Beer-sheba.” Okay, so far so good, but then we read this, “He left his servant there and he went a day’s journey into the wilderness by himself. He came and sat down under a broom-tree; and he asked to die; he said: ‘It is enough; now God, take away my life.’

Eliyahu is ready to give up, he is ready to die. He feels alone, he feels like there is no one who can comfort him, so he waits for God to take his life. But an angel approaches Elijah and gives him the strength to go on.

Eliyahu is beautifully portrayed by the biblical author as this damaged person. Yes, he is able to work miracles, but he is constantly on the outside. Yes, he speaks to God. But that causes him to feel alone, to feel cut off from the rest of his people living around him. No one should ever have to feel that isolation. No one should ever feel that they are alone.

That is one of the reasons I am talking about this issue tonight.  To all of those who are suffering with mental illness, know this; you are not alone. You are never alone. All you need to do is to ask for help. Here in this community, you will always have someone to whom you can look, to whom you can talk. You are not alone.

To those who have a family member or loved one who is suffering, know this; you are not alone either. Your loved one’s disease is not a personal or parental failure, it is biochemistry and genetics. You do not have to hide their affliction. You do not have to be embarrassed or scared to share the suffering and pain that you feel. You are a part of a community that is ready, willing, and able to embrace you and your entire family. This is a community that shows kindness, chesed to all those who are suffering, no matter the nature of their affliction.

In tractate Brachot the Talmud tells a story of R. Yochanan who went to visit his friend, R. Elazar. We are told that R. Elazar was sitting on the ground, in the darkness and crying. When R. Yochanan came in, it says that just his presence brought light into the room. Rabbi Yochanan sat down with his friend and asked, “Why are you crying?” Rabbi Elazar looked at his friend and said, “I am weeping on account of this beauty that is going to rot in the earth.” Rabbi Yochanan nodded to his friend and said, “On that account you surely have a reason to weep.” And they both wept. They wept for their lives, and for their deaths, whenever they would come.

What R. Yochanan did next was to ask for R. Elazar’s hand. With that, the Talmud tells us, R. Elazar was revived. Just from reaching out for R. Yochanan’s hand, from sharing a touch, R. Elazar was able to be revived. The Talmud is puzzled and asks a question of this episode. “If he was revived so easily, why did he not revive himself?” A poetic answer given is, “a captive cannot release himself from prison.” Someone who is suffering, whether mentally or physically, needs help from those around them to release themselves from their prison.

When someone suffers from a mental illness, they feel imprisoned, they feel alone. We see from our story that all it takes sometimes is for a friend to literally reach out, to free them. It is up to us not only as a community, but as individuals to provide the love and friendship that Rabbi Yochanan demonstrated. We have the power to bring light into the darkness.

I am not a doctor. I am not here tonight to talk to you about the medical diagnosis or treatment for mental illness, because I am not qualified to do so. What I am qualified to talk about is the spiritual affliction of Mental illness, the almost universal feeling that has been described by so many poets, philosophers, theologians, and sages.

Many of you have heard me speak about my time working at Beit Teshuva, a recovery center in Los Angeles for drug and alcohol addiction. My title there was that of a spiritual counselor. Okay, that’s a great title, but when I got the job, I wasn’t sure what it meant. I knew that I was to be one part of a three-pronged approach to helping those suffering with addiction. Each resident had a therapist, a sponsor and a spiritual counselor. The therapist or psychologist was there to help them with psychological issues they faced. The sponsor or addiction specialist would help them through the 12 steps of recovery. I still didn’t know what my job was, until my boss, Rabbi Mark Borovitz, explained that I was to be a spiritual therapist, in his words, an advocate for the soul. Other people would help with psychological issues and issues of addiction, but I was there to help with the part of the soul that was afflicted.

I believe in this holistic approach to mental health. Yes, of course I know that psychology and medicine are infinitely important when treating mental illness, and when looking out for our own mental well-being. But I also know that, at times there is an element missing. While paying so much attention to our medical solutions, we often neglect another aspect of ourselves. We often ignore the needs of our souls. We know that our physical health depends on a number of factors, what we eat, whether or not we exercise, genetics, and many others. The same is true for mental health. Having worked and spoken with many professionals in the mental health field, I have come to a radical conclusion. I want to tell you that religion, a connection to something greater than ourselves can improve our mental health.

What I mean by that, is that if done correctly, a spiritual discipline or practice can be a great exercise for our brains. Yes, I know how I sound. You might be picturing crystals and mood rings, and other non-traditional images. But it has been scientifically proven that meditation can help improve our health.  There have been published studies and articles written in such new agey places as the New England Journal of Medicine, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post just to name a few.

This is not news to us. We have seen that spiritual dedication can have an amazing effect on our lives. I’d like to share with you a teaching from Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, one of the great thinkers of the 20th century, and the first chief rabbi of Israel. He writes,

If a person should seek for themselves less than a life oriented toward God, they will at once become like a ship tossed about at sea. Stormy waves will continually rob them of peace. If he or she should be able to immerse themselves in some preoccupation, they may succeed for a time, and it will seem as if they have finally found peace. But it will not take long and the spirit will break out of its imprisonment and the maddening agitation will begin to act in all its fury. The place where we may find peace is only in god.

I believe that Rav Kook is right. Not because I believe that faith in god is the answer to mental illness, but we all need to reach out to something. We are more than just our bodies. Our souls, our spirit needs sustenance as well.  What R. Kook is describing is so human, so basic, that its profundity is matched only by its simplicity.

I realize the leap some people think I’m making. I understand that there can be a tendency to roll our eyes at the idea of nourishing our soul just as we do with our bodies. But we have seen the nature of our care evolve over time. Before Freud and Jung, we did not know how to treat someone with mental illness. It is only in the last 150 years that we are beginning to understand how to look out for our mental health. It’s only in the last 30 years that we are beginning to fully understand the need for physical exercise in order for us to stay healthy. And just in the past few years, study after study has shown us the benefits of meditation, of a spiritual discipline. Basically, having a mental practice can help us with both mental and physical ailments.

We seek to connect. For some of us like Rav Kook, we seek to connect with God. But sometimes it’s too much to ask us to connect to God. What we seek then is to connect with others. More than anything, what those suffering from mental illness need, is to connect, to feel like they are not alone. To be able to see the light in that the prison, that hole in which they find themselves.

From the Psalms,

“Why so downcast, my soul, why so disquieted within me? Have hope in God… Oh my God, my soul is downcast; therefore I think of you…”

As we read in this account, there is a connection between depression, between that utter loneliness, and the desire to reach out to God.

No, I do not think that religion can cure mental illness. But we have just woken up to the reality that exercise is essential to our well-being.  It is time to realize that our spiritual health is just as important. Yes, treadmills, sports, swimming are all great. We have changed our lives to fit this in. I am here to wake us up to a need we may not have even known about. Making time for meditation, or prayer, finding time to nourish our souls is as important as our physical exertion. We are not either minds, we are not either souls or bodies, we are both. And both deserve our attention.

This day, once a year we prove that we are more than just our physical selves. We prove that we can go without food and water and aspire to be angelic.

And we are more. Faith of any kind can help us. Knowing that there is a creator who cares for us can help us to feel less alone. When we read the misheberach prayers, we pray not only for a full recovery for a body, but we say רפואת הנפש, a healing for the soul. We know that when our souls are afflicted, we cannot feel physically healthy. When we are spiritually or mentally sick, we cannot feel well physically.

It is my hope and prayer that we find time this year for ourselves, for our souls. It is my hope that we are blessed to merit inscribing and sealing ourselves into the book of life. That we make time for prayer. I pray that we are able to nourish our souls as we do our bodies. I pray that we have the strength to reach out for help, and that we ensure that no one should ever feel alone again, Shana Tova

 

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Rabbi Goldstein’s Rosh Hashanah Sermon: Day 1

In Los Angeles sits a house just like any other. It is a modest two bedroom, one bath white Spanish style house with a tile roof with a blue door. If you look a little closer, you can see where the paint is chipping, and that the driveway is unusually narrow and ill-suited for cars; you will notice that there is no sidewalk, the street basically begins outside the front windows.

It is not a house at which people would stop and stare. It is not a particularly beautiful or exceptional house, but it I love that house. Because it’s the house in which I lived when I took my daughter home from the hospital, it’s the house in which I watched her grow. It’s the first house that was ever “my” house.

My connection to this house in Los Angeles is not a rational one. My love for this house is based, in large part, on the role that it has played in my family’s story. My connection to this house is sentimental and profound.

This type of emotional bond with a place or location is not new for our people. For over three thousand years we have attached ourselves to a tiny slice of land no larger than our home state of New Jersey.

Since the time of Abraham and Sarah wandering in Beer Sheva, since David hid from King Saul in Ein Gedi, the land of Israel has been intrinsically tied to our identity, to our survival as a people. The central narrative of our Torah is all about our journey from slavery in Egypt to freedom in Canaan, or what we know of today as Israel. For millennia our hope was pinned to our return to Israel. During the exile, through the crusades, the Inquisition and the pogroms, our people faced east and prayed to one day return to the holy land.

Our connection to this land is honorable and historic.

70 years ago, our people picked themselves off of the graveyard of Europe and set out for a better life for themselves. With only the clothes on their backs they came. They came from Warsaw, from Munich, from Lodz and from every village and shtetl. They came in search, not of a better life, but in search of life itself. After years of experiencing only death, these heroes journeyed to find a place where life could exist once more.

Like freshly fallen dew, these titans brought life to an arid, uncultivated strip of land. Teachers, and poets, these farmers and builders came, bringing with them a new rain of fertility to wash over their homeland. These ordinary people, these refugees and survivors we reborn as the founding mothers and fathers of a new nation.

Meeting up with their brothers and sisters who had been living in Israel for millennia, our forefathers and mothers gave birth to a nation that would become a beacon of hope. For over 66 years Israel has stood as a homeland for the Jewish people, as a haven for those who need protection.

Our connection to this land is powerful and protective.

We know of her successes and her failures. We have seen from afar as Israel’s triumphs went unnoticed and as her failures were held in the spotlight. Throughout her brief history, Israel has struggled to uphold the two pillars upon which it stands; to be a democracy, and to be a Jewish nation.

It has not been easy. At times we have seen Israel struggle with one or more of these holy tasks. We have seen transgressions of our holy commandment to embrace the strangers in our midst. At times Israel has lacked compassion for those in her midst who are not Jewish. At times Israel’s Judaism has been the sole property of one segment of the population.

We have seen and heard these struggles. We have seen our religious leaders shackled and escorted from our most holy of sanctuaries for attempting to pray according to our principles. We have seen Conservative and Reform Rabbis arrested as they continue their struggle to pray according to our egalitarian values. We have seen bills proposed in our Parliament, our Knesset, calling for the deligitmization of our conversions.

These sounds of strife, these visions of unrest from our Holy Land have led some to question why we support Israel. These transgressions have caused some to wonder why we insist on viewing or treating Israel differently. They accuse us of walking around looking at Israel with rose colored glasses.

“Why do you romanticize this country,” they ask. Because Israel is the most romantic of notions, we answer. Because a people who wandered for two thousand years, a nation lost for two millennia has finally returned to its home. Hebrew, once considered a dead language, has been reborn.

Our connection to Israel is immense and emotional.

Yes, I know how I sound. I am not rational when it comes to Israel. I am not objective, and I am not dispassionate. Israel is not a country for me. It is the sounds and smells of the Shuk, the warmth of the sun as you walk down the cobblestone streets of the old Jerusalem. At times, it is the rudeness and inability of its people to wait online for a bus.  Israel is the northern hilltops where I prayed Kabbalat Shabbat while looking at Syria. It is the Western Wall where I led services for the first time.

At times, it bothers us that people hold Israel to a double standard. But let me tell you, I believe in that double standard. In the words of Jeffery Goldberg, “I judge Israel by a higher standard than I judge other countries, precisely because it is a Jewish country. Jews gave the world the gift of ethical monotheism, and the idea that all people are created in the image of God… therefore, to abuse them is to desecrate God’s name.”

For those of us who have been to Israel, we have been fortunate enough to return home. Home to the historic land of our people; Home to the land where our ancestors once settled, home to the embodiment of the Herzl’s vision of a new nation built upon an ancient nation. Herzl’s vision of the altneuland, the old new land, was a utopian one. At times the political reality that is Israel fails to live up to that utopian vision. But the hope for that vision, the dream of that vision still exists in our homeland.

Our connection to this land is tangible and timeless.

We are privileged to bear witness to a rebirth of a people and a nation. From the ashes of Europe we rose again to live in our homeland. And so we celebrate her 66 years a mere childhood in the life of a country. We say every week, from Zion shall come the Torah, and the word of God from Jerusalem. We long to see the dream of Zion fulfilled. We long to see a time when our people can live in peace and freedom; Freedom to move, freedom to worship, true freedom. We long for the day when, in the words of our prayer for peace, we shall “lie down and no one shall terrify,” us.

But while we pray for a day of peace, we know that it is not today. We know that there Israel’s enemies are real, and they are merciless. This past summer, we’ve witnessed what happens when an ideology is bent on destruction. We have seen what happens when the death of civilians is viewed as success. We’ve understood what it means when a government marches the weakest of its people towards certain destruction. As leaders who sit back in the comfort of their air conditioned hotel room far from the destruction, call for the war to continue. And we have seen the loss of innocent life. We have cried at the images of children being wrapped in burial shrouds. Yes, we have mourned the loss of innocent life, of any innocent life. Crying for the children of Gaza does not make us any less of a Zionist; it makes us more. It makes us Jews who live the value of the Torah when we are told that every life is created in the image of God. It makes us loyal scholars when we cry for the death of the innocent, recalling the passage of the Talmud which states that one who destroys a life has destroyed an entire world.

Our connection to this land is in our values and our realization of the divinity of mankind.

Yes, we mourn. But does that mean that we are impartial. I recently heard a story from Rabbi Alan Lucas. He said that one of his college students came to him this summer and asked him if he believed that the loss of a Palestinian child’s life was any less tragic than the loss of a young Israeli soldier’s life.  He tried to figure out where she was coming from, and finally answered, “No and Yes.  No – there is no difference between the loss of a Palestinian child and the loss of an Israeli child, they are equally tragic.  And Yes – because, you see, this one is my son, and although equal in tragedy, I feel the pain so much more.”  “But he is not your son!”  His student yelled. He smiled at her and said simply,   “That my dear, is where we disagree.”

The loss of innocent life is tragic, and the acknowledgment of that fact does not lessen the validity of the war that occurred. We know that Israel has every right to defend her citizens. We know that the tunnels built from Gaza were created with the sole purpose of death and destruction. We know that the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers demanded a response from the Israeli government.

This past summer we watched as the world was turned upside down, as good was vilified as evil and evil was seen as a victim. We wrote letters to editors, we took to our Facebook pages and our twitter accounts trying to tell the world the real story. We posted article upon article in defense of a moral country, and yes, a moral war.

But that cannot be the extent to our support of Israel. We do not have the luxury of sitting back at our desks and pontificating on things about which we might not have full knowledge.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend AIPAC’s Rabbinic Symposium in Washington DC. This was a one day series of lectures about the situation in the Middle East. Now, I consider myself to be relatively knowledgeable about the situation, I like to think that I have a handle on what is going on in Israel, but as I filled page upon page of my notebook I realized how much more there was to learn.

No matter what our connection to Israel, we can always go further. For some it’s visiting Israel on an organized trip, or with our family. It’s experiencing the Golan and the Dead Sea. It’s visiting the Shuk and the Western Wall. But not all of us have the time or resources to visit Israel. If that is the case, then it is up to us, as a community, to bring Israel here.

As many of you know, I had the opportunity to travel to Israel this past summer as part of a solidarity mission. While we were there, I struggled with the idea that I was just some tourist, someone who had come to witness the danger, while being afforded the luxury of escape at any time (unless the FAA had its way). But somewhere in between the sirens and the drones, above the roar of the F-14s and through the tears of the mourners we visited, I realized something. I was not there out of solidarity to a people under fire. I was not there only to care about the safety and security of Israelis. My trip, and the news of this summer reinforced that the safety and survival of Israel is inextricably linked to the survival of the Jewish people.

Our support for Israel is not only about supporting a political entity 6,000 miles away. It is about ensuring the future of the Jewish people. Israel is not some experiment which, if it fails will fail without repercussion. In a future without Israel, it is hard to see a future for world Jewry. Over 50% of Jews live in Israel, and that number is getting higher. Our support of Israel is not only about ideology, but about self-preservation. But that support can only exist where there is a robust conversation.

Recently, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs did a study of rabbis. According to their findings, 50% of the rabbis asked were afraid to share their views on Israel with their congregants. It didn’t matter if it was a rabbi feeling that they were too far left, or too far right, these people did not feel as if they could have a constructive conversation with their communities. Personally, while I have not avoided talking about Israel, I do refrain from talking about it a lot, because I know that we have such varied opinions in our community. That ends today.

Just as it’s not easy to hear criticism of ourselves or our loved ones, it is not easy to hear criticism of Israel. But just as we know that we and our loved ones are not perfect, we know that Israel has flaws as well.

I want to challenge us to take up the mantle of Israel. I want to challenge us to come out from behind our computers and to talk about Israel, to debate about Israel in an open an honest way. Let this be the place in which we hear both praise and criticism of Israel. Let us hear both of these with honesty and compassion, with love and with the realization of the rabbis, אלו ואלו דברי אלוהים חיים, that this opinion, and its opposition are both the words of the living God. That both our opinions and those whose opinions we resist are the words of the living God.

May this be the year when we come together as a community. May we be blessed to join together in agreement, and may we embrace one another through our disagreement about one of our holiest of topics; the Land of Israel. May we strengthen our connection to our homeland and may we forge relationships with all of klal yisrael, with the entire nation of Israel, and let us say, Amen.