October 3, 2024
Living in Days of Fear and Awe (Rosh HaShanah 5785)
Living in Days of Fear and Awe
Rabbi Maurice A. Salth, Rosh HaShanah 5785
Dedicated to Rabbi Aaron David Panken Zecher Tzadik Livracha
How are you?
How are you doing?
Before this year, when we met, it was often me asking you this question first.
This past year, there’s been a role reversal—when you’ve seen me or any of us clergy, it was you, first checking in and asking, how are you doing?
My hair is much grayer since last Rosh Hashanah. This has been a year unlike any I have ever experienced; filled with devastating events for the Jewish community. With the murderous attack on Israel on October seventh, the war with Hamas in Gaza, the rapid rise of anti-Semitism, campus protests, the unconscionable year-long hostage catastrophe, the conflict in the north of Israel and Iran’s missile attack on Tuesday. I know all of us have been processing what has occurred and have responded in myriad ways.
These ten days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur are known to most of us as the High Holy Days. In Hebrew they are called the Yamim Noraim. Yamim means days and Noraim—can be translated as fear and Noraim can also be translated as awe. We have begun the days of fear…the days of awe.
The word Noraim is found throughout the Hebrew Bible in different Hebrew variations. One of the variations, l’yirah, is in a remarkable Torah verse that states: “And now, Israel, what does Adonai your God ask of you? Only this, l’yirah—Adonai your God[1].” Wait, God wants only this, but what is “this”? L’yirah? Are we to fear God or be in awe of God? Or perhaps both?
This past year I have seen what it has been like to experience both fear and awe.
Fear in response to what happened on October seventh and what has been occurring in our nation and around the world to Jews. And awe, as I have also experienced gathering together and finding strength in connecting with each other and our Jewish tradition.
In February, Rabbi Buchdahl welcomed Deborah Lipstadt onto our bimah. Dr. Lipstadt is the first ever United States envoy with the responsibility of combating antisemitism. She tells a story from her days as a professor. She says:
“One of my college students, after an attack on Jews, began wearing a kipah on campus. He told me ‘This is my response to those who hate us…[I am not frightened].’” She said: “I admired his chuzpah… and refusal to cower in the face of threats but my heart broke because his motivation to identify as a Jew was prompted by [Jew] haters. He had ceded to them power over his identity[2].”
I share Dr. Lipstadt’s concern about linking our Jewish identity to hateful acts against us. I also know in the wake of October seventh that so many of our reactions were motivated by feelings of fear. We stood up in solidarity, defiant, and said I am Jewish and proud. We buoyed each other. You told me of how you responded in this way as we asked each other “how are you doing?”
After the Hamas strike, our member, eighteen-year-old Harrison Geller drafted a letter to the head of his school. More than two hundred fellow students signed it in one day. Soon after, with the support of school leadership, Harrison and a small group of students held a vigil on campus supporting the Jewish community and denouncing antisemitism.
I heard stories about how you’ve decided to wear a Star of David. Many of you purchased your first Jewish necklace alongside your child so that everyone in the family had one. You described to me your worry about wearing a Jewish star in public. Still, time and time again you decided to address that fear and wore your necklaces out in our world. It was your actions that inspired the Central Synagogue High Holy Day card to our community.
You have told me how you have been standing up for the Jewish people in your friend circles, on social media at your alma maters and at your children’s schools.
I’ve seen many of you at rallies for Israel, the hostages and against antisemitism. On shortest notice, five Central buses travelled and joined over 290,000 to march on Washington DC in November.
This past year Central members travelled to Israel on solidarity missions showing support to our sisters and brothers there. As a Central community we supported more than twenty organizations and communities in Israel with the help of our emergency fund. In light of the crisis the Jewish community at large, through Jewish Federations across the US, raised more than 850 million dollars[3]! Despite our fear we have not run from each other, we have run toward each other—as if we are each other’s first responders.
With all these reactions linked to our feelings of fear, defiance and solidarity; I found myself reflecting on Dr. Lipstadt’s experience with her student who began wearing a kipah after an attack on Jews. She did not want his Jewishness to be correlated to the negative, the violence against, and hatred toward our people. After all we have gone through this past year, I do not want our identity to be tied to the dread we have witnessed.
Our core Jewish identity should be connected to the deepest good, and the wisdom and rituals within our tradition. The awe within Judaism. Where negativity overtime has the possibility of withdrawing and depleting us, the awesome within Judaism can strengthen and support us through the most difficult and darkest of times to eventual brighter days.
In his book entitled “Awe” psychologist Dacher Keltner defines awe as something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world. According to his research, much of what we have been experiencing this year: being in collective gatherings like services and rallies and being witness to each other’s courage, strength and kindness [4] are manifestations of awe.
When we’ve asked each other: “how you are doing?” I have heard you describing the awe you have experienced; your transcendent moments. For example, so many of you told me how powerful it has been to join together in community. I’ve seen it myself. Attendance is up!
Each Shabbat the sanctuary is packed; overflowing into the balcony. I’ve never seen so many people week after week. Our live stream has tens of thousands joining us for each service from around block and across the globe!
More than ever this community is embracing and lifting each other up. A few weeks ago, on a regular Shabbat, the congregation erupted in joy as a Central member for the past fifty-six years came to services in celebration of his one hundredth birthday. Way to go Murray! Tell us your secrets!
We have been elevated by those of us who are becoming bat and bar mitzvah, couples about to be married and families naming their children. I know we especially love the “Lion King” baby blessing moment. We are supporting and cheering each other as if other people’s simchas, other people’s celebrations, are ours—which of course, in part, they are, Am Yisrael Chai, the people of Israel live!
We have found awe in Judaism’s mission to bring more blessing into this world. This year at Central a dedicated group of twenty-five members, are helping a refugee family from Venezuela. This family was recently granted entrance into the U.S. by the State Department. Central has partnered with HIAS, the organization that helped many of our great grandparents come to America, to assist these refugees in their most sensitive first year here. Our Central members are helping them find an apartment, jobs, learn English, enroll three children, ages eight, fifteen and seventeen in school and navigate the complexities of obtaining health insurance. Instead of being consumed with themselves and their fears, these members chose to fulfill the mitzvah of welcoming the stranger and protecting the most vulnerable.
I believe we have many, many miles to go before the crisis before us abates. As we travel into this new year, I am urging us to lean into our tradition—our history, our values, our rituals and religious practices; let us gather together and care for each other and the stranger among us. When we choose to tap into the awesome within these foundational aspects of Judaism we renew ourselves, we steel ourselves, we sustain ourselves for the long haul.
Journalist Bret Stephens, one of our guest speakers this past year, in response to all that has happened suggested we should strive to: “be 10 percent Jewier[5].” With no disrespect to Mr. Stephens, I’d like to amend his charge to us with only this; we should increase the Jewish awe in our lives by chai, 18 percent.
Our synagogue will continue to partner with you in the awesome. Join us for a Shabbat service during a week when you are recognizing a specific blessing in your life, a birthday, an anniversary, perhaps a new job or maybe retirement. Our weekly Saturday morning Mishkan service is one of Central’s best kept secrets. May Mishkan be a secret no more! Make it your business to attend at least one awesome Saturday morning service this new year.
Unlock the awe as we study the Torah, the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud in our weekly classes. Our small groups have the superpower of making our large shul feel small, find one for you or start your own. Be with us in December when renowned educator Tal Becker updates us on all that is happening in Israel. Whether or not you sing on key, and we do not judge here, you can sing each month with our cantors and Shirim Team, our singing club, in our stunning sanctuary. Teenagers, I see you out there, join us at the end of this month for “Midnight Run” where with kavod, with respect, we hand out food and clothes to New Yorkers in need. And teens, get your parents to volunteer with you at our breakfast program that provides a healthy meal to our hungry neighbors three times a week. If you are in your twenties or thirties, in just three weeks, experience with us the magic of a Simchat Torah dance party. This is just a taste of the awesome that we have to offer. Join us for as much as you can. And keep us up to date with the Jewish awesome happening in your life. Call and email the clergy and the staff in our main office to tell us what is going on with you. We want to know; we want to support you; we want to continue to be inspired by you.
We have a custom for when we finish reading a book of the Torah. We say: “be strong be strong and together we will be strengthened,” in Hebrew “Chazak, Chazak, V’nitchazek!” Chazak means strength. Here’s how the ritual works. Right after we read the last word from a book of the Torah, the rabbi chants these Chazak words in Hebrew and then the congregation repeats the words with gusto and then the rabbi chants them again.
Let’s try it now. The words are on the screen. I’ll go first, then you, then I’ll conclude.
Chazak, Chazak, V’nitchazek!
Congregation: Chazak, Chazak, V’nitchazek!
Chazak, Chazak, V’nitchazek!
I have always been struck and amused and puzzled by this all—why this cheering ritual? We're not a basketball team, we're not scoring touchdowns, were reading the Torah. Why the call and aspiration to be strong?
Then this year it dawned on me, when we finish a book of the Torah, when we come together to pray, when we learn together the wisdom within Judaism, when we protect the stranger, when we light the Shabbat candles, week after week…we are strengthened, individually and together by these awesome acts. Especially at times like these, days of fear and awe, it is worth shouting, it is worth cheering about the awesome and the strength that comes from sacred community and engaging in our tradition.
We have found a way to strengthen ourselves throughout this past year; Let us strengthen each other even more in the year ahead.
Let us regularly pack our sanctuary, our hallways and our classrooms. Please join me in saying — Chazak!
Let us feel the power and the joy connected to the pure goodness, and the wisdom and rituals within Judaism — Chazak!
Let us embrace the awe in our Jewish tradition — Chazak!
And let us continue to ask each other “how are you doing” and be strengthened by our ability to listen and stand by and support each other as we go forward into this new Jewish year.
Chazak, Chazak, V’Nitchazek!
Shanah Tovah.
[1] Deuteronomy 10:12
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/0...
[3] https://forward.com/news/64884...
[4] Awe, The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life,” Psychologist and Author Dacher Keltner, p. 7
[5] View Central’s entire interview with Bret Stephens here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwsrqCND_sg
Watch our sermon above or on Youtube, listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or read the transcript above.
October 3, 2024
Living in Days of Fear and Awe (Rosh HaShanah 5785)
Living in Days of Fear and Awe
Rabbi Maurice A. Salth, Rosh HaShanah 5785
Dedicated to Rabbi Aaron David Panken Zecher Tzadik Livracha
How are you?
How are you doing?
Before this year, when we met, it was often me asking you this question first.
This past year, there’s been a role reversal—when you’ve seen me or any of us clergy, it was you, first checking in and asking, how are you doing?
My hair is much grayer since last Rosh Hashanah. This has been a year unlike any I have ever experienced; filled with devastating events for the Jewish community. With the murderous attack on Israel on October seventh, the war with Hamas in Gaza, the rapid rise of anti-Semitism, campus protests, the unconscionable year-long hostage catastrophe, the conflict in the north of Israel and Iran’s missile attack on Tuesday. I know all of us have been processing what has occurred and have responded in myriad ways.
These ten days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur are known to most of us as the High Holy Days. In Hebrew they are called the Yamim Noraim. Yamim means days and Noraim—can be translated as fear and Noraim can also be translated as awe. We have begun the days of fear…the days of awe.
The word Noraim is found throughout the Hebrew Bible in different Hebrew variations. One of the variations, l’yirah, is in a remarkable Torah verse that states: “And now, Israel, what does Adonai your God ask of you? Only this, l’yirah—Adonai your God[1].” Wait, God wants only this, but what is “this”? L’yirah? Are we to fear God or be in awe of God? Or perhaps both?
This past year I have seen what it has been like to experience both fear and awe.
Fear in response to what happened on October seventh and what has been occurring in our nation and around the world to Jews. And awe, as I have also experienced gathering together and finding strength in connecting with each other and our Jewish tradition.
In February, Rabbi Buchdahl welcomed Deborah Lipstadt onto our bimah. Dr. Lipstadt is the first ever United States envoy with the responsibility of combating antisemitism. She tells a story from her days as a professor. She says:
“One of my college students, after an attack on Jews, began wearing a kipah on campus. He told me ‘This is my response to those who hate us…[I am not frightened].’” She said: “I admired his chuzpah… and refusal to cower in the face of threats but my heart broke because his motivation to identify as a Jew was prompted by [Jew] haters. He had ceded to them power over his identity[2].”
I share Dr. Lipstadt’s concern about linking our Jewish identity to hateful acts against us. I also know in the wake of October seventh that so many of our reactions were motivated by feelings of fear. We stood up in solidarity, defiant, and said I am Jewish and proud. We buoyed each other. You told me of how you responded in this way as we asked each other “how are you doing?”
After the Hamas strike, our member, eighteen-year-old Harrison Geller drafted a letter to the head of his school. More than two hundred fellow students signed it in one day. Soon after, with the support of school leadership, Harrison and a small group of students held a vigil on campus supporting the Jewish community and denouncing antisemitism.
I heard stories about how you’ve decided to wear a Star of David. Many of you purchased your first Jewish necklace alongside your child so that everyone in the family had one. You described to me your worry about wearing a Jewish star in public. Still, time and time again you decided to address that fear and wore your necklaces out in our world. It was your actions that inspired the Central Synagogue High Holy Day card to our community.
You have told me how you have been standing up for the Jewish people in your friend circles, on social media at your alma maters and at your children’s schools.
I’ve seen many of you at rallies for Israel, the hostages and against antisemitism. On shortest notice, five Central buses travelled and joined over 290,000 to march on Washington DC in November.
This past year Central members travelled to Israel on solidarity missions showing support to our sisters and brothers there. As a Central community we supported more than twenty organizations and communities in Israel with the help of our emergency fund. In light of the crisis the Jewish community at large, through Jewish Federations across the US, raised more than 850 million dollars[3]! Despite our fear we have not run from each other, we have run toward each other—as if we are each other’s first responders.
With all these reactions linked to our feelings of fear, defiance and solidarity; I found myself reflecting on Dr. Lipstadt’s experience with her student who began wearing a kipah after an attack on Jews. She did not want his Jewishness to be correlated to the negative, the violence against, and hatred toward our people. After all we have gone through this past year, I do not want our identity to be tied to the dread we have witnessed.
Our core Jewish identity should be connected to the deepest good, and the wisdom and rituals within our tradition. The awe within Judaism. Where negativity overtime has the possibility of withdrawing and depleting us, the awesome within Judaism can strengthen and support us through the most difficult and darkest of times to eventual brighter days.
In his book entitled “Awe” psychologist Dacher Keltner defines awe as something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world. According to his research, much of what we have been experiencing this year: being in collective gatherings like services and rallies and being witness to each other’s courage, strength and kindness [4] are manifestations of awe.
When we’ve asked each other: “how you are doing?” I have heard you describing the awe you have experienced; your transcendent moments. For example, so many of you told me how powerful it has been to join together in community. I’ve seen it myself. Attendance is up!
Each Shabbat the sanctuary is packed; overflowing into the balcony. I’ve never seen so many people week after week. Our live stream has tens of thousands joining us for each service from around block and across the globe!
More than ever this community is embracing and lifting each other up. A few weeks ago, on a regular Shabbat, the congregation erupted in joy as a Central member for the past fifty-six years came to services in celebration of his one hundredth birthday. Way to go Murray! Tell us your secrets!
We have been elevated by those of us who are becoming bat and bar mitzvah, couples about to be married and families naming their children. I know we especially love the “Lion King” baby blessing moment. We are supporting and cheering each other as if other people’s simchas, other people’s celebrations, are ours—which of course, in part, they are, Am Yisrael Chai, the people of Israel live!
We have found awe in Judaism’s mission to bring more blessing into this world. This year at Central a dedicated group of twenty-five members, are helping a refugee family from Venezuela. This family was recently granted entrance into the U.S. by the State Department. Central has partnered with HIAS, the organization that helped many of our great grandparents come to America, to assist these refugees in their most sensitive first year here. Our Central members are helping them find an apartment, jobs, learn English, enroll three children, ages eight, fifteen and seventeen in school and navigate the complexities of obtaining health insurance. Instead of being consumed with themselves and their fears, these members chose to fulfill the mitzvah of welcoming the stranger and protecting the most vulnerable.
I believe we have many, many miles to go before the crisis before us abates. As we travel into this new year, I am urging us to lean into our tradition—our history, our values, our rituals and religious practices; let us gather together and care for each other and the stranger among us. When we choose to tap into the awesome within these foundational aspects of Judaism we renew ourselves, we steel ourselves, we sustain ourselves for the long haul.
Journalist Bret Stephens, one of our guest speakers this past year, in response to all that has happened suggested we should strive to: “be 10 percent Jewier[5].” With no disrespect to Mr. Stephens, I’d like to amend his charge to us with only this; we should increase the Jewish awe in our lives by chai, 18 percent.
Our synagogue will continue to partner with you in the awesome. Join us for a Shabbat service during a week when you are recognizing a specific blessing in your life, a birthday, an anniversary, perhaps a new job or maybe retirement. Our weekly Saturday morning Mishkan service is one of Central’s best kept secrets. May Mishkan be a secret no more! Make it your business to attend at least one awesome Saturday morning service this new year.
Unlock the awe as we study the Torah, the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud in our weekly classes. Our small groups have the superpower of making our large shul feel small, find one for you or start your own. Be with us in December when renowned educator Tal Becker updates us on all that is happening in Israel. Whether or not you sing on key, and we do not judge here, you can sing each month with our cantors and Shirim Team, our singing club, in our stunning sanctuary. Teenagers, I see you out there, join us at the end of this month for “Midnight Run” where with kavod, with respect, we hand out food and clothes to New Yorkers in need. And teens, get your parents to volunteer with you at our breakfast program that provides a healthy meal to our hungry neighbors three times a week. If you are in your twenties or thirties, in just three weeks, experience with us the magic of a Simchat Torah dance party. This is just a taste of the awesome that we have to offer. Join us for as much as you can. And keep us up to date with the Jewish awesome happening in your life. Call and email the clergy and the staff in our main office to tell us what is going on with you. We want to know; we want to support you; we want to continue to be inspired by you.
We have a custom for when we finish reading a book of the Torah. We say: “be strong be strong and together we will be strengthened,” in Hebrew “Chazak, Chazak, V’nitchazek!” Chazak means strength. Here’s how the ritual works. Right after we read the last word from a book of the Torah, the rabbi chants these Chazak words in Hebrew and then the congregation repeats the words with gusto and then the rabbi chants them again.
Let’s try it now. The words are on the screen. I’ll go first, then you, then I’ll conclude.
Chazak, Chazak, V’nitchazek!
Congregation: Chazak, Chazak, V’nitchazek!
Chazak, Chazak, V’nitchazek!
I have always been struck and amused and puzzled by this all—why this cheering ritual? We're not a basketball team, we're not scoring touchdowns, were reading the Torah. Why the call and aspiration to be strong?
Then this year it dawned on me, when we finish a book of the Torah, when we come together to pray, when we learn together the wisdom within Judaism, when we protect the stranger, when we light the Shabbat candles, week after week…we are strengthened, individually and together by these awesome acts. Especially at times like these, days of fear and awe, it is worth shouting, it is worth cheering about the awesome and the strength that comes from sacred community and engaging in our tradition.
We have found a way to strengthen ourselves throughout this past year; Let us strengthen each other even more in the year ahead.
Let us regularly pack our sanctuary, our hallways and our classrooms. Please join me in saying — Chazak!
Let us feel the power and the joy connected to the pure goodness, and the wisdom and rituals within Judaism — Chazak!
Let us embrace the awe in our Jewish tradition — Chazak!
And let us continue to ask each other “how are you doing” and be strengthened by our ability to listen and stand by and support each other as we go forward into this new Jewish year.
Chazak, Chazak, V’Nitchazek!
Shanah Tovah.
[1] Deuteronomy 10:12
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/0...
[3] https://forward.com/news/64884...
[4] Awe, The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life,” Psychologist and Author Dacher Keltner, p. 7
[5] View Central’s entire interview with Bret Stephens here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwsrqCND_sg
Watch our sermon above or on Youtube, listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or read the transcript above.