Rosh Hashanah second day sermon draft on Kol Yisrael

Sermon draft for the second day of Rosh Hashana-Kol Yisrael





I take the opportunity every year on the second day of Rosh Hashana to offer my thoughts about the state of the world Jewry. Jews the world gathers today, and as much as this is a holy time to reflect on our relationship to God, we sense kinship to fellow Jews everywhere and to our heritage.

I want to start with Jews abroad, because it is more human nature to be concerned about our neighbors and our family, it is more challenging to be concerned about Jews elsewhere. The place to start is the disheartening study of a Jewish sociologist who says that half of American Jews don’t respond positively to the Jewish value of all Israel is responsible one for the other. We need to remember the powerful story in the Torah, when two and one half of the twelve tribes wanted to stay outside of the land of Israel and Moses challenged them with the challenge “Will your brothers go to war while you stay here?.” They finally agreed that it was their responsibility to help settle Israel. That lesson serves as a paradigm for the Jewish value-kol yisrael aravim ze baze- we have a responsibility to our fellow Jews.

We aren’t, of course, only concerned about Jews. Jews, more than any other group of people, are at the forefront of raising consciousness of tragedies elsewhere, in Darfur for example. While Jews are responsible for all, and reminded constantly to help the oppressed, today we speak about our lansmen.



How are our Jewish brethren fairing?



Israel- . The Middle East constantly in our lifetime seems to be on the verge of warfare. The proclivity to war and to terror has little to do with Israel. It is a product of culture and history. Arabs have and do fight Arabs. Sunnis and Shiites, Iran vs. Iraq, etc. When the reversal of decline of the Arab world set in, and the ascent of the west and its power and achievements in every area of human endeavor, has spawned a lust for terror that will not end until the Arab Moslems come to terms with the west. No matter what Israel does, to some extent it will never be enough unless Israel disappeared and even then the violence and terror would not stop. Even after Israel departed from the Sinai, Gaza, Lebanon, and billions of dollars of American aid to Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians, there is not that much progress toward peace. Of course, there is a kind of peace with Egypt and Jordan, but Israel’s past magnimity many in that region see as weakness. Israel’s recent diplomacy has earned it rounds of kidnapping, ransom and rocket attacks. Terror impacts Israel, though the security barrier has greatly cut that down, but still faces regular rocket attacks from Gaza and the North.



We can ask ourselves all day long what if:

-if the Arabs had accepted the UN partition plan in 1947, dividing the mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and Arab state.

-if the Arabs had created a Palestinian state between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan controlled the West Bank

-if the Palestinians had accepted the Clinton parameters in 2000 calling for the creation of the Palestinian state on more than 90% of the west bank, all of Gaza, and East Jerusalem as its capitol.

You can ask all day long what ifs, but shouldn’t young Palestinians be asking why at every opportunity why their parents choose conflict over compromise. Now Gaza and the West Bank as we speak are split – with Hamas determined to destroy Israel and control Gaza. At least PM Omert has been conducting discussions with Abbas of Fatah, and we never stop hoping for progress. Tom Friedman wrote an interesting article in the New York Times talking about how the first three Israeli approaches to peace have been exposed as failures

One-the way of the left: the land for peace is discredited by the collapse of Oslo,

Two-the way of the right permanent Israeli occupation of all the land of Israel has been impossible by Palestinian demographics and through uprisings,

Three-third way unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon and Gaza has been discredited by Hezbollah attacks from Lebanon and Hamas’s rocket attack from Gaza.

So what would the fourth way be? What do we hope for?



Of course, the largest problem is Iran with each passing day, with each triumph and pronouncement, the chance is dim that diplomacy will or can stop Iran’s juggernaut rush to develop nukes. So all the West can do is more tightly squeeze Iran, they can try military action which has very serious consequences, or they can let them go ahead and just hope that deterrence will stop them from nuking Israel and nuking Europe and nuking the West. There isn’t any really clear solution as depressing as that is.



Israel has many other challenges we are called upon to help navigate-religious domination by the Ultra-Orthodox-the government funds only Orthodox synagogues and rabbis and the religious decisions are made by them,

Poverty is a significant problem, often exacerbated by the many thousands of able bodied ultra orthodox men who study all day in lieu of employment



On a positive note, when we think about Israel, 83% of Jewish Israelis say they are satisfied or extremely satisfied with their lives and nearly ¾ of Israeli Arabs say they feel the same way. In the orthodox community it is 97%. Can you find that many people in any other country in the world say they are extremely satisfied? The Israeli economy continues to bloom, in spite of the second Lebanon war, the divestments, and the boycotts, Israel’s economy enjoyed the largest growth in the GMP in any western country at 8% in the last quarter of 2006. Lists of Israel’s amazing achievements in just the first ¾ of the year is long and phenomenal. The budget deficit was under 1%, industrial exports leading the surge, and high tech industry.

For those who follow this, it is unbelievable how often Israel comes up with revolutionary inventions that will help make the world so much better. Last year some Israeli scientists came up with a straw that you can stick into completely polluted dangerous water and it filters the water so you can drink it. Of course it will save much of the world of terrible disease, because so much of the fresh water is polluted, but some of the Islamic countries, when they heard it was Israel invented it, didn’t want to buy it because they would rather have their citizens suffer. Just in the first few months of this year, Israel found that brackish water drilled from underground desert aquifers could be used to raise warm water fish They are moving forward fast on advances in treatment of Lou Geris disease and Stephen Hawkings, one of the world’s greatest scientists came, he taught them but he also learned that they are making great progress on that disease that could help him and thirty thousand Americans. They have a new capsule that sits in the stomach of animals that sends real time information on the health of the herd. They have made huge progress in helping heart disease and a device that uses electrical nerve stimulation to treat congestive heart failure. These are just a few of the continual achievements of Israel.

In contrast to the efforts to the tiny Israel to make contributions to the world, to make better humankind, we have to ask what of those who strive to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth, ----what have they contributed, other than create hate and bloodshed, and we have to wonder what Israel could achieve if it were just left alone.

So what is our obligation to Israel, what is our answer to Moses when he said “will you stay here and sit on your seat and your brothers go to war”?

First visit if at all possible. We are planning another trip in May. We had a very successful trip last October of twenty-seven people Come with us or go on some other trip- go by yourself, but visit.

One the bright spot in this regard has been the birthright to Israel program, where Jewish young people between the ages of 18 and 26 get a free trip. Over the past 12 months the papers have reported that 45 thousand applied for birthright, which is more that the 30 thousand who have a bar/bat mitzvah this year in the United States. Birthright has become an important Jewish right of passage. While 44 thousand have applied this year, funding limitations mean only 12 to 18 thousand can go on each of the sessions. Right now, 150 thousand participants have come from 52 countries to participate, an amazing program. The evidence is already piling up about the impact that has.



Two Financial help-After the synagogue, which of course should be everyone’s number one tseddakah priority, it’s your synagogue, we need it to survive, worldwide Jewry and Israel has to be right up there, with donations to the UJA, part of our synagogue’s continuing support, Jewish United Fund of Chicago, which gives about half its money to worldwide Jewry in Israel. Our past president, Alan Carroll, give a pitch for investing in Israel Bonds, which helps support Israel’s activities-, the Jewish National Fund which plants trees, helps with water conservation and land development, women’s organizations like Hadassah and Naamat, which support so much medical care in Israel.

Three-We have to be active politically. I am so happy that when we were in Israel last year, an Israeli employee of AIPAC in Jerusalem spoke to our group, and the Hermans and the Urbans went with me to the AiPAC conference. I hope others of you will go with me this year in June and all of you could join. We need to be involved with our Congress people, our state and house legislators because you never know who is going to move up in politics. We also must explain Israel’s predicament and position to our neighbors. It makes a big difference. And now with election season rolling around again, we must make our voices heard with the candidates.



And what about our fellow Jews everywhere?

When various British organizations reach to the bottom morally and vote to Boycott Israeli academics etc, British Jews suffer. Jews in many places around the world feel ever less safe. Every week there seems to be a new revelation of a forestalled terror attack here or abroad and constant threats to kill Jews. attack on Fort Dix, Eight British Muslim doctors, who are conceiving a plot, and suicide bombing continues. CNN showed a video of a Middle East school suicide bombing graduation ceremony with nearly 300 suicide bombers graduated. And Leno’s quip was that all of them were doing the same thing this summer that most graduates do, backpacking through Europe. It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. We are fighting people who blow up Mosques, markets, hospital emergency wards, and girls’ schools. It is a culture of death. The suicide Jihadists are so hard to defeat because they have no desire to build anything. Their only goal is to make sure America and Israel fails in its effort to help make the Middle East decent, pluristic and progressive. Argentina has a large Jewish community-hundreds of thousands. There is a growing link betwen that country and Venezuela, whose dictator, Chavez, has a very close relationship with Iran, a contry whose president continuously calls for the destruction of Isrel and is suspected of being behind the 1994 bombing of the JCC that killed 85.



What about American Judaism? The tale of 2 cities-best of times and worst of times-

We have our own terror issues to worry about. Tom Freedman of the New York Times reported on a study done of American Moslems, and the conclusion overall they are better assimilated and more concerned about the religious extremism than their counterparts in the rest of the world. And yet, what I found scary about that study was that among those under 30, despite deeper American roots, one in four young Moslems think suicide bombing in the name of Islam can be justified – one out of four American Moslems under thirty. Clearly building relations with moderate Muslims must continue, as we maintain vigilance.





In a new book about the study of Jewish future by Calvin Goldshiver, he writes convincingly about the astonishing proliferation of vibrant creative Jewish activities, the unprecedented availability of Jewish educational venues and materials. Conversion to Judaism, and I am proud to say we have the city’s largest conversion program here, run by my wife Gail, has yielded may new passionate and committed Jews. We must reach out worldwide and welcome those who might find a spiritual home with the Jewish people, much as our ancestors did until stopped by foreign powers. We have Jews-by-choice here working to build better relations with the African American and Hispanic communities. One Latino fellow who says his family were Marranos from 500 years ago in Spain is translating my youtubes into Spanish.



In clear ways we are all Jews-by-choice today. We have free choice. How can we exercise it properly?

Women’s Jewish activism well established and sweeping development has revitalized adult Jewish education in many communities.

Perhaps the most encouraging fact is the majority of Jews are not fleeing connections with other Jews in Judaism. While the book Bowling Alone a few years ago chronicled America’s diminishing sense of joining others in community, and people increasingly isolated themselves in the audio visual game rooms, instead, Jews statistically continue to have some Jewish friends observed some Jewish rituals, belong to some type of Jewish organization, have visited Israel, and have some interest in Jewish cultural, spirituality or social action. He writes in the book “in diverse ways, Jews consider being Jewish one of the most important things in their lives. Therein lies hope for the Jewish future and motivation to meet its challenges”.

College Jewish studies are a real bright spot. My son is now starting Indiana University, and for those who know, Indiana University awhile ago didn’t have much Jewish study, but today you can major in Jewish studies, living in a Jewish interest group housing program. When I went to University of Chicago years ago, they had one Jewish study’s professor in medieval Jewish history, a course in biblical Hebrew and some Biblical courses in the divinity school. Now they have a big program in Jewish learning there.

Camping and day school The Reconstructionist movement now has a new summer-camp in the East and is thriving. The Conservative movement’s Ramah camp is thriving. Chicago will formally dedicate its new beautiful Jewish High School building on the 30th.





There are many challenges. When the Development Director of the Jewish Theological Seminary of Chicago’s office came to visit me, she said I was the first Rabbi she talked to whose Conservative Synagogue’s membership wasn’t dropping, but in fact, was increasing. May it continue. But we must continue to grow. Every Jew has an obligation to the Jewish people, to God and to history to belong to a synagogue. Every one of us has to think beyond ourselves to the next generation-dor ldor and make a commitment in our estate planning to the synagogue.

We face many challenges nationally and internationally on the assimilation front. On what basis today is the average Jewish household different from the non-Jew next door?

What can we do? We can do our share. We can create the strongest, most vibrant synagogue we can, where people who comes with questions and essential human needs:

What’s the meaning in life?

Where is my community?

How do I connect?

How do I feel God’s presence in my life?

What is my purpose?

What do I do with my God given talent?



We need to support our fellow Jews in the state of Israel, and the Jews who are threatened in worldwide communities while our key task is to learn our tradition, and live it while providing a sacred, religious community here. We do that so we can help people sanctify their lives daily through prayer, through deeds of loving kindness, and we help them honor the godliness in every human being, in a sacred community of welcoming, because we are here to be God’s partner. We need to do that and to help bring God’s kingdom closer to earth.