These anonymous souls deserve respect and appreciation. They represent the good people of every generation—including our own—who stand faithfully and loyally with the descendants of Abram and Sarai. They are with us in good times and bad; they sacrifice for us and for our shared ideals.
To raise a Tzadik, parents must themselves live by the values they wish to convey to their children. Otherwise, the children will quickly realize that the parents are not sincere, not truthful, not worthy of emulation. What’s true of parents and children is also true of rabbis, teachers, and everyone else who wishes to impact on others. Good role models help generate good followers. Bad role models generate negative results.
God could have created Adam from precious metals, from stardust, or from pure spirit but chose rather to use dust of the ground. From dust we learn humility...but also self-respect.
Judaism that is based primarily on the “conservative” tendency becomes dry and over-ritualized. Judaism that is based primarily on the “restorative” element becomes quixotic and irrelevant. Judaism that is based primarily on the “utopian” element becomes deracinated, flailing out in various directions while disconnecting itself from the wellsprings of Jewish tradition.
The challenge of this season is for us to listen more carefully to our inner scientist and to ask our inner lawyer to stop making excuses for us. Prayers of confession are not meant to weaken us but to give us confidence that we can change for the better, we can grow spiritually, we can overcome past shortcomings. If we let our inner scientist win, the holy day season will be a success.
If we want to vent our anger at the nations of the world, we certainly have had more than enough provocation. But the festivals of Succoth and Shemini Hag Atsereth remind us that the Jewish people have a different approach. We do not wish evil on our enemies; we only wish them to repent, to see the light of reason and justice. We do not pray for their destruction: we pray for their well-being!
We have the power to direct our inner thoughts in the direction of happiness. We have the capacity to overcome feelings of distress, by channeling our emotions in constructive ways.
The Shofar plays a central role in the Rosh Hashana liturgy and invariably is one of the highlights of the synagogue service. Its primordial sounds are meant to awaken us from spiritual slumber; and to evoke thoughts and emotions relating to the Akeida story, the Revelation at Sinai, and the Messianic Redemption.
Interesting insights about Succoth have come from the pen of Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), the First Earl of Beaconsfield. Disraeli was of Jewish birth, whose family had been associated with the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation in London. Although his father had Benjamin baptized to Anglicanism at age 12, Disraeli never denied his Jewish roots. He rose to become the first—and thus far only—British Prime Minister of Jewish ancestry.
Although we popularly refer to the upcoming fast day as Yom Kippur, the Torah calls it Yom haKippurim—the day of atonements (in the plural). The plural form reminds us that there are many roads to atonement. Each person is different and is on a unique spiritual level; each comes with different insights, experiences, memories. The roads to atonement are plural, because no two of us have identical needs.