God foretold to Abram that there will always be cursers and haters who seek to diminish your achievements, undermine your teachings, and seek to destroy you. The cursers will indeed be cursed: their lives will be poisoned by hatred and envy, lies and self-destruction. While the cursers stew in their jealousy and malice, the blessers will enjoy loving, generous lives. God’s promises to Abram were true then. They are true today.

Religion demands both proper conduct and proper sentiment--adherence to the demands of justice and a grand religious vision characterized by love of God and humanity. God expected Noah—and us—to be not only righteous but to be whole-hearted, pure, loving, visionary. Are we up to it?

If someone asked Enoch if he was religious, he would have answered: “I am striving to be.” When someone asks us: are you religious?  The answer should be, like Enoch’s: “I am striving to be.”

Abraham our father taught us “to keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice.” Generations later, Moses our rabbi taught us the Torah, expanding on the foundations set by Abraham. We are blessed to be heirs of spiritual greatness of the highest order.

Succoth reminds us to keep things in perspective, to appreciate the transience of life and the Eternity of God. It is the time of our rejoicing in the beauties of life, and the meaning of life.

The message of Rosh Hashana is realistic…and optimistic.  Life has times of profound grief and darkness. But the dawn will come, sunshine will prevail, God will be experienced in love and light.

The Torah omits words of thanks from the Cohanim and Levites to teach an important lesson: we are to do the right thing because we want to stand in the presence of God and say: “I’ve done as well as possible.”  Our self-worth is not to be determined by what others say or don’t say, but by what we can say about ourselves before God.