Kol Nidre Sermon; WHERE IS YOSSELE? AND WHERE ARE YOU? AYEKA? KOl Nidre come to help us find ourselves…….. By Rabbi Denise L. Eger

Shabbat Shalom. Gut Yuntif.
Recently I heard a wonderful story about a fruit seller in lower East side in New York who complained to a friend that he wasn't doing very much business. The friend said, "Well, look, you know, you're living in a very Jewish area. Do something to bring in the Jewish customers. Put on the shop 'Fresh fruit from Israel'" - which he did and he got a lot of customers. After a week he decided to go one better. 'Fresh fruit from Jerusalem.' Even more people came in. The next week he decided to go one better still and he put on the shop 'Fresh fruit from the kotel, the Western Wall. After a week his friend came in and said, "How did it work?" And he said, "Terrible! They all came in, kissed the fruit and left."

Tonight is Kol Nidre. You are here and I am glad. I hope you are coming here on this Shabbat to a kiss a few friends and then leave. Because for too much of the year I ask AYEKA? Where are You? Because so many of you come and give a hello which is always wonderful but then you leave until the next year. But this question “AYEKA? Where are you?” is not one of mere location. In fact it is the first question of the entire Torah and perhaps the most profound.
Just after Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad in the Garden of Eden, the story in Genesis Chapter 3 tells us that their eyes were opened and they became aware of their nakedness. Soon they heard God moving about the Garden and they hid.
All of a sudden, with their new found awareness they were afraid of God. They were afraid because they ate the fruit from the only tree of Gan Eden, the Garden of Eden, that Adam had been commanded to refrain from eating. They were aware that they had violated the only rule of the Garden. They thought that they would disappoint God and perhaps anger God because of their transgression. And so they hid. They became aware of their own guilt and were ashamed of their own behavior.
At this very time they heard God moving about at the breezy time of day in the Garden. God is in the wind. And God calls out to Adam and Eve. God calls out, “AYEKA? Where are you?”
This question that God asks of Adam and Eve is not about their physical location in the Garden. It is a question of examination and reflection. It is a question that asks them to figure out what happened. Why do they all of a sudden have to hide? Why do they feel they have to hid rather than fess up to their actions? Ayeka is a question that asks them to confront their behavior, their sins. “AYEKA?” God asks, so that Adam and Eve might think deeply about their soul in relationship to God and one another. It is a rhetorical question that allows Adam and Eve the opportunity to confess their transgressions and come clean.
. AYEKA? Where are you? Is a question that can’t merely be answered in a few words. For this question also reflects the rest of the unfolding story of our Bible. The rest of the Torah, the stories of Genesis and Exodus, Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy try to help place each one of us in the midst of the story of our People. “Where are you?” asks a deep question of us as individuals and as a community. “AYEKA, Where are you?” asks your soul to consider and become aware of your being in the world. This question of “Where are you” asks you to think about yourself in relationship to the Jewish story. “Where are you” asks you to think about your self in relationship to the world at large and yes, in relationship to God.
This is a question we must ask of ourselves tonight. On this holy night of Kol Nidre I think God asks this of us as well. AYEKA? Where are you? Where have you gone astray? Where did you go wrong in the last year? And what can you do during this Yom Kippur to find your way back to your self, and to God? AYEKA we ask tonight. WHERE ARE YOU? This is a question that allows us to come face to face with our wrong doings and try to find our spirit and renew our soul. And for those of you who don’t participate regularly in the life of the community I add this question, “How can you find yourself back to Kol Ami and the Jewish People so that you don’t lose your connection to your story?”
There is a story of a man who cut himself off from his family the last ten years of his life. He was a self-made man who would never know want. He was desperately afraid that someone would come and take away his fortune. And he suspected his family the most so he didn’t talk to any of them.
As he aged, he paid caretakers to help him out during the day. He wouldn’t let anyone stay overnight. When the stroke came, he kept full consciousness, he just couldn’t speak. He fell on the far side of his bed, almost wedged between it and the wall.
The next day, his caretaker couldn’t find him. “Where are you?” the caring female voice called out. “Here!” he said as loudly as he could, knowing that he was only answering in his mind. Where are you, the voice called again. “Here!” he whispered under his breath.
“Where are you?” she called one last time. He felt himself losing consciousness. At the edge of knowing, he realized where he was: Nowhere. Nowhere at all. Today, on Yom Kippur, some of us are like that old man, unconnected, nowhere in spirit. Tonight you have a chance to connect your soul to the story and melody of the Jewish people.
Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur is ours to get connected. To have our souls connect to the 1000’s of other souls who are seeking a place of solace, forgiveness and hope. AYEKA—this question calls upon us to seek out a way to be part of something bigger than ourselves and to move beyond the errors, the shame and guilt to a new beginning.
In this world full of war and terrorism, fear and trembling we sometimes lose our voice. We lose the ability to speak up. We lose the will to seek out others who share deeply in our values because it is easier to hide and cut ourselves off from that which might do harm. Just like Adam and Eve, or the old man who cut himself off from his family. So we nest with our tivo’ed shows and netflix list of movies abdicating our responsibilities to show up and be counted. Let someone else be in charge I have too much on my own plate. To her we say we say AYEKA—Where are you? To him we say Ayeka? Where are you?
We have become a world a victims, like Adam and Eve who pass the blame to the serpent. As Rabbi Marc Gellman writes, “We have created a culture where it is unbelievably easy to evade responsibility for anything we do. It is not that there are no real victims in this society, it is that there are so many perpetrators claiming to be victims that the real victims are lost in the stampede of moral evasion that is trampling our civic and personal virtue into dust.”
From Sen. Craig of Idaho to Lindsey Lohan to Atlanta Falcon’s former quarterback Michael Vick all have tried to evade their responsibility for their actions. Indeed each claimed they were a victim rather than a perpetrator. Each is an example of how our society as a whole evades the idea of accountability. The question we ask tonight of ourselves—“AYEKA? Where are you?” demands of us responsibility and accountability for actions and errors. This is the point of Yom Kippur.
So what will give you the courage to stand and answer the question AYEKA? Where are you? As Jews our tradition teaches us especially at this season that a life of spiritual strength is created when we can confess our errors and admit our wrongdoings. When we can stand even in our guilt and take responsibility for our actions. This is the message of AYEKA? WHERE ARE YOU?
Imagine if Adam and Eve had admitted their wrongdoing perhaps we would all still be living in the Garden of Eden. But the chaos that came into their lives came because of evasion and lies and hiding from God. It is no different for us. Tonight we have the opportunity, the chance to enter the Garden of Eden of forgiveness and wholeness by facing our wrongdoings and truly turning over a new leaf. And the Kol Nidre melody that we heard helps remind us of our task and our story and our past. This night of Kol Nidre, with it haunting melody that we heard earlier captures us and propels us toward the story of our people and the life of Judaism. On this night of Kol Nidre, it is as if that melody has lifted our spirits, released our sins, and maybe, just maybe, fortifies us to answer “Hinenni” I am here.
Where is Yossele? (shortened from the form in Jewish Digest)

When the Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated, many prisoners left the camp and dispersed. Reb Leizer of Czenstochow (cheN´´stukO´vu) was one of the freed inmates. At the opened gate he paused, Where? Where should I go? He knew everyone else in his family had been murdered. All of them came with him to the camp and he saw their bodies carted to the crematoria for burning.
Only one hope remained. When all of the Jews of his town were being rounded up for shipment to Buchenwald, he had been able to smuggle his little son Yossele out of the ghetto and into the gentile section of the town. “Who knows,” said Reb Leizer to himself. “Perhaps the child is still alive, still alive....”
He would go looking for him. But how - and where?
Reb Leizer went back to Czenstochow, (cheN´´stukO´vu) disguised as a beggar. Lest the gentiles in Czenstochow (cheN´´stukO´vu) recognize him, he put on peasants’ clothing and a cap with a low brim down to his eyes. He wandered about the streets and
the market places, and every time he saw a boy about Yossele’s age, he would
stop and look at him closely. Perhaps this was his son. He began asking, guardedly. “Did anyone know the Leizer family or what happened to it?” People told him the family had left the town in the death trains - everyone except the little boy, whom someone had taken to the monastery.
Which monastery? No one knew.
“The boy is alive,” decided Reb Leizer. “I will save him.”
He went from one monastery to the next, inquiring about his son.
The monks denied ever seeing him. No Jewish child, they claimed, had ever
crossed the threshold of a monastery. Reb Leizer knew they were lying, but
what could he do?
He went and bought a hand organ. Among the tunes he put into it
was the melody of the Kol Nidre. Reb Leizer strapped the organ onto his back
and began making the rounds of the streets and yards. Wherever he saw
children playing he would set the organ down on its legs and begin turning the
handle. Immediately he would be surrounded by children. As the children
stood listening, he would watch their eyes closely - particularly when the
organ ground out the tune of Kol Nidre. Did any child’s face change or
show some emotion - fear, perhaps, or sadness and longing?
One day, as the organ was sounding the Kol Nidre tune, a villager
came close and asked, “This sad melody you’re playing - how did you come
to it? Isn’ it one of the songs of the cursed Jews?”
“This is a tune I brought from Siberia,” replied Reb Leizer. “All the songs there are sad.” This seemed to satisfy the peasant and he went away.
Thus did Reb Leizer wander from village to village, from one monastery to the next.
Whenever he saw a child show some emotion as the Kol Nidre melody was played, he knew that the child was Jewish. As all the other children scattered, he would follow this child, talk to him, tell him that the war was over and he could go back to his own people.
For a full year Reb Leizer and his organ made the rounds of the monasteries. He was able to save scores of Jewish children and restore them to their faith. But Yossele was not among them. In the meantime Reb Leizer aroused suspicions. The monks drove him away and he could no longer come near a monastery. Reb Leizer knew that his journey was at an end. He raised his eyes to the heavens and said, “Ribbono Shel Olam, Master of the world, my wife and children went up to heaven in smoke and I have been wandering among the monasteries to find Yossele, in vain. From now on, O Master of the world, I am allowing You the good deed of caring for Yossele. Keep him in Your sight. Safeguard him, along with all the Jewish children for whom there are none to care.
Reb Leizer took his organ and buried it in the ruins of a destroyed synagogue and he went to Israel.
People from that district in Poland say that at times they hear the tunes of a hand organ coming out of the earth and among the tunes is the melody of Kol Nidre.
Tonight we have heard the sad tune of Kol Nidre—just as Reb Leizer used to play it after the war. For each of us there was a sound of recognition for it goes deep into the soul. It haunts us, and taunts us, and urges us to find a place among our people. Just as Reb Leizer asked of Yossele and the children “Where are you?” And just as the children of the monasteries found their way home with this melody played by Reb Leizer, tonight you can find your way home as well. You can find your way home to the Jewish people and let your soul re-connect. The melody we heard tonight can help you find yourself and can help you answer the question AYEKA-Where are you.? You are here—among family and friends, among your people.
Kol Nidre has outed us from our hiding—our hiding from God, our hiding from our past, our hiding from the Jewish people.
Rabbi Bunam taught, “Our sages say “seek peace in your own place.” You cannot find peace anywhere save in your own self. In the psalm we read “There is no peace in my bones because of my sin.” When a person has made peace with herself, she will be able to make peace in the whole world.” (Buber, Late Masters, p.264).
When we answer the question AYEKA -we are making peace in ourselves because we have found ourselves. Or at least we are on the way toward finding our story within the story of our People. Tonight you have begun to answer the question—Tonight let your being here among your people give you strength to follow through—tonight let the Kol Nidre melody you have heard, and the words and songs we have shared together-give you the courage you need to stand and say like Abraham and Sarah, like Moses and Joshua, like King David, and Queen Esther, I am here—Hinenni.
In this New Year may God keep you in God’s care. My you stand proudly and say I am Here.

Ken Yehi Ratzon.
So May It Be God’s Will