Rosh Hashanah Morning 5771 - Israel Sermon

As many of you know I spent the month of my sabbatical this summer in Israel. For the last number of years I have spent some time each summer there. It keeps me grounded and connected in a different way to the ancient stories of our people when I can walk the streets of Jerusalem and feel the bustle of Tel Aviv. Israel is more than just the modern state of Israel born in 1948. Its tendrils reach out to us from ancient times.

I imagine myself as I walk in Jerusalem in the footsteps of the people when the Temple stood so beautifully on Mt. Moriah. I imagine even further when Jacob and his family had to bury his beloved Rachel on the road as they travelled and I visit her tomb just outside Bethlehem. I imagine Abraham schlepping Isaac up the mountain to that strange encounter when God's love and compassion kept Abraham from destroying his child, his dream and his future and ours.

This image in my mind however is the fantasy of the past. The Romanticization of our history. But it is this history of our people played out on the cobblestones and hills of Israel that reminds me I am part of something so much bigger than just the rabbi of West Hollywood or just Denise Eger. It links me eternally to a bigger family. It reminds me I am not alone. That connection is the testimony that we are part of the Jewish people and that land is our heritage and birthright.

So too the pioneer myths of those that came in the 1920's to build up the land of Israel. You know the stories of the chalutzim-the pioneers that founded the first kibbutz, Degania in the Galilee. They worked day and night—these European peasants and intellectuals that escaped pogroms of Eastern Europe. Their calloused hands drained the swamps. Planted trees and out of nothing built a country. By the sweat of their brow and the back –breaking work, the image of the pre-state of Israel—that we once called Palestine-during the time of the British mandate following World War I was also a romantic image of black and white newsreels. It was these images and the blue boxes of the Jewish National Fund to plant trees in Palestine/Israel that helped create generations of Zionists. Then not a dirty word.

And of course the ever present threats against this group of Jews and in truth all Jews around the world. Arabs marauders who would attack in the dead of night. Riots in Jaffa/Tel Aviv in the 1920's that killed some of the youngest and brightest whose graves are still marked in Tel Aviv today. And of course over the last 60 years—the image of the IDF Soldier –small Israel fending off attack after attack of the strong Arab states—from the War of Independence to the Yom Kippur war in 1973. This image of small Israel against the world fueled our Zionism. Fueled our connection and caring about Israel and shaped our Jewish identities. Israel was a place to be proud of.

The height of course, in a blossoming romantic relationship with Israel being the Six day war in June of 1967. This is when Israel came into its own—and we American Jews took notice in a new way. Our pride, our identities as Jews became entwined with the modern state of Israel in an important way that shaped us and shaped Israelis. Because Israel had new respect in the world. Because we Jews were strong after being decimated by the Shoa. Because we Jews in America in the late 1960's were involved in the struggle for African American civil rights and emerging liberty and justice and Israel's win against all odds, the underdog overcoming the mighty many was symbolic on so many levels.

But today our relationship as an American Jewish community is very different than this. And it is very troubling. Most of American Jews are disengaged from Israel. Perhaps you are one of them. Among liberal Jews this is most acute. And our young people—those in their 20's-30's –too young to remember the Six Day War, or the Yom Kippur War or even understand the images of Holocaust refugees and survivors rebuilding their lives in an ancient land-are more disengaged from Israel than ever before. Even though Birthright—the organization in the Jewish community that offers a nearly free trip to Israel for young people ages 18-26 has surpassed more than 100,000 young people going to Israel, young Jews are disinterested and even hostile to Israel. And in truth so are many of us.

We believe the slanted news reports of CNN and others. We haven't ever visited and are scared to do so by images we see on screen. And so we are disconnected from a place that is your birthright. A holy place even when the policy of the government isn't so holy.

We don't understand or we don't have a connection to that sacred place. We don't see it as a place that speaks to us. It might be a place to visit along side our list of other exotic locales but Israel is no longer for most American Jews of any age a holy place.

We don't understand how Israel—can behave the way it does on the world stage at times. It doesn't make sense to us. And we can't understand as liberal Jews a chief Rabbinate that represents religious and spiritual values so different than our own!

In a radical and controversial article that appeared in the New York Review of Books Peter Bienart, Associate Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York, blasted the American Jewish establishment for its handling of the relationships between American Jewish college students and Israel. He described the findings of in-depth research conducted to assess the relationship of young Jews to Israel. And here is the heart of the findings: I quote from his article:

Among American Jews today, there are a great many Zionists, especially in the Orthodox world, people deeply devoted to the State of Israel. And there are a great many liberals, especially in the secular Jewish world, people deeply devoted to human rights for all people, Palestinians included. But the two groups are increasingly distinct. Particularly in the younger generations, fewer and fewer American Jewish liberals are Zionists; fewer and fewer American Jewish Zionists are liberal. One reason is that the leading institutions of American Jewry have refused to foster—indeed, have actively opposed—a Zionism that challenges Israel's behavior in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and toward its own Arab citizens. For several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism's door, and now, to their horror, they are finding that many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead.

Bienart correctly describes the frustration of young American liberal Jews and in truth many of us. Our progressive Jewish values seem to clash with the Jewish state. Why can't there be peace with the Palestinians? Why isn't there religious freedom for liberal Jews? And why are women not allowed to read Torah at the wall? All important questions to be asked and important questions that need answers.

But instead of engaging when we disagree with Israeli policy we Liberal Jews have checked out—we are disengaged with Israel. Too many of us no longer see it as part of our birthright, our heritage, our concern. We have become as hostile to Israel as her enemies. And in the LGBT community the hostility to Israel is deep even when Israel is the only country in the Middle East where gay men and lesbians live in relative peace and equality.

And this morning of Rosh Hashanah I want to challenge you to remember that indeed Israel is not just some place over there. But yours and mine. Israel is ours. We might not live there. But we have an important stake in Israel's success and survival and Israel's success and survival with Jewish values. A Jewish Democratic Israel.

This summer as I studied in Israel a group of women rabbis from the U.S. who were studying with me at the Hartman Institute decided to join for Rosh Chodesh prayers, the prayers welcoming the new month, the group known as Women at the Wall. Women at the Wall, led by former Jerusalem city councilwoman Anat Hoffman who is now the head of our Reform movement's Israel Religious Action Center there. Each month this group gathers at the Western Wall on the women's side to pray together to welcome the new month. If you attended our Selichot services this past Saturday night you saw first hand the struggle of the women of the Wall documented in the film "Praying in Her Own Voice."

It was this group that sued the Chief Rabbinate in the Israeli Supreme Court for equal rights for women to pray aloud at the Wall and to read Torah. You see the Rosh Chodesh morning service includes a Torah reading. The chief Rabbinate of Israel refuses to let women read from the Torah not just there but especially there. They lost their court battle kind of. They were allowed to pray but not loudly and they were allowed to wear their tallitot but more like scarves wrapped around their necks and they were allowed to read Torah—but not at the Kotel plaza in front of the Wall but down away from the Plaza in a separate area far away from the main part of the Kotel.

In July the group was a large group who had gathered that morning because there were also a lot of tourists that joined in. And so we were 150 women singing the morning worship. All the while the Jerusalem police were asking us to sing quieter. I had the privilege of standing next to Anat and we prayed together sharing a siddur. You can see the video of us together on YouTube. Anat always come to speak to Kol Ami groups when we are visiting Israel.

The curses from the other side of the screen grew in volume and intensity as our prayers grew louder. The police kept asking us to move to the back of the women's section because we kept inching forward to make room for all the women who joined us as the davening went on. The police weren't impolite but they were getting upset as our sense of community emboldened our prayers. On the men's side were some of the husbands sons and friends of Women of the Wall praying with us and protecting us in case stones should suddenly fly over the screen. Leading us in prayer was a young Conservative Jewish Medical Student Nofrat Frankel who had been arrested last November for leading the prayers at the monthly Rosh Chodesh gathering in too loud a voice.

When we came to the Torah service Anat moved to the back of the gathering to get the Torah which was transported in a large canvas zipped bag. She felt emboldened by the music, and prayer and sheer numbers who came to take it out and carry it properly away from the wall toward spot we would read it. The group sang Torah songs much like on Simchat Torah never stopping singing. As we exited the plaza through the turnstiles near the Dung gate the police appeared and began to jostle us—and Anat. I was standing next to her. And they started to surround her and grabbing at the Torah to remove it from her arms. In Hebrew she kept saying it is my Torah, it is our Torah (the Torah had been commissioned and written for Women of the Wall by the Women of Reform Judaism at a URJ Biennial).

They whooshed her and the Torah into a waiting police jeep. And drove her off in front of me and us to the police station at the Jaffa Gate. The Torah and Anat were arrested. Or at least detained. We all walked to the police station...finished the service singing outside the police compound. Anat and the Torah were released an hour later. With a slap on the wrist—saying she was banned from the Kotel plaza for 30 days. So she would miss Rosh Chodesh Elul. But the next day she appeared before the Knesset committee on Women and Equality, describing the outrage of what had happened. Many of us were with her there too. And now just a day ago—the ministry of Justice has indicated they will charge Anat with a felony. Not reading the Torah but merely carrying a Sefer Torah. What absurdities and what contradictions?

But because of what happened to Anat, to the Torah, and to us liberal Jews should we walk away? Should we stand with her. And stand our ground because we know when there has been an injustice. Should we stand to ensure a Jewish Democratic state—that needs us, that is crying out for a liberal, Jewish and spiritual life.

But let's be honest there is also so much we don't understand because Israel is so complex. It is western and Middle Eastern at the same time. It is a country that participates in the world with Developed nations while surrounded by third world countries and economies. It is a start-up nation as documented by a book of the same name. Did you know Israel is only second to the U.S. in the number of companies listed on the NASDEC index?

It is a country trying to figure out what it means to be a Jewish Democratic State. And fulfill a vision that we Americans can only partially relate to because we separate our faith, our religion from our politics. We here do it so naturally. And for we Jews it has been an important part of our success in this country ensuring the separation of Church and State.

But unlike here—in Israel Jews are a majority. The calendar is a Jewish calendar. Imagine there's hardly a Christmas carol within earshot in December! And so we American liberal Jews have a hard time understanding the unique blending of Jewish culture and the state that is critical to the fabric of Israel.

Israel is still the only democracy in that region. It is a thriving country. In the recent Newsweek article about the best countries to live in Israel ranked Number 22 out of 100. Israel's economy is one of the strongest in the world. Israel's technology sector created everything from your cell phone to the technology that created instant messaging, programs that created comparative shopping programs like ebay and biotechnology like drip irrigation that has changed the way agriculture is done. Israel has incredible equality in the area of gay and lesbian rights including the right to serve in the military and adoptions and the recognition of marriages performed in other jurisdictions. Israel has 9 Nobel Prize winners including the most recent last year in Chemistry!

When you go to Israel and spend some time there. You also gain a different perspective on what it means to be surrounded by hostile nations. The threats against Israel are greater than ever. With Iran's nuclear program about to power up in a new way and Hezbollah and Hamas having longer range missiles that can cover the entire country-Israel is more vulnerable to attack than ever. And this changes many equations in the balance of power.

But even as Israel struggles with these questions of national security and protection—Israel has been caught in its success of the six day war and the ways in which the Arab nations abandoned the Palestinians. On the one had the Arab nations use the Palestinian cause as a rallying cry but they do little to support the establishment of a peaceful Palestinian homeland or a governing infrastructure. In fact Palestinians have few rights in neighboring countries of Jordan and Lebanon and Syria. Did you know that in Lebanon-Palestinians—born in Lebanon but of Palestinian descent cannot become doctors? Certain professions in Lebanon are only for born Lebanese. It was only in late August that Lebanon gave limited employment rights to Palestinian refugees. (http://www.wtop.com/?sid=2025536&nid=500). And in Jordan where 50 percent of the population is of Palestinian descent they also do not have rights. In fact in February the Human Rights Watch reported the Jordan has been systematically removing citizenship rights from Palestinians. (http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=167512). In recent months more than 3000 Palestinians born in Jordan have had their Jordanian citizenship rights removed as Jordan worries about a Palestinian majority taking over their country. And yet Israel when it worries about a Palestinian or Arab majority changing the Jewish nature of the state of Israel we are called racists by the world.

And so even as the Israelis and Palestinians have agreed to sit down to direct negotiations in recent weeks many questions remain. In a conference Call with President Obama on Tuesday with American Rabbis, he reported to us that he was pleasantly surprised at the openness and frankness of the discussions between Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas. The two agreed to a year time table and agreed to meet every two weeks to hammer out a peace agreement. There will be rhetoric along the way, playing to the home crowd, and many who will want to subvert and pervert the process. But let us pray on this New Years Day for the hope of our people—peace with Israel's neighbors.

We won't solve the problems as complex as they are. But as Jews living in the 21st century we have to assert our historic and spiritual right to the sacred land that was given to Abraham our ancestor.

And we have to encourage Israel to live up to its highest spiritual ideal of our tradition to treat the Israeli Arab citizens with equality and dignity. To allow a diversity of Religious Jewish expressions. And to sit down with her neighbors as Israel is doing again to talk about peace. But not to abandon Israel to the world's anti Israel and anti Semitic rhetoric fueled by a mischaracterization and lies about what Israel is and what Israel stands for.

This New Year Israel needs you. Needs you to get Engaged. I invite you to join me in a series of Conversations about Israel. From the left and the right that will open our hearts to this sacred holy place, that is our birthright. So that our Jewish values of dignity and respect for people and our vision of Jewish life for the 21st Century is expressed fully and embraced in the Jewish state.

Ken Yehi Ratzon So may it be God's will.

Rabbi Denise L. Eger
Congregation Kol Ami
Rabbi@kol-ami.org
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Erev Rosh Hashanah 5771 - Environmental Sermon

Shanah Tovah.

Tonight begins Rosh Hashanah and we celebrate the creation of the world. How marvelous is this place! This world that we live in is a gift from God. We call today, this first day, Rosh Hashanah, in our tradition Yom Harat Olam—the day the world was conceived. And our birth tale is such that we look to the Garden of Eden as the unique and pastoral and peaceful birthplace of our world. Gan Eden, Paradise, the Garden of Eden we call it.

When God made the world, 5771 years ago according to our calendar... (Ok we lovers of science know that it is longer than that...but it is a creation myth not a creation theory) God saw that it was good! Throughout the narrative of the Creation story... we see that it is good. The world is good, humanity is good.

And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas; and God saw that it was good

And God made two great lights; the large light to rule the day, and the small light to rule the night; and he made the stars. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.

Everything in the opening story of creation is created and blessed with goodness. Goodness overflows in the story of creation. And that is part of the promise of tonight, the promise of the New Year, of Rosh Hashanah. We celebrate the Creation of the World and goodness overflows to each one of us.

We too look toward the New Year in the hopes that we can say. This is very Good... Yehi tov m'od. This is why we say Shanah Tovah==And wish each other a good year. We want it all to flow from that same goodness of creation. Today—Hayom.

We dip the sweet apples in honey too as symbol of the goodness of life and the hope for the year. Apples are associated with Love, awakening and birth. We dip the already sweet apples in an extra coating of sweetness and goodness as a symbolic prayer that helps us ask for the same coating of sweetness and goodness over our already sweet lives.

We remember on this Creation Day that we too have a chance to create our world anew. We have a chance to birth a new self, a new world, a new way of doing things. We on Rosh Hashanah can invite a new way of being and acting. But on this Rosh Hashanah we have to acknowledge the aches and pains of our world. Our earth more than ever is crying out to us to do change, to create our world anew. The tears come from the Heavens as the Angels and God weep for what we have done to our world.

Adam and Eve looked around the Garden and saw abundance and beauty. It was a lush and beautiful eco-system. A utopia where their needs were met and their desires fulfilled. They lived in harmony with nature, with the plants and animals and all was provided for them. Of course this was until they ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Until their own coming of age and awareness of self and awareness of the world. And with that awareness—a different relationship to the earth. One where they had to work and toil; one that had its ups and downs, pains and joys. They were responsible for the earth now.

Adam and Eve after their expulsion from the Garden had a unique responsibility to care for and toil to create their world. No longer was it just provided for them. They were more fragile and so was their world. In fact, that fragility, that unique awakening to the harshness that can come in real life, the cruelties and vagaries of each day made them appreciate all the more so the tender goodness of the Garden of Eden. Once it was provided for them. Now they had to care for their world. So too for each of us.

When we were children – our world was provided for us. Now as adults we have to care for our world. Rosh Hashanah reminds us to look at the way in which we are caring for ourselves and our world.

On this creation Day—Hayom Harat Olam –we can no longer hide our eyes from the trauma that our earth is in. Our globe is hurting. On this Rosh Hashanah the time has come for us to respond-to literally create our world anew.

As Rabbi Daniel Troster writes in Interpreting Jewish Environmental Texts on the Coalition for Environment and Jewish Life website:

"Psalm 115:16 says "The heavens belong to Adonai, but the earth God gave over to humanity." On the surface, this is not a supportive environmental text. And sometimes anti-environmental religious people quote it as a basis for the total human use and abuse of creation. But that is not how we need to understand it. Abraham ibn Ezra, a 12th century Bible commentator wrote, "The ignorant have compared humanity's rule over the earth with God's rule over the heavens. This is not right, for God rules over everything. The meaning of but the earth God gave over to humanity is that humanity is God's officer [or steward -- pakeed] over the earth and must do everything according to God's word." In other words, humanity is not free to do what it wants with God's creation. We are here to act as the stewards of creation on God's behalf and that means taking care of it, not wasting or abusing it" (http://www.coejl.org/learn/je_interpret.php).

According to Jewish tradition we are not over the earth, but we have a responsibility to care for the earth. Like Adam and Eve the first humans. Because yes, our earth, our worlds are fragile. We are fragile.

My friends, we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And the time of reckoning has come. We can no longer claim innocence. That we don't understand what is happening to our world as corporations abuse our planet without a sense of responsibility and we recklessly consume and throw our waste away.

The Midrash teaches us: "God led Adam around all the trees of the Garden of Eden. And God said to Adam: 'See My works, how good and praiseworthy they are? And all that I have created, I made for you. [But] be mindful that you do not spoil and destroy My world--for if you spoil it, there is no one after you to repair it." (Midrash Kohelet Rabbah 7:13)

Our earth, our planet home is suffering and we must do something more than we are doing now. Increasingly we are negatively impacting the globe, our planet home. There is no one after us to repair it. We have to take responsibility for our role in the continuing destruction of our environment, our eco-systems, and our food supply. We have to take responsibility for the fragility that is our worlds and walk with greater care. Rosh Hashanah is our reminder. Care of all of our worlds: Our fragile inner world and our fragile outer world.

I don't know about you, but for more than 100 days this spring and summer, as I watched millions of gallons of oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico my heart broke. What are we doing to our world, our planet home? We have eaten of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. We have let our corporate interests run amok and run wild. In our oil and fuel thirst driving our big engine SUV's and cars we are not living out our Jewish values to care for God's creation.

This summer was the hottest on record back east and one of the coolest on record here in the west coast. In Russia, choking smoke filled the air around Moscow as the forest fires burned and toxic trees of Chernobyl burned in the summer heat. The contamination was overwhelming.

It is clear that climate change is here to stay. And yet when our government had the opportunity to enact new standards this summer, when it had a chance with to enact sweeping changes in the face of the Gulf Oil disaster—the political polarization of Washington put it asunder. The climate and energy bill that was a part of Obama's agenda died this summer. Despite the fact that a June poll showed that 76 percent of Americans want our government to limit climate pollution! His own cabinet lacked the will and the way to take advantage of the moment when our nation was looking and seeing what price we pay when we pollute our earth.

According to Wired.com This summer "100-square-mile block of ice 600 feet thick has calved off one of the largest ocean-bordering glaciers in Greenland. The Arctic hasn't lost a chunk of ice that large since 1962." "In the early morning hours of Aug. 5, an ice island four times the size of Manhattan was born in northern Greenland," oceanographer Andreas Muenchow of University of Delaware said in a press release Aug. 6. "The freshwater stored in this ice island could keep the Delaware or Hudson rivers flowing for more than two years. It could also keep all U.S. public tap water flowing for 120 days." (Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/ice-breaks-off/#ixzz0wL9O86pM)

This is further proof that we cannot wait. Further proof that our world is out of balance. And yet we twiddle our thumbs as our earth cries out to us. How fragile our worlds: Our inner worlds and our outer worlds. Rosh Hashanah is our time to begin the repair. This is the Creation Day. Let us begin to create with God in mind the new ways of living and letting goodness flow.

A recent study from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) concluded that an all-out societal investment in energy efficiency could save 46 billion barrels of oil by 2030. That is considerably more than the 4.8 billion barrels produced by domestic offshore drilling over the last nine years. The study recommended strategies such as mass transit, more fuel efficient cars, and improved freight movement.

Rav Zutra, in the Talmud (Shabbat 67b), mandates fuel efficiency, saying that those who burn more fuel than necessary violate the law of not wasting (bal tashchit).

And a 13th century German text, Sefer HaChinuch (529), suggests that: "Tzadikim (righteous) people of good deeds...do not waste in this world even a mustard seed. They become sorrowful with every wasteful and destructive act that they see, and if they can, they use all their strength to save everything possible from destruction. But the r'sha'im (wicked) are not thus; they are like demons. They rejoice in the destruction of the world, just as they destroy themselves."

My friends, this is the season and this is the time. You can choose goodness or not. You can tap into the flow of goodness from the Garden of Eden. On this birthday of the world, the time of celebrating the creation of the world-we cannot go on despoiling creation. And we cannot just think this is someone else's problem. It is each of ours. We need to find a way in our personal lives to each make a contribution to caring for our planet. Maybe it's the choice of car that you will drive or a commitment to using public transportation. Maybe it is changing every light bulb in your house to a CFL bulb that will be more energy efficient. But we don't have the luxury anymore of doing nothing at all.

When it comes to water usage there is much to be done because water shortages are a looming consequence of climate change. In fact, water shortages are in many parts of the world more pressing and more dangerous than oil shortages and food shortages. Water and lack of access to clean water is of utmost importance. According to scientists at the Sandia National Nuclear Laboratories in a report in the spring of 2008 water shortages by 2025 will be faced by half of the nations in the world and by 2050 as much as 75 percent of the world's population could face freshwater scarcity. They say, "Drinking water supplies, agriculture, energy production and generation, mining and industry all require large quantities of water. In the future, these sectors will be competing for increasingly limited freshwater resources, making water supply availability a major economic driver in the 21st century." http://www.news-medical.net/news/2008/04/02/36909.aspx, September 7, 2010).

Climate change causes less rain to fall and thus freshwater reserves are not replenished.

So what can you do? How can you make changes that matter.

Inside your home or apartment:

Use the plug in your basin or sink - don't leave water running unnecessarily

Always wash a full load in your washing machine or in your dishwasher

Fix dripping taps and make sure that they are turned off fully - in one week a dripping tap can waste a bathful of water. Have a shower instead of a bath - an ordinary shower uses two-fifths of the water in a bath but power showers use 4 times as much water as a normal shower

Outside:

Water plants in the early evening - less water will evaporate. Change your landscaping to more drought resistant plantings.

Perhaps these seem so elementary, so basic but our country uses more of the earth's resources than any other. And our gluttony is killing our world and will eventually kill us too.

As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes in "A Passion for Truth" (Jewish Lights Publishing, April 1995), p.24

"Human beings must cherish the world, said the Baal Shem. To deprecate, to deride it was presumption. Creation, all of creation, was pervaded with dignity and purpose and embodied God's meaning"

On this sacred New Year's Day the time to infuse our lives with meaning is now. The time to infuse ourselves with God's meaning is now. And the choices we make in small ways and large ways have an impact on our lives and the life of the world. You are not a being in isolation. Though you may live alone, you are never really alone—for our world is an interdependent place. And each choice that you make reverberates not only in your life but around the globe.

Paper or plastic is not just a preference at Ralph's or Pavilions. But what we use and how we use it impacts everything and everyone around us.

This past year at Kol Ami we did two things that were very important and very symbolic to this end. First, we ended our use of bottled water. We installed a filter in the kitchen to filter out chemicals in the water we do use but even though we recycled the plastic bottles, we eliminated buying all those plastic bottles some of which no doubt ended up in landfills.

And secondly we did something even more symbolic and powerful:

As you know every synagogue has an eternal light. That light reminds us of God's ever present light and love in our lives. The Eternal Light is a reminder of the holy light that filled that ancient temple home of the Shekinah. And so to keep this light ongoing –our Eternal Light in our sanctuary home on La Brea was converted to a solar powered light. As long as the sun shines—our Eternal light will burn brightly at Kol Ami. It should remind you of our partnership and our stewardship of our earth. God shines in our home, the Shekinah shines in our spiritual home because the sun shines upon us. The partnership between our world and the Heavenly world is unique and holy.

Our congregation also does other important environmentally sensitive acts, we recycle. Most of our light bulbs are CFL-energy efficient. Our water usage is minimal and we use recyclable papers. Where we can our Temple strives to live out these social justice ideas about our environment.

In this year our Congregation will introduce some other opportunities to help you make better choices for caring for our fragile planet. You will hear more and have an opportunity participate in our Community Sustained Agriculture Project. You will have a chance to buy shares in a local farm that produces organic fruits and vegetables. Bringing you locally grown produce that cuts down on transportation costs and environmental impact including pesticide use. As well as nurturing your body with healthy foods.

How else in 5771 will you make significant changes to help our planet—to heal our planet and help recreate the world anew?

The call of the shofar tomorrow will sound the alarm. We must change. We must help create our world again and take this fragile planet back to balance. As our teachers tell us.

"Listen further to our words after the shofar: "Hayom ya'amid bamishpat." The phrase ya'amid bamishpat comes from Proverbs: "Melekh b'mishpat ya'amid aretz. A king through justice makes the earth stand." (29:4) Today, this day, should bring justice, this day teaches us justice. Without justice, the creatures of all the worlds y'tzurei olamim, even the earth itself, cannot stand and endure.

Ecologically, justice means many things, including balance, as in: "Samti mishpat l'kav utz'dakah l'mishkelet. I set justice with a plumb line and righteousness with a balance." (Isa. 28:17) If we want to be agents of positive change, we can help stand the world upright through acts of justice, fairness and balance. There are so many levels to this mishpat, between us and God, between fellow human beings, within ourselves. And one of those levels is justice and balance between us and the earth, and between us and our fellow species.

Balance means every person, every species, and every place has enough of what it needs for life to thrive. Balance means that our relationship with the earth is dynamic and sustainable, that we are not consuming future generations to take for ourselves. Each of us helps to establish balance, not just when you see someone in need, but in this moment, hayom, today and every day, in every act and gesture, every choice, in what you eat and wear, how you dwell in your house, in how you travel to work and how you return home."

Rosh Hashanah reminds us of to rebalance our lives and our world. Let us get to the task. Our inner worlds need rebalancing during these Ten Days of Repentance and let's commit to also rebalancing our fragile planet by the choices we make each day. Ken Yehi Ratzon So may it be God's will.

Fragile

If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are

Rabbi Denise L. Eger
Congregation Kol Ami
Rabbi@kol-ami.org
Erev Rosh Hashanah 5771
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A Mosque at Ground Zero and Rabbi Hillel

Shabbat Shalom

Perhaps the greatest principle in the Torah: Is Love your neighbor as yourself. אהבת רעך כמוך Ahavata Reyacha Kamocha. It is so important that we read this passage on Yom Kippur. It reminds us of our duties to our fellow human beings.

You all know the very famous story from the Talmud: (Shabbat 31a): A certain gentile came to Rabbi Shammai and said: "Convert me on the condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot. Rabbi Shammai was incensed and repulsed him with a builder's cubit that was in his hand. When he went before Rabbi Hillel, he said to him "What is hateful to you do not to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah, while the rest is commentary thereof; now go and learn it.

The Talmud comes to teach us and build upon the Torah principle of Loving our neighbor. A simple truth- you know how you would like to be treated and how you don't like to be treated. Therefore—don't do what is hateful to your neighbor. And that is the essence of our faith. Not love God, not bring sacrifices, and not say a lot of prayers. The essence of our religion. The essence of Judaism is according to Rabbi Hillel—What is hateful to you do not to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah. All the rest is but commentary. We know how we are supposed to act. We don't really need someone to tell us. Why? Because we know how it feels. We know when a line has been crossed. We intrinsically know is in part what the good Rabbi Hillel is telling us. We don't even need a list of mitzvot to tell us how to act. We ought to know. And so it is with our neighbors then in Talmudic times and with our neighbors today. We ought to know when we have crossed a line. In recent weeks and days a line has been crossed. Some in America have been treating our neighbors in a hateful way. Islamophobia has reared its ugly head. All over our country people are talking about a Muslims in increasingly hateful tones. The commotion and questions that have been raised over the Cordoba Initiative's plan to build a Muslim Community Center in lower Manhattan is something we in the Jewish community should be ashamed of. And the ADL – the Anti-Defamation League—our own Jewish organization that fights Jewish discrimination was among those to add fuel to the fires of hatred. The Cordoba Initiative is an organization that seeks to build ties between the Muslim World and the West. Its board has both Christians and Jews that sit on it. This group has sought to build a community center that would also contain a small mosque in a neighborhood two blocks away from the site of the former World Trade Center—known as Ground Zero. Some have said that building a mosque so close to Ground Zero—since the perpetrators of 9/11 were Muslim extremists is an affront to those who died. That is what the ADL said. Not that the Cordoba Initiative group shouldn't build a center. But build it elsewhere. That still is hateful and hurtful. Are we painting all Muslims with the broad stroke of extremism? That's like saying all Jews want to oppress women and want to settle in the West Bank. The group that wants to build the community center (which includes basketball courts and meeting rooms—just like a Jewish community center) is a group that is dedicated to interfaith activities. The Imam Abdul Feisel Rauf is very active in interfaith activities in New York. He travels on behalf of our State Department building bridges between the U.S. and the Muslim world. Rauf is no Wahabist-which is the one of the fundamentalist forms of Islam most responsible for the madrassas – the ultra religious schools that taught the terrorists. Rauf is a Sufi—from the branch of mystical Islam known for its teachings of peace. Much of Sufism is similar to the teachings of our own Kabbalah-that focuses on the unification of the Divine Name. There is even a debate among many practitioners of Islam as to whether or not Sufism can even be called Islam. But it is our ignorance of Islam that fuels this debate. This is being seized on as a way to continue to drum up fear. Play on our National In-securities. Play on the notion that there are strangers in our midst that would do us harm rather than Americans who practice Islam as their faith. Many Republican leaders and even Democratic Harry Reid of Nevada have opposed the Center as did the ADL and in particular the mosque as an affront to the memories of those victims of 9/11 as if all of Islam is indicted because the hijackers were fundamentalist Islamists.

Some people have turned this issue into a political football-dragging the president in as well. Who first spoke for it then he back tracked.

But this is not how we treat neighbors. And the language that is being used about Islam is often hateful and spiteful and yes, ignorant. We can differentiate between different kinds of Christians but are we so ignorant of Islam that we cannot make any distinctions there? We have to paint all with the brush of terrorism and fundamentalism? In this week when the last American combat troops left Iraq on Wednesday, you would think that we might have learned something in these years of being surrounded by Muslims. Of fighting for democracy in a Muslim country. You would think that even as our troops are still in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban-more radical fundamentalists—that we might be able to show our own good will to our Islamic American brothers and sisters who want to and do engage in interfaith dialogue and peace. As Jews we ought to know better. We know what it is like to be the outcast of society. To have someone suspicious of our religion. Because we are more accepted now—should we turn and do this to our neighbors? This is an opportunity to build bridges and extend our hands as neighbors. This is a chance to live out the Torah's highest ideals—Love our neighbor as ourselves.

Will we agree with everything with our Muslim neighbors—most likely not. But I do not agree with my Catholic neighbors and Episcopal neighbors on every issue either. But I can learn to treat them all with respect and dignity and remember to treat them as I would want to be treated. The memories of those who perished at the World Trade Center are not diminished by the building of a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero. I believe their memories are honored. For we live in a Country that celebrates Freedom of Religion and Free Speech. These are our American ideals—and they are our patriots who died because America stands for these values. Those that murdered the 3000 plus victims of the World Trade Center on 9/11 that fateful day struck the Twin Towers because we as a country stand for those values and terrorists hate those values. I am ashamed that some in our country want to diminish those values for others. So let us learn from our Torah and from Rabbi Hillel—Do not do to others what is hateful to you. And Love your neighbor as yourself.

Rabbi Denise L. Eger
Congregation Kol Ami
Rabbi@kol-ami.org
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