Our Voices

Sermon, Rosh Hashanah 2022/5783

I still remember a short conversation I shared with my mom when I was a child. My family was out to dinner at a local coffee shop. The year was probably 2001 because I believe we were discussing politics and the looming threat of terrorism that gripped the United States after 9/11. 

I paused the conversation and asked, “Mom, since the world has so many problems, why do people continue having children?” I remember my mom looked dismayed and sad. I felt like I had asked something wrong. Her expression signaled that the answer was obvious to her. “Children represent hope,” she answered. “People continue having children because they believe that the world can get better. Each new child represents that promise.”

Twenty-one years later, there remains immense pain in the world. Sometimes I feel like I did in that coffee shop. I wonder what kind of world I’m inheriting. What kind of world will the generations after me inherit? Then I remember my mother’s words. Children represent hope. When the world's problems feel insurmountable, perhaps the only thing we can do is look ahead to the future. Perhaps, our time here on earth is about leaving a legacy, passing our wisdom and values onto the next generation so young folks might finally be the ones to create the world as we wish it were. There’s a midrash (Tanchuma, Vayigash 2) that tells us that when Israel stood at Mt. Sinai to receive the Torah, God, said to them, “I am giving you my Torah. Bring me good guarantors who will guard it.” First, the people said, “Our patriarchs are our guarantors.” This was not acceptable. Next, they said, “Our prophets are our guarantors.” These, too, were unacceptable. But when the people pledged, “Our children are our guarantors,” God accepted this immediately: “For the children’s sake, I give the Torah to you.” Rosh Hashana is all about asking ourselves who we want to be in the year ahead. This Rosh Hashana, I ask you: What do you want to pass onto the world’s children? Moreover, how are you going to do it?

I am guided by three clear answers: education, action, and trust. By education, I do not mean formal academics that students learn in a classroom. Instead I’m speaking of learning that can’t be measured, the learning that inspires curiosity, empathy, and compassion. While studying to become a rabbi, I decided to take an extra year of school to earn a masters degree in Jewish education. I became a rabbi because I want to share the beauty of Judaism with others and believe that the principles espoused in Judaism create a better world. I became an educator because I believe that education is the conduit by which we make this happen. As the Director of Education here at Peninsula Temple Sholom, I have the privilege of watching Judaism come alive for our learners. Last week, we had our first day of Youth Education for this school year. As I walked through our hallways, I heard fourth graders reciting a line from Pirkei Avot. I heard second  graders sharing aloud the things about them that make them feel Jewish. I heard first graders reading a book about the value of v’ahavta l’recha kamocha–love your neighbor as yourself. 

One of the most important tasks of my role is convincing parents that Jewish education is invaluable. I explain to them that Jewish education is an investment in a child’s future self and in fact, an investment in the world’s future. In learning the values and wisdom of our tradition, children grow up feeling grounded and held by something larger than themselves. They understand that wealth, knowledge, and fame don’t matter nearly as much as legacy. They learn that academics are important–yes, we teach texts, history, and Hebrew in Youth Education–but quality Jewish education teaches more than that too. It crafts good people. Our 6th grade curriculum, for example, teaches Mussar or the study of Jewish virtues. The curriculum asks the essential questions: What values are important to me? How can I face life’s challenges with integrity? What does it mean to be a Jewish adult? In today’s world, what questions could be more urgent than these? Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote: “What we need more than anything else is not textbooks, but text people.” Jewish education crafts text people. 

The second answer occurs outside of the classroom. We pass our wisdom and values onto the next generation when our actions set examples for those younger than us to emulate. In Talmud Kiddushin 40b, our sages debate: Is study greater or is action greater? Rabbi Tarfon answers: Action is greater. Rabbi Akiva answers: Study is greater. Everyone around them chimes in. Study is greater but not as an independent value. Rather, study is greater only because it leads to action. Education is only as strong as the action that it inspires. 

One of my most transformative experiences came a few years ago when I was still a student and interning at a synagogue in Los Angeles. I had the opportunity to travel to Arizona with my ninth grade religious school class to learn about the United States immigration crisis. The weekend was the perfect coupling of study and action. We spent time examining the commandment of Leviticus 19:  V’ahavta et ha ger kamocha–Love the stranger as yourself, and paired this with firsthand observations of what it’s like to be a ger (a stranger) in the United States and volunteer opportunities with organizations that aid gerim (strangers). 

On the third day of our trip, we found ourselves in the Sonoran desert and met with a woman named Shura. Shura at first appeared unassuming, with her no taller than 4’9” height, leathery skin, and frayed clothing. However, her story exemplified for us the power of action. She invited us into her home and told of her volunteer work with an organization called Green Valley Samaritans. The organization provides humanitarian aid to migrants in the Arizona-Sonora borderlands. 

One of Shura’s stories in particular still reverberates in my soul. Part of her work involves completing “water drops,” or the act of traveling to the desert and dropping food and water along known migrant trails. One time as she was volunteering at a shelter for migrants, she met a man whose life had been spared because, at a time when he was dangerously dehydrated, he found a dropped container of water. Shura stood in our circle and told us this story with tears in her eyes. She said that in meeting this man, she understood for the first time the impact of the small contributions she had been making for years to the lives of migrants. Shura closed by reminding us that it doesn’t take much effort to help people in immeasurable ways. 

About this trip, one of my 9th grade students wrote: 

A lot of what we saw was very difficult…And yet, we also saw hope. We saw the human spirit, distilled into its purest form…We saw people who, every single day, kept on breathing and fighting and living despite everything. It gives me hope that there are people out there willing to do what is right in the face of overwhelming resistance. The world is very broken, and in the end, it is us— ordinary people— who have the power to fix it.

My students and I did a lot of learning in the classroom together that year, but it was witnessing the power of action that made these lessons jump off the page and into real life for my students. 

The education we provide and the examples we set through action to younger generations are only as good as the wings with which we allow them to soar. This is why my third answer is that we pass our wisdom and values onto the next generation through trust. There’s a lesson in Talmud Kiddushin 29a that goes like this: "A father is obligated with regard to his son to circumcise him,  to redeem him if he is the firstborn, to teach him Torah, to marry him to a partner, and to teach him a trade. And some add: A father is also obligated to teach his child to swim." 

 The addition of swimming here at first seems odd. Why is it placed as an afterthought? Why do only some add it? What is it about swimming that’s so important? I don’t think that swimming is added here as an afterthought at all. Rather, I think it’s placed at the end of this teaching, in its own sentence, for emphasis. It stands out and makes the reader, like me, question its placement. Swimming is important because it represents independence. I’m not a parent so I have not had this experience but I imagine that letting go of one’s child in the water for the first time is terrifying. What happens if the child doesn’t live up to the challenge and can’t keep themselves afloat? We must have faith in those younger than us, believing they will be ok. They will indeed live up to the world’s challenges and hopefully, make the world better than we ever could have imagined. 

One of my greatest joys as a rabbi has been handing responsibility to teenagers and watching them swim. At our confirmation service last May, one of our confirmands came up to me and to my delight, asked me if I would consider hiring him as a Youth Education teacher. I did. In fact, there are several teenagers on the Youth Education faculty this year. When I observed their classroom last Sunday, I saw this teen’s eye lit up as he took on the role of teacher. In turn, I saw the students engaged. How could they not be when seeing a young person not much older than them excited to be there and excited about Judaism? 

Time and time again, our world has witnessed young people taking the reins and making a difference. Take for example Amelia Fortgang, an 18 year old San Francisco native and recipient of the 2022 Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award. Motivated by the urgency of the climate crisis and inspired by both her grandmothers, she says, Amelia founded the Bay Area Youth Climate Summit. In her own words, the Bay Area Youth Climate Summit is an entirely youth-led activism network that offers in-depth educational, environmental justice workshops and mobilizes local Bay Area high schoolers to create and implement Climate Action Plans in their communities. Since 2020 when the Summit was founded, it has engaged some 3,000 students at 55 workshops. “If I wasn’t doing anything, it would make me feel really hopeless,” Fortgang said in a recent interview. “Youth have a lot of power. We can be leaders, we can mobilize each other and we can do something about the climate crisis.”

Today I ask you: What do you want to pass onto the world’s children? Moreover, how are you going to do it?

During every Jewish worship service we recite the words of Deuteronomy and Numbers, which we’ve come to know as V’ahavta. 

V’ahavta declares: Teach the commandments to your children.

This means taking the time to teach the young folks around us the values that matter. This means investing in Jewish education because Jewish education builds character. This means reminding ourselves and them that what our society often holds high–wealth, fame, knowledge, power, and more–matter less than our legacy. This means seeing every interaction as a teachable moment. 

V’ahavta also declares: Recite the commandments when you stay at home and when you go on your way. 

When you lie down and when you rise up. Bind them as a sign on our hand and as a symbol on your forehead. Inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. 

This means that the values we want to share with the next generation must be modeled by everything we do–at home, when we’re on our way, in the way we carry ourselves, and in how we view and treat others. We don’t all have to be Shura, but remember that the world’s children are watching us. Through every single action, let us set good examples for them. 

V’ahavta finally declares: Thus you shall remember to observe all My commandments and to be holy to your God. Being holy means honoring the divine spark within ourselves, and in others. This includes the young of our time. It means honoring their sacred yearnings to make the world better and leaving space for them to do it. It means trusting that they’ll swim, making a difference in ways that make sense to them. 

The poet Aurora Levins Morales has taken these words of V’ahavta and interpreted them for our time. She writes:

Say these words when you lie down and when you rise up,
when you go out and when you return. In times of mourning
and in times of joy. Inscribe them on your doorposts,
embroider them on your garments, tattoo them on your shoulders,
teach them to your children, your neighbors, your enemies,
recite them in your sleep, here in the cruel shadow of empire:
Another world is possible.

Don’t waver. Don’t let despair sink its sharp teeth
Into the throat with which you sing. Escalate your dreams.
Make them burn so fiercely that you can follow them down
any dark alleyway of history and not lose your way.
Make them burn clear as a starry drinking gourd
Over the grim fog of exhaustion, and keep walking.
Hold hands. Share water. Keep imagining.
So that we, and the children of our children’s children may live.

Today on Rosh Hashana, as we celebrate the birth of the world and all the promise that newness brings, let us remember that each new generation brings promise too. It’s up to us, those already here, to nurture that promise. “Children represent hope,” my mother taught me. People continue having children because they believe that the world can get better and each new child represents that promise. In the coming year, what do you want to pass onto the world’s children? How are you going to do it?

Shana Tova!