Yom Kippur

Finally after sleepless nights she got up in front of the congregation and announced that this year she would try something different and talk about sex appeal. Suddenly one of the older members of the congregation, not someone who normally sits in the back row, jumped up and stormed out of the sanctuary. She finished her remarks, walked out of the sanctuary and approached this member apologizing if the discussion of sex appeal was offensive. "No", was the reply. "I'm not offended by discussing sex. But there's no way I'm going to sit through another one of your appeals!"

This is the last Yom Kippur that I will talk with you as president and my last Yom Kippur appeal. God willing in the next few minutes, the lights and the microphones will stay on, and the HVACs will work. And so I thought that I would share some of my experiences and what has caused me to think that in a heartbeat, I would do this all over again, only better.

As president, I have an obligation to keep up with all of the information I receive, and much of it has to do with Israel and consequently, my love for Israel has grown more than I imagined possible, having come to a better understanding of why the safety, security and survival of Israel is so important to Jews everywhere.

When Paul told my father that we wanted to be married, although he gave his blessing, the next morning my father called the Israeli embassy seeking assurance that even though I would be marrying out of my faith, my children and I would be eligible to move to Israel should the need arise. A man who barely survived the pogroms, WW I and the Russian revolution, intimately knew the importance of sanctuary for Jews. As I read about who is considered Jewish and who isn't, I am grateful for my father's understanding of what might lie ahead.

I recently read an email from a young Israeli medical student who told of her experience being arrested for praying at the Kotel with a tallit and tefillin on while holding a Torah. There are a multitude of things that bother me about her message and the visualization of her arrest, but mostly it is that we are Jews fighting other Jews, when so many others are eager to take up arms against us.

It is intolerable for Jewish women to be arrested for wearing tallitot or dragged away from the kotel for carrying a Torah. When members of our congregation tell us that one of the draws of B'nai Tikvah is that we are fully egalitarian, I know that as a Jewish community, we must speak up for equality, because if we don’t, no one will.

Several weeks ago there was an article in Newsweek, entitled The Cost of Being Jewish. Although the focus was on the recession and synagogue dues, I see it another way. It isn't about money, although you know in a few minutes I am going to ask you for some, it is about understanding what the costs are to being Jewish in certain parts of the world. When the world is bemoaning Israel's existence and singing songs about the Rachel Corrie, let us not forget the other Rachel's who were killed, purely for being Jewish.

The cost in many parts of the world can be very high so, today let us remember Rachel Thaler, aged 16, blown up at a pizzeria, and Rachel Levy, blown up in a Jerusalem grocery store, and Rachel Shabo murdered with her three young sons while at home, and all the other Rachels who have been murdered for no other reason than their religion.

Remember their lives and remember their names. Our need for a strong and safe Israel goes beyond the right of return. And I ask you, where is the international outrage over the four Israeli settlers who were murdered two weeks ago in the west bank by Hamas who called it an heroic operation. Where is the outrage from all the nations that chastised Israel for preventing a ship from docking in Gaza? As a Jewish community, we must speak up, for if we don't, no one will.

On Sunday, August 28th, I was up at my usual pre-dawn hour, way before the paper is delivered. I made some coffee and finally the NY Times arrived. As I felt the joy of having alone time, I came to the last page of the front section and was immediately overwhelmed with sadness as I read the obituary for Martin Danenberg, a name I had never heard before. In 1945 Martin Danenberg opened a vault, finding an envelope sealed with red swastika embossments, finding four typed black bordered pages signed by Adolf Hitler and three of his top lieutenants. It proclaimed the Nuremberg Laws stripping Jews of a multitude of rights and the beginning of the legal framework for the dehumanization and murder of Jews during WW II.

I grew up in a home that had bound copies of the transcripts of the Nuremberg trials prominently displayed on our bookshelves. Swastikas, dehumanizing Jews, not something that ended in 1945. As a Jewish community, we have to always remember, because if we don’t, no one will.

Right after the start of the Iraq war, my daughter Molly had an opportunity to go to France with her high school French class. When the parents, teachers and children met, many expressed concern for the safety of their children for after all, the US and France were not on the best of terms. I contacted the director of study abroad at Rutgers and he said that Molly would be safe as an American but she needed to be concerned about two issues, pickpockets and most of all anything that identifies her as Jewish.

As a Jewish man who had travelled widely and was responsible for the safety of thousands of Rutgers students, I knew I could trust his advice and for the first time in her life, I warned Molly about letting anyone know her religion. As a Jewish community, we have to speak out about anti-Semitism and all forms of religious intolerance, for if we don’t, no one will.

I believe that the only way to keep Judaism flourishing, the way to assure that we have a voice, is through a strong Jewish community. That is the only way to make sure that the next time one of you calls the Israeli embassy to ask about the right of return, the answer remains the same as it did almost 40 years ago. As a Jewish community, if we don’t speak up, no one will.

We are here today at a time of introspection and reflection. An experience that for some is not only personally intense, but also intensely personal. You could be at home, in more comfortable clothes, on a more comfortable chair, eating and watching college football on TV. So, why is it that we choose to be with each other?

The answer is simple. We Jews are communal beings. We get together to mark important events. Allison Nagelberg recently sent me an article about an on-line prayer group, people who get together on the internet to daven…. I know that for some people it is just what they want, you can pray in your pajamas, no make-up required. But for me, it is like skyping my granddaughter, the fabulous Mackenzie Barbara Herman. I get to see her, listen to her say hi bubbe, or sing her ABCs but I can't feel her, hold her, touch her hand, smell her or kiss her. As a Jewish community, we clearly have a need to touch each other.

During my years as president, I have been touched by many people who are members of B'naI Tilvah and one of the joys is that congregants I didn't know four years ago have enriched my life. I want to mention three but there have been many more.

Two years ago you heard me talk about a conversation with Joe Salmon, a man I had never met but in a conversation with him on the phone, he complemented me on my YK speech and when I asked him what I should talk about next year, he replied, your grandchild. I thought from your mouth to god's ears and sure enough a year later, I became a grandmother. When I saw him in the lobby after that speech, he said, you'll have to wait a little bit for the next one, but 1 1/2 years ago, when my daughter-in-law was ill, I thought even Joe's connection to God couldn't help with another grandchild.

So, when I found out that I am going to become a bubbe a second time, Joe was among the first people I contacted. And this year he honored me by asking me to give the gift at his grandson's bar mitzvah. The joy of sharing of touching just gets better and better.

Last year you heard me talk about the strong sense of loneliness I felt after my mother died and I didn't have any place to go for the holidays before I came home to B'nai Tikvah. Tammy Zimmerman, a women I barely knew just to say hello to, quickly contacted me to express her support and to welcome me into her home, not just an empty invitation but one with meaning and exceptional kindness and from that, our relationship has grown. As a Jewish community, we clearly have a need to touch each other and my belief of the intentionality of kindness that defines B'nai Tikvah, has been reinforced over and over again.

I often serve as Gabbi Shanee on Shabbat, calling people up for an aliyah. I've had many teachers over the years but, recently I had a lesson from one of them that was unique. I've watched Arthur Cederbaum gabbi and always wondered why when the rabbi was saying a special prayer for someone who has yartzeit or blessing a bride and groom, Arthur always stepped back, closer to the ark. Knowing Arthur I always assumed it was for some halachac reason. After all, Arthur is, well Arthur. So one Shabbat I got up my nerve and asked him why, and he said, I move away so I don't block what is going on, so people can see. We are part of a Jewish community and we learn from each other even when the lessons seem so obvious.

We are part of a community that touches each other in many ways, and I have been touched by you. We share each others simchas, our loses, and join to be part of each other's lives, sharing all that is part of who we are. Just last week, three Jewish mothers were sitting at a local deli talking about how much their children love them. One said, you know that Picasso I have hanging in my living room, my son bought that for me for mother's day because he really loves me. The second says, you call that love, you see that new Mercedes I just got for my birthday, my daughter Miriam bought it for me. Finally, the third woman says, that's nothing, you know my son Steve, he goes into the city five days a week for analysis with the most famous analyst in the country and what does he talk about? Me.

Who among us hasn’t shared news of how a child is doing at college, or a recent graduate who has gotten a job, or gotten engaged. Who hasn't asked about a grandchild, a sick parent, or a new baby. In our community, every bit of news is important. At least one Shabbat a month, I visit Junior congregation and answer questions from the children about what it is like to be president. The questions have been joyful and include: "What do you like best about being president?", "Why is it so cold in the beit midrash?", "Why are you still president?", "What do you actually do?", "Do you get to use your reserved parking space on Rosh Hashannah?", "Do you spend as much time at B'nai Tikvah as my father?", and one that connects what is going on in the world with Jewish tradition, "Do you get secret service and if you did, would they have to wear a kippa when in synagogue?".

We are part of a multi-generational Jewish community and that is one of our strengths at B'nai Tikvah, all voices are important. When I was a child and we were eating dinner before leaving for Kol Nidre, my father would make each of us go around the table and ask each person to forgive us for anything we had done the previous year that was hurtful or mean. He told us that in the shtetl of his youth, each family would go door to door, asking all their neighbors to forgive them for any transgression and this was my father's way of having us acknowledge his tradition and to understand the importance of forgiveness.

As the youngest of four children, and a child that was conceived out of a need to produce more Jewish children after the truth about Hitler's final solution became common knowledge, I remember thinking that there were some really mean things my brother and sisters had done to me, especially when they made fun of me for being fat and a baby.

I've often thought about those conversations and remember the process as if it were yesterday, although it has been more than 33 years since I shared a table with my father. In the past few years, I have taken a few moments before the start of Kol Nidre, to find a few people who I know I have hurt and ask them to forgive me for anything I have done to hurt them in the previous year. For me, it is not only a way to honor my father but a way to help me open a conversation with someone that I had a disagreement with, or someone who was angry with me for something I did or participated in doing and it is a way to begin the year having done what I can to open my heart and my mind to a new beginning.

And so, on this last Yom Kippur that I will talk with you as president, a few hours before Ne'ilah, I ask that you forgive me for errors I have made during the past year, for I know there have been many. That you find it in your heart to forgive me for not getting to every shiva house or every funeral, for not calling quick enough when you were sick, or for not following through on something you thought I should have done or perhaps following through on something you did not want to happen. For those of you I have disappointed or angered, neglected or ignored, I ask for your forgiveness.

And, I ask for your commitment to move on together and continue to build a strong synagogue, the best way for sustaining Jewish life. It is where we can reach out and touch each other and the way we are touched by our friends and by those we hardly know. It is where we can reach out to the most vulnerable, knowing that one day we too may be vulnerable.

Just this past Thursday, we learned that the US has the largest number of people living in poverty in the 51 years this information has been tracked. For like the shtetl of our parents and grandparents, we are a closely knit community where each is responsible for all and all are responsible for each. As a Jewish community, we must support each other, for if we don't, no one will.

Today I am asking you to do that with a donation. We're responsible for each other; we're accountable to each other. That is what being part of community means. We're in this together, not just today, but every day. We are part of a Jewish community and if we don't support it, no one else will.

Please take out your envelopes, turn down what you can, and hand it in to the USY members. May you be inscribed in the book of life and may the coming year be filled with kindness, with good health, with laughter and joy, and with a renewed commitment to our Jewish community.

Ruth Anne Koenick