Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

This year we will be using a new High Holiday prayerbook, Mishkan HaNefesh. We are very excited about this change.  I am very much looking forward to using the Reform movement’s newly published machzor. After twenty years of using the old prayerbook I am ready for a change. We will of course still be treated to the same wonderful singing by our cantor. And the tradition’s Avinu Malkeinu and Kol Nidre will mark our days as they always have. We might be surprised, however, by some of the machzor’s innovations. Next to all the Hebrew prayers one will now find English transliterations. This will provide an invitation for everyone to participate in our singing and praying. Also, the English translations, and readings, are more contemporary and modern. In addition, given that we were using several different editions of the old prayerbook, everyone will now be reading the same words. It is my belief that this new machzor will make our tradition’s prayers even more accessible.

I don’t know very much Yiddish except a few words like shayna punim of which my unbiased grandmother believed I exhibited, chutzpah of which I have in apparent abundance and of course tuchus of which I have one. Recently, I learned a few more phrases and although I still have not achieved sufficient linguistic mastery, I have become enchanted with the language of my forebears. Yiddish is an extraordinarily colorful language filled with many creative ways to curse. Here are but a few: All problems I have in my heart, should go to his head. God should visit upon him the best of the Ten Plagues. He should have a large store, and whatever people ask for he shouldn’t have, and what he does have shouldn’t be requested. His luck should be as bright as a new moon. Your stomach will rumble so badly, you will think it was a Purim noisemaker. And of course the well-known: “Go take a dump in the ocean.” The Yiddish is actually even more unseemly, but I will leave that to your imagination.

What follows is Friday evening's sermon on the occasion of the eighteenth anniversary of 9-11. On Wednesday Susie and I dropped Ari off at JFK for the beginning of his year long journey. Aside from the emotions of seeing our son off as he begins his travels around the world, it occurred to me how ordinary this occasion was. I am not speaking of course about Ari backpacking to as yet unknown destinations and our expectations that we will soon receive random texts at some odd time of day and night saying something like, “Leaving Singapore, heading to Hanoi.” Or, “Decided to stay longer in Palermo.” I am instead speaking about how ordinary Wednesday, September 11, 2019 seemed. The airport provided its usual frustrations with all its boisterous honking and jockeying for a spot to drop him off. We hit traffic on the way home. I looked up when we were stopped on the Belt Parkway to see a large plane making a slow leftward turn on its approach to the airport. Eighteen years ag

Years ago when hiking through Israel, my guide would sometimes take a detour through a field. There she would reach up and take an orange from a tree, immediately peel off its skin and then eat it. I protested. “This is not your field. These oranges are not yours to take.” She would then correct my understanding. “Our Bible permits it.” And the Torah proclaims: “When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat as many grapes as you want, until you are full, but you must not put any in your vessel.” (Deuteronomy 25) Our Bible has a different understanding of ownership. We do not own the land. The earth belongs to God and we are but tenants. So when I look to my backyard, the trees, and vines, might very well be mine but the food they produce is not just for my benefit. The Torah makes clear. If you are hungry you can take the fruit from a tree. Even though the farmer has expended all the effort, and expense, to grow and nurture the tree, its fruit must be shared. Still

I spend my days trying to uncover contemporary meaning in the weekly Torah reading. I pour over the Bible’s words to discover modern resonance. This week I unfurled our sacred scroll and revealed these words: When the king is seated on his royal throne, he shall have a copy of this Torah written for him…. Let it remain with him and let him read it all his life, so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God, to observe faithfully every word of this Torah... Thus, he will not act arrogantly toward his fellows or deviate from the instruction to the right or left… (Deuteronomy 17) When Saul is anointed the first king of Israel, God acquiesces to the people’s desire to be like all other nations. Appointing earthly rulers is a compromise. The Torah reminds us. Rulers must always remember that they serve a higher authority, that they serve the rules and laws given to prior generations. Even the greatest king of Israel, David, is no greater than God’s Torah. Let’s take but one exam