It occurs to me perhaps it is almost as if I am waiting for them to call me.  I am longing for another conversation.  Let me have just one more phone call with them. And so, on this Yizkor I would like us to imagine, and perhaps even have, that conversation.

We will affirm even if no one else notices, God takes note.  Yom Kippur restores our faith in the weight of our actions, in the worthiness of our deeds.  We enter these days striving to leave an even better imprint—for all time.

When someone calls Israel a settler colonial state it leads to the excusing of the rape and murder of Jews as legitimate resistance. When someone says Israel does not have a right to exist people start thinking Jews do not have a right to exist. I have no problem with Israel’s critics. But they must begin with this simple fact. Israel exists. It is here to stay. Let’s debate how it should change. Let’s argue about how Israelis and Palestinians can be reconciled and how both can be healed.

Nachmanides said, “The reason for this prohibition is to teach us the virtue of compassion and to prevent us from becoming cruel, for cruelty spreads and takes root within the human soul.”

This is what Rosh Hashanah gives us.  It insists that human beings are capable of change.  And we must take this affirmation to heart and allow it to carry us forward through the coming year.   

For thousands of years, we have chanted the words of Torah so that future generations will fall in love with its words and unpack its stories and debate its lessons.  When we read out loud and in public, we instantly communicate that these words matter.