Rabbis Prep for Challenges of High Holiday Sermons
Faced with difficult choices this year, local rabbis grapple with how to speak effectively to their congregations.
Like an NFL quarterback getting ready for the big game or a star pitcher for the Braves warming up in the bullpen during a crucial World Series matchup, rabbis are facing the challenges of writing their High Holiday sermons this year. In recent weeks, there have been several workshops for rabbis in search of advice on how best to confront the many important issues that face us in a post-Oct. 7 world.
At the top of the list is a consideration of the issues confronting Israel as it wages what seems like an endless war with its foes in Gaza, Lebanon, and on the West Bank. But there are also questions to confront about Israel’s relationship with the Diaspora and the world community outside its borders.
There has been no shortage of advice and resources for rabbis searching for ideas and the most effective way to present them. Earlier this month, the Atlanta Rabbinical Association was among the many organizations offering counsel to its members on how to talk about the developments in the Middle East over the past year.
Nationally, organizations with a more partisan bias, such as T’ruah, a rabbinic gathering that describes itself as “a call for human rights,” offered rabbis a seminar on what was termed “the collision between compassion and fear.”
At Congregation B’nai Torah, in Sandy Springs, which is affiliated with the Conservative movement, Senior Rabbi Joshua Heller keeps a file all year about what he might discuss from the pulpit on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. He’s been particularly impressed by a book that was authored by a colleague and friend, Rabbi Shai Held, who is president and dean of the Hadar Institute in New York and an influential and innovative voice in American Judaism.
His book on the theme of love in Judaism, which is subtitled, “Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life,” received accolades when it was released last fall. Rabbi Held visited Atlanta early in September and the volume has inspired a series of study sessions at Rabbi Heller’s synagogue this year.
One of the questions the Sandy Spring rabbi is pondering in the run up to High Holiday is how to keep ourselves spiritually centered in a world where we are challenged on all sides.
“How do we keep on a positive spiritual path?” Rabbi Heller asks himself. “How do we develop in faith and observance and kindness to others when there is so much else going on that that takes away our attention and our energy. How do you get up in the morning and try to be a good person when there is so much evil and mayhem in the world? It’s actually a really fundamental question.”
That concern was echoed in a post on the My Jewish Learning website by Rabbi Debbi Bravo, who notes that this year has been a particularly challenging one for rabbis.
“The conversation on all of the rabbinic list serves in which I participate is – how do we tackle the big issues this year while remaining compassionate, non-partisan, true to one’s self, and a supporter of all,” Rabbi Bravo observes. “How do we begin to look at mass shootings in the United States, terrorist attacks across the world, apathy, bigotry and contempt in a meaningful and impactful way? How do we begin to address the political nightmare we see playing out on CNN, MSNBC and FOX News on a minute-by-minute basis?”
A workshop on High Holiday sermon writing earlier this month, sponsored by “Wisdom Without Walls,” a virtual discussion group created by Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin, a former Atlanta rabbi, and Dr. Sandra Lillienthal, a prominent Jewish educator, gave nearly two dozen rabbis from around the country the opportunity exchange ideas and voice their concerns to each other.
One of the moderators of the online program was Rabbi Ed Feinstein, who is also a founder of the groups, a faculty member of the Ziegler Rabbinical School of the American Jewish University, and a pulpit rabbi. He described the opportunity that rabbis are offered during this holiday season as “a Yohanon ben Zakkai moment.” It was an apparent reference to the important Jewish sage of the late Second Temple period 2,000 years ago, who seized the moment the Romans destroyed the holy site in Jerusalem to offer leadership to a beleaguered Jewish community.
“When the community is deeply hurt and comes to us and says, ‘what do we do?” Rabbi Feinstein asked rhetorically. “Where do we go? And that’s this moment. This is a moment that really calls upon all of your courage, all of your wisdom and all of your creativity to address the deep feelings of your congregants.”
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