Rebecca Guttman’s Rosh Hashanah Message for 2025

For every minute one of our brothers and sisters is in captivity, a piece of our collective heart is held hostage frozen in time, not beating, not pumping. Just waiting for the moment we can finally exhale the breath we’ve held since October 7, 2023. Waiting until our whole heart can beat again. Bring them home. Bring them home NOW. Seven hundred days is too long. Seven days was too long. Even seven hours was too long.

In the face of this endless tunnel of waiting, it is natural to feel helpless, paralyzed. It is easy to become stuck in our grief and let fear convince us that nothing we do will make a difference. This is our challenge now: How do we welcome a new year with hope and resolve, while holding our broken hearts and a fractured community?

This is not the first time the Jewish people have endured tragedy that seemed beyond bearing. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, reflecting on the resilience of survivors of the Holocaust, noted that our determination to continue is rooted in faith in life itself faith that even the smallest acts of goodness can bring light into a darkened world. When we strive to lift the good, to seek out the mundane and give meaning to it, we maintain belief in our ability to effect positivity in this world.

When we do chesed, acts of kindness, for others, we sanctify our community and infuse it with blessing. On Rosh Hashanah, we sanctify and assign meaning to simple things apples, grape juice, honey that we often take for granted. We pause to remember that the world is holy, and that we can contribute positively to it. This is how we renew our faith in life: by carrying on, by believing that even when we feel small and ineffective, we hold within us the incredible potential to make our world better and more filled with blessing.

We may not have the answers. We cannot resolve this unbearable situation alone. But as we enter this new year, we can renew our faith in our ability to effect positive changes and bring light into the world. And we can hold fast to our faith that one day soon, we will exhale and our whole heart will beat again.

Rebecca Guttman is the Manager at Jewish Fertility Foundation – Atlanta.