Divre Harav – Words from the Rabbi

Divre Harav – November, 2025

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Note: I have been requested to share my sermon from the second day of Rosh Hashanah in the Voice.]

Any gathering of people, including we who are gathered in this sanctuary, can be described as a collection of broken souls. Not a single one of us is perfect and there is no one here who has not been touched with pain, sadness, discord, or tragedy of one sort or another. Somehow, we’ve managed to put ourselves together for another day. We have wheelchairs, walkers, and canes, we have therapists, psychiatrists, and medication, we have spouses, children and friends, we have a whole collection of supports to get us through each day. Some days we are strong enough to support others, other days we can barely lift ourselves, and some days we don’t have the strength to do much more than breathe. Yet we are here, together. Some in this room, and some who are peering into the room through a virtual window of sorts.

Two of the three shofar calls allude to this brokenness. Two of the three names for the Shofar calls allude to pain, loss, mourning, and brokenness. Shevarim literally means broken, and Teruah literally means a cry. Both are described as the moaning or wailing of a woman who has just learned that her son died. These sounds of the shofar are an unspoken call of welcome to all whose souls are in pain.

The broken shofar calls are sandwiched between two Teki’ot, the primary call that alludes to wholeness. When we gather together as a collection of broken parts, together we achieve a beautiful wholeness. That’s the blessing of community, which happens when we set aside our ego and our fears and our resentments and jealousies and angry memories and offer the best of our imperfections to the collective whole. That’s what happens when the community sets aside its collective gripes and welcomes and embraces all who come in the door with good intentions, seeking to add their voice and talents and resources to elevate the whole. We may have seen the worst of each other, but we understand that part of what it means to be a sacred religious community is to be Ahavas Israel, loving each person who seeks higher meaning and purpose by lending their time and talents and presence to our congregation.

The holidays should be a time for healing and connection. It is a time to ask ourselves as individuals and as a broad community, what are we missing? Where have we missed the mark? How can we be better? How can we make each other better? Where have we failed to be our best selves, where have we allowed our ego to demand more than its share of attention and energy? Where have we failed to make space for others? Where have we listened carefully to the message of Torah, and where have we fallen short?

So let’s acknowledge that we might disagree about what is broken around us and what needs fixing, but I think we can be in general agreement that the state of our world, the Middle East, Europe, North America, the United States of America, is in need of tikkun. As individuals, the task of repair feels hopeless. Even as a collective, since we can’t agree on where the problem lies, repair seems impossible. Even if we could agree on where the problem lies, the problems are so large, so systemic, that brokenness feels like a permanent state.

Shir Hama’alot, Psalm 125 that we sing before Birkat Hamazon, reminds us that “those who sow with tears will harvest with joy.” It is unreasonable to expect that we’ll have no sorrow in our life. The natural order of life is that we will experience loss and heartbreak. Our body becomes stronger physically by breaking down and rebuilding muscle tissue. We become emotionally and spiritually resilient by learning to overcome pain and disappointment. Face to face engagement for the purpose of intellectual, spiritual, and emotional development is an investment in our future. Those who have deeply invested themselves in a community like Ahavas Israel have built a human support system to stave off the plague of loneliness.

Join a book group, join a Havurah of people who talk about Jewish themed movies, create a Havurah of people who have Shabbat dinner together weekly or monthly, and become a part of a community of people who are not perfect, they may occasionally disagree about politics, but who are committed to supporting each other in their differences and through their brokenness.

The late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach founded a synagogue in Berkeley during the 1960s in order to reach out to the many young Jews who had drifted away from Jewish tradition. He named it the House of Love and Prayer. In the summer of 1967, he was asked to explain his vision for this synagogue.

He answered: “Here’s the whole thing, simple as it is. The House of Love and Prayer is a place where, when you walk in, someone loves you, and when you walk out, someone misses you.” 

What a beautiful vision of a house of prayer! When you are at Ahavas Israel, we love you. We welcome you for who you are. We are happy to see you. When you are not here, we miss you. We want you to come back. We know that we are a better place with you. When you are here, when you give Torah, Prayer, and God the chance to round off your sharp corners and smooth over your broken parts, you will become a better human being. We believe in the power of mitzvot, we believe in the power of Judaism to elevate your soul.

My friend Arieh ben David wrote, “It would be nice if we could build without breaking. It would be nice if my life, our lives, didn’t break apart. It would be nice if growth were a smooth, straight line. But it’s not. There is a soulful spark of hope in every broken moment. It is the foundation of our building.

“There is an inner power to the Jewish People. We are good friends with adversity. We have slept with unfairness, cruelty, and disappointment for way too long. We are done with kvetching about how life is unfair…. We have tasted enough life to assert that brokenness will not defeat us…. We have brokenness – but we also have the will, wisdom, and power to build.

“We hear the voice of the shofar. Tekiah – Shvarim/Truah – Tekiah. Again and again, we will hear the mournful broken voices of Shvarim and Truah. The broken voice of the shofar – Shvarim/Truah – is always preceded and succeeded by the unity of the Tekiah. Listen carefully to the shofar’s brokenness. It is a prayer, an invitation, for us to unify, heal, and build. Brokenness is never the final word.”

Here’s how I want you to listen to the shofar today:

Visualize a moment of brokenness and see it wrapped within moments of wholeness. See the tekiah as a protective bandage around the pain. The tekiah is the path towards healing. A tekiah is a call for the community to unite, rise up, travel, and move forward. The tekiah is the path that you can take to acknowledge the pain and move forward, whatever that means to you, whatever that looks like in your life, with your uniquely broken self. There is no growth without pain, and there are no two people broken along precisely the same lines. Honor your brokenness, honor your loss, it is real and tangible, but the shofar is here to tell you that you can take the broken pieces and put them into the ark of your heart, and seal them alongside the wholeness of the new pieces that you build as you continue moving forward.

Tekiah Shevarim Tekiah

Tekiah Teruah Tekiah

Tekiah Shevarim Teruah Tekiah.

The Ba’al Shem Tov would say the following before blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah: “You, and I, and God; and God, and you, and me; and me, and you, and God.” [cited in Ariel Mayse’s “Laws of the Spirit”, page 183, citing Ketem Paz, a Tiberian Hasidic text, late 18th c.]

He would remind his congregation that we are in relationship with God and with each other; each person here is in relationship with each of the others and with God; and God is in relationship with each of us. You, who have chosen to walk into this room, are enmeshed in this web of connections. You can choose to sever the connections and walk away; or you can embrace the messiness of the connections, and grow together with this community.

A parable. Once there was a member of the King’s court who rebelled against the king. When he was brought before the king he pleaded for mercy in judgment. The king commanded him to set his own sentence according to the law. When he heard the king’s ruling the courtier cried out with great despair and pleaded with the king not to make him judge himself, for he knew in the depth of his soul that by legal standards he was guilty. He begged the king to judge him for he knew that the king was loving and merciful and could set aside the punishment required by law.

So, too, we pray ‘Do not come to us in judgment,’ meaning do not come to us for judgment of ourselves, “for no living being can make themselves righteous.” We know that strictly speaking we have sinned and we are unable to forgive, so we beg You to judge us, for You are loving and merciful and yearning to forgive and to act with us compassionately…

Only Your eyes see us correctly, for You are loving and merciful and it is within Your power to forgive us, and to abundantly gift us with life, blessing, goodness, redemption and comfort [Kedushat Levi, toward the end of the end of the section on Rosh HaShannah]

We, who come to you with broken and bruised parts, ask to be comforted, blessed, and healed. Amen, so may it be Your will.

Divre Harav – October, 2025

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Hosha na, l’ma’an’kha Eloheinu, l’ma’an’kha Boreinu, l’ma’an’kha Goaleinu, l’ma’an’kha Dorsheinu, hosha na, “Save us, for your sake, our God. Save us, for your sake, our Creator, our Redeemer, the One who understands us, save us.” 

One of the defining features of the Sukkot service are the poems known as Hoshanot. They are alphabetical in arrangement, structured around the phrase, hosha na, please help us. They are very old poems, dating back to Temple times or shortly thereafter. Originally, they were chanted by a procession of Priests carrying palm branches and willows. They do not explicitly state what kind of salvation they are seeking. It is possible that they were general prayers for communal protection and sustenance, drawing out the theme of judgement from the High Holiday liturgy. Given that Sukkot is the time of year when the rainy season should begin, it is likely that the major concern is draught. Our custom is to take out a Torah and hold it at the Torah reading table while those who have a lulav and etrog process around the Torah and the chapel behind the leader, chanting the hoshanot.

There is a different poem for each day of Sukkot, including Shabbat when we open the ark and chant the hoshanot prayers without taking out a Torah and without processing with Lulav and Etrog. One day’s hoshana focuses on 22 attributes of God (one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet), another focuses on 22 descriptions of the Temple, another contains 22 descriptions of the Jewish people, yet another focuses on 22 descriptions of God accepting repentance and granting salvation.

Much of Jewish life falls into a very rational, head-centered, thoughtful, pattern of behavior. We study Torah, we engage in mitzvot that have an obvious connection to a notion of tikkun olam, supporting and repairing our community. But there is a deeper and richer element of Jewish life that comes from the heart, that doesn’t intuitively “make sense.” It’s the world of prayer and the world of ritual mitzvot. Strapping boxes of parchment onto our bodies with leather straps or wearing fringed tassels on the corners of clothing or waving bundles of plant matter or praying fervently for God to forgive us and extend our lives defy simple rational explanations. They appeal to the part of our souls that bypasses the head and instead dance to the rhythms of poetry.

The lives we live don’t always make sense. Sometimes we need metaphor and allusion and allegory to describe the indescribable. To understand joy intellectually is insufficient. We need to feel it in our bodies with dancing and singing. Sukkot is a holiday designed to push our bodies out of the safe interior of our solid homes into the flimsily build Sukkah and to make us act out our prayers by waving and marching with palms, willows, myrtle, and the etrog. Does it make you look foolish? Yes, absolutely! But don’t worry, you’re among friends. And what’s life without a bit of goofiness now and then. Hag sameah!

Hebrew word(s) of the Month:

  • • Lulav – palm
  • • Hadas – myrtle
  • • Arava – willow
  • • Etrog – citron, an ancient citrus fruit

Divre Harav – September, 2025

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“U-netaneh Tokef, Let us speak of the sacred power of this day – profound and awe inspiring.”

This quotation is from one of the most well-known High Holiday prayers, renowned both for the power of its descriptive images of passing before God in judgement of who will live and who will die, and for the stirring and emotionally resonant quality of its music. This opening line of the poem lays out the proposition that the days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur have sacred power. This is both true and not true. The days themselves have no inherent power. If you wake up on the mornings of September 23 and 24 and go to work or to the gym or go about your normal daily routine, then for you, Rosh Hashanah does not have sacred power. If, however, you alter your routine and consciously recognize the day by your behavior, it begins to have power in that the day itself motivates you to deviate from your expected actions. If you spend some part of the day at the synagogue, if you read specific pieces of literature and contemplate certain prayers, the day begins to have sacred power in that your mind is traveling down a different set of pathways and is opening up to a different set of thoughts about who you are and how you can best fulfill your life’s purpose.

It is only when you throw yourself in the traditions and liturgy of the day that you give it its full sacred power to inspire awe. When you hear the shofar, imagine the sound waves blasting through your heart, breaking down the callouses that build up over time which insulate you from being sensitive to the cries of the world. When you hear the melodies of the Torah reading, imagine yourself as the obedient servant of God or as offering yourself freely as an agent of God’s will. When you taste the apples and the sweet honey, imagine what your life might be like if you consciously removed jealousy, hatred, resentment, and excessive ego from your heart. When you hear U’netaneh Tokef, imagine how you would behave if your life depended on taking the best possible moral action at every decision point.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur can act on agnostic and skeptical Jews, Jews who call themselves non-religious, and Jews whose synagogue affiliation is motivated by little more than nostalgia for a world that no longer exists. But it all begins with a single step, a single mitzvah. It’s like the old joke, “How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Just one. But the light bulb has to want to change.” The single mitzvah is to be fully present with an open heart. This single mitzvah may be prompted by a different single mitzvah, of putting on tefillin every day or giving tzedakah every day or carrying energy bars in your car to give away at stoplights or lighting candles or saying Kiddush every Shabbat. The only way through the door to profound and awe-inspiring experience is to awaken your soul and teach it how to engage in a single mitzvah at a time.

Pirke Avot (4:2) teaches, “mitzvah goreret mitzvah, one mitzvah leads to another mitzvah.” May your hearts be open to the wonders of the transformative power of Rosh Hashanah, a single mitzvah at a time.

Hebrew word(s) of the Month:

  • teshuvah – repentance
  • tefillah – prayer
  • tzedakah – giving, acts of righteousness
  • gezerah – decree

“Teshuvah, Tefillah, and Tzedakah have the power to lesson the severity of the decree against us.”

Divre Harav – June, 2025

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Transitions … Stuart and Barbara Rapaport will be leaving Grand Rapids in June. We honored them at a Kiddush last month and will be sad to see them go. Stuart will be returning this fall to lead our service on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

We can’t replace Stuart’s deep impact on the religious life of Ahavas Israel, but we have been able to replace much of the roles that he has played as cantor: leading services, reading Torah, and regularly reading Haftarah.

Eliott Buyce, Barukh Hales, Calev Ben Avraham, Daveed ben Avraham, Akiva Roni Reese are new Torah readers following my Torah reading class last fall. David Reifler will be teaching Haftarah trope this summer. My next goal is to increase the number of people who can lead different parts of the Shabbat service.

My six week absence, from June 8 through July 20, the second half of a planned Sabbatical that began last summer, will be challenging, but I am grateful that Rhonda Reider, David Reifler, Sandy Freed, and others have stepped up to meet the challenge.

I’ll be visiting a couple of other small to medium size congregations over Shabbat, catching up on a lot of reading, and looking after my physical, mental, and spiritual health during my time away. When in town, I’ll be available for urgent matters. Call or message Ann Berman, the president of Ahavas Israel, at (616) 633-7922 in case of emergency.

Turning towards the fall … what would you like to hear from me on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Feel free to send me topics, article to react to, and questions to address. I can’t promise to address everything, but I’m curious to hear about what’s on your mind.

Hebrew word(s) of the Month:

  • Azakah – an emergency siren
  • Tzeva Adom – “color red” The special alert, with a rising and falling sound, for rocket or missile attacks in Israel.
  • Tzefirah – The continuous level siren that sounds for two minutes at 10:00 am on Yom Hashoah and twice on Yom Hazikaron, as the day begins in the evening and again in the morning.

Divre Harav – May, 2025

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Passover, which we celebrated last month, is act one of a drama in two acts. We’ll celebrate the second act next month, beginning on Sunday night, June 1. It takes place seven weeks after Pesaḥ and is known as Shavuot. It is the holiday of the revelation of Torah at Mount Sinai. The 10 commandments, and more. Shavuot is a celebration of the 613 mitzvot of Torah. That’s a lot of rules!

In my synagogue growing up, we played a game called the “no rule game.” We put a group of students in a room, gave them a beach ball, and told them that we were going to play a game with only one rule. “The rule of this game is that there are no rules.” Do whatever you want.

The staff then sat back and watched to see what would happen. At first, they didn’t know what to do. And then a student or two would begin to throw or kick the ball around. After a while, they noticed that it was more fun if they didn’t let the ball touch the ground. At some point, one student would sit on the ball and not let anyone else touch it. Other students would say, “You can’t do that, it’s not fair.” Other students would break in and say, ‘you can’t say that the ball can’t touch the floor! That’s a rule, and making rules is against the rule of the game.’ And, ‘you can’t say that I can’t sit on the ball. That’s another rule!’ Eventually, they noticed that games are more fun if there’s a little competition, and they divided into two teams, awarding a point for kicking the ball into a goal. 

The point, as the students learned though their experience, was that a game with no rules is not much fun. And in a larger sense, the complete freedom to do anything you want is not as fun as it sounds. It’s no fun for anyone if one person just sits on the ball. Rules serve a purpose. They enable us to live, work, and play with groups of people and have fun. And rules like traffic lights, stop signs, and speed limits allow us to get from one place to another safely.

The Exodus is the event creating the Jewish people, but Shavuot is the event creating Judaism. Our holidays, our life cycle events, our food customs, the content of our prayers, these are the rules that define what it means to live a Jewish life. Mitzvot give Judaism its transcendent meaning.

I invite you to join me on the first night of Shavuot (Sunday, June 1, 6:30 p.m.) to explore the role of Torah and Mitzvot. Elsewhere in the Voice, you’ll find information about a potluck dinner at my home, following by a series of study sessions. You are welcome to come and go as you please. The sessions are intended to be informal and participatory.

And join us at the synagogue Monday and Tuesday morning to help make the minyan as we reenact the revelation of the 10 commandments (Monday) and as we incorporate a Yizkor memorial service to honor those who came before us (Tuesday). There might even be cheesecake or blintzes, as it is customary to enjoy sweet dairy foods on Shavuot, representing the milk and honey of Torah.

Hag Sameah!

Hebrew word(s) of the Month:

  • yom – day
  • shavuah – week
  • ḥodesh – month
  • Shanah – year