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Formula 5780Rosh HaShanah 2019 – Rabbi Greg KanterA man was on his daily walk when he saw what looked like the little league season opener. He approached and asked a boy in the dugout what the score was. The boy responded, "Eighteen to nothing--we're behind."? "Wow," said the spectator, "I'll bet you're discouraged."? "Why should I be discouraged?" replied the boy. "We haven't even gotten up to bat yet!" This year, 5780, perhaps more than ever, I want to be that boy. I want hope to fill my heart and yours. I want to believe that however rotten things seemed in 5779 (which certainly had its ups and downs), things can be better in 5780 for you and me, even if it feels like we are down 18-0.It’s been a hard year. Hope is in short supply. Though it seems like a long time ago, just a little while ago, we got a reminder about how a hurricane can stop time and turn your life upside down. We got lucky, so far. Can we hope to be so lucky all the time?We know that parents and their children fleeing violence and seeking a better life end up locked up in camps on our border for the crime of being refugees. As 21st century Jews, we find the idea of government separating families in prison camps intolerable, but we wonder what we can do. It seems a bit hopeless.The ADL tracks hate crimes against Jews as higher than ever. We suffer attacks and willful ignorance from the hate groups and individuals inspired by malicious misinformation on the internet and politicians who make ignorant pronouncements about the roles of Jews in American society. Thank God for journalists who still report the news.While we live in the Holy City with many wonderful neighbors, the Lowcountry is not immune to hate and prejudice. So, what is the antidote? What is a good working formula to help us move from a year of deep concern to a Shanah Tovah – A good year?___________For me, the first step towards a formula for a Shanah Tovah is “Hope”. Even (and perhaps especially) in the darkest of times, we must retain hope to make our New Year a good one.As Jews, “Hope” is our theme song. After all, “HaTikvah” – the Israeli National Anthem, literally means “The Hope”.HaTikvah states – “Our hope is not yet lost,The hope two thousand years old,To be a free nation in our land,The land of Zion and Jerusalem.”“Our hope is not yet lost!” declared a newly formed nation of Holocaust survivors. If they can make “hope” their anthem, certainly we can find hope after a rough year. Torah is filled with stories of Hope. In very beginning, the story of Creation, when God gives humanity a good world to preserve and nurture, seeds of hope are planted. Maybe we can care for this big beautiful world. But not long after creation, Torah takes us to the story of Noah and the flood. Still, Noah is not just a story about destruction and a great flood; it’s also a story about God having hope that humanity might get it right the next time. Despite a shaky start, God maintains hope in humanity!Later on, as we go from slavery in the land of Egypt to liberation and our journey to the Promised Land, Torah teaches hope.Moses sends 12 spies to investigate the Promised Land while on their journey their from Egypt. 10 of the 12 spies told our ancestors it was hopeless and they had to turn back to Egyptian slavery again. Nevertheless, our people looked inward, found hope, and pushed on.Hope is not just a theme in Torah. The Jewish New Year is all about hope.The New year declares that if we had a bad year, there is hope for a new and better one.The New year allows us to look back and feel we were not our best selves, but still we can have hope that we will do better in the next.The New year declares that if our world is not the world we want to live in, or not the world we want to leave to our children and grandchildren, we have the ability to make it more like the world we still want so long as we nurture “hope”.Hope is in the Torah’s DNA and passed down to every Jew. Every Jew, whether born Jewish or having come to Judaism later in life inherits - HaTikvah - the hope, a foundation on which to build a better year in 5780. The formula for a better year begins with hope. What comes next?From Hope, we go to Change.To hope we add a dash of change to make the New Year better than the last.The New Year declares that whatever we were in the year that has past does not define who we might yet become. Hope is an idea and an aspiration. Change requires action.But can we change? Judaism declares, “Absolutely yes!”Of course, we believe in change! One of the primary reasons we at KKBE offer an “Introduction to Judaism” course, is for people who seek meaningful change in their lives. Changing to Judaism is more than just a change in religion. When a person becomes Jewish by choice, they embrace our religion AND our history, our diverse culture, our language and the land of Israel. That’s a lot to ask; and yet we find there are amazing people in The Lowcountry who are up to the challenge.KKBE is about to launch one of our largest ever “Introduction to Judaism” courses. Some of the newly registered students are worshiping with us right now! To our new students we especially wish you a Happy and Sweet New Year and we are here with open arms to welcome you into our community. We better believe in change!Becoming Jewish is one kind of change.A religion changing itself is another kind of change. KKBE is the birthplace of Reform Judaism in America. Before Cincinnati had Isaac Mayer Wise, considered the founder of American Reform Judaism, Isaac Mayer Wise came to Charleston to learn how Reform could actually be nurtured in a community.He had heard that the Jews of Charleston demanded change. The Reform Society of Israelites was born here in 1824 and as Reform Judaism was changing the American landscape, Isaac Mayer Wise came here in the mid 19th century to help nurture and defend the growth of a changing and evolving Judaism.Here in Charleston first, when Jews could not sit with the family members they loved, they demanded change. KKBE created a Jewish space where husbands and wives and sons and daughters could sit together on Shabbat and the New Year.When Jews could not understand the words of the prayers written and spoken in Hebrew and Aramaic, the Reform Society of Israelites demanded change and KKBE decided to add English to our service. A radical idea that made it possible for parents to hand Judaism down to their children and grandchildren in a language they all understand.Isaac Harby who lived in Charleston from 1788-1828 and was a playwright, journalist, literary critic and descendant of Sephardic Jews who settled in Charleston once said, “We wish to worship God, not as slaves of bigotry and priestcraft but as the enlightened descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." He and others wrote manuscripts for Jewish prayer that included English translations. Later, Peninah Moise became the first Jewish American woman whose poetry was widely published. She penned English poems and hymns for American Jews.Because the membership of KKBE needed something different than they had been offered in previous generations, they rose to the challenge to meet the needs of their evolving congregation. They changed Judaism so that we could be here today.If we believe institutions can change, certainly people can change.After all, institutions do not exist without people like you and me who create the institutions.To thrive, we cannot just create institutions; but, we also have to re-invent them for our times, consider how we can make them better, and breathe new life into them on a regular basis.To this end, the Nobel Prize winning poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote, “Don’t limit your child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.” Or as “Rabbi Bob Dylan” wrote, “The times they are a-changin’.”Let us make the New Year sweet by changing as much as we can with the times and where we cannot, let us allow for our children to grow and change our world to suit their Judaism and their world.Hope and Change are the first two ingredients in my formula for a good year in 5780Hope and change only last when we realize we’re in this together. Part of the problem of the last year is the divisiveness. This divisiveness has been infecting society and making it harder for groups of people with different views to sit and talk to each other.I can say with confidence that while other Jewish communities have areas they agree on, no other Jewish community where I have lived is quite as cohesive as the Charleston Jewish community, even when we disagree.Charleston Jews may belong to a variety of congregations, but still we work together on so many things. We meet together, we study together and when there’s a loss in one of our families we’re there for each other. When there’s a reason to celebrate – we celebrate together.I’ve worshipped at all our local synagogues and had reason to visit and do work at other new and historic Jewish institutions around town. Communities outside of Charleston ought to aspire to be as cohesive as we are.We even have a Three Rabbi Panel twice a year that brings us together, not in spite of our differences, but because of our differences.The Jewish communities of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach could learn a lot from how we do things in Charleston. We’re not perfect. But we do work together for the mutual benefit of the larger Jewish community.Don’t take this for granted. What happens in Charleston doesn’t happen everywhere, at least not to the degree that it should. And so we must, in a year that has tried so hard to divide us, we must work together despite our differences to make 5780 a Shanah Tovah.I pray that we work together this year for the benefit of our community and our future.Remember the little boy in the dugout at the little league game? They were down 18-0, but still he had hope. I think looking back at 5779, we’re all that little boy . There were storms that tried to blow us away and politics that tried to tear us apart. But we’re here – together. Towards that end, the Central Conference of American Rabbis recently published new prayers for our country to add to the “Prayers for our Country” already in our High Holy Day Machzor.This one was written by a classmate of mine, Dr. Andrea Weiss, who now serves as Provost for the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City. Dr. Weiss writes - “A Prayer for Our Country”Every inch of America is sacred, from sea to shining sea. There is much to be done in our time, the sort of hard work on which God smiles because it is done for the sake of the dignity and well-being of all God’s creatures. Together, let us work to preserve and make manifest the values upon which our democracy was founded. The task of all people of faith is to call governing authorities to fulfill God’s purpose of bringing about justice, mercy, and peace. Individually and as a nation, may we heed our obligations to each other as we navigate the tensions of building a just society. Rather than a politics of divisiveness, may we move our country toward a politics of empathy. May we use our power well so we do great things for all God’s creatures, all those made in God’s image who yearn for an equal place at America’s table. If we do all this, may grace and peace be ours in abundance. May we be a beacon and a blessing to the young Jews we teach, to their parents and grandparents, to the greater community, and to the world. AMEN ................
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