Erev Yom Kippur

hello love only love with all your the souls inside and around you will remember as you're walking through the day make this world a better place children will learn and their future will be love with all your heart the wisdom inside and around you will remember in your home and on your way make your life be a sculptor for the holy love only love with all your souls to the wisdom inside you will remember you you will remember love only love with all your heart love only love with all your soul listen to the wisdom inside and around as you're walking through the day make this world a better place children will learn and their future will be love with all your you will remember in your home and on your way make your life be a sculptor for the holy for love love only love only love with all your soul listen to the wisdom inside and around will remember you will remember you will remember love only love with all inside and as you're walking through the day make this world a better place children will and the future will be inside and around you will remember in your home and on your way make your life be a sculptor for the holy all your heart love only love with all your soul listen to the wisdom inside you will remember you will remember only love with all your heart to the wisdom inside and around as you're walking through the day though we all have been hurt though we all have hurt each other let us all forgive let us all be forgiven though we all have caused pain in our words spoken let us all forgive let us all be forgiven spotlight for the gates are always open for the gates are always open for the gates are always all open though we all have regret for the words that we have spoken let us all forgive let us all be forgiven let now be the time to repair what has been broken let us all forgive let us may you be written and sealed in the book of life for the year 5782 a good life a life of hope fulfillment and purpose yom kippur is our time for reflection atonement and forgiveness on this solemn and holy day on behalf of all of the clergy and staff of temple best shalom i ask you for your forgiveness we have all just lived through an extraordinarily difficult year and there may indeed have been times when we let you down when we miss the mark when we inadvertently hurt you or you felt ignored or unseen for this we are all deeply sorry and we hope you will forgive us as for our high holy days this year we had to pivot so quickly to live stream that things may not go quite as smoothly as we wish and we hope you will understand and forgive us for that tradition teaches us that after moses broke the first set of ten commandments when he was coming down from mount sinai and he saw the israelites worshiping the golden calf that god gave him a second set of tablets on yom kippur itself as if to say i forgive you may we too be quick to forgive those who have hurt us and quick to forgive ourselves too may we enter these holy days with hearts open ready to forgive we miss you here in our sanctuary but we feel connected to each and every one of you we open our festival with the kindling of the yomtov lives oh foreign r on our service continues as we open the doors to the ark and we invite you to rise as you are able yom kippur the jewish people's festival of the soul and col nidre its sacred portal a night of deep emotions a night as the psalmist wrote to rejoice with trembling we rejoice at the sound of colny dre rhythmic words of release from vows oaths and promises to god we fail to keep we tremble at the melody music of spiritual amazement it fills us with awe as we stand before god and torah we rejoice that we stand together strengthened by community in this hour of shared weakness and humility we tremble for tonight we confess our flaws admit our imperfection and acknowledge a power far beyond our understanding we rejoice that we commit ourselves to great endeavors because we feel so deeply and think so nobly we tremble for we find that our ideals are far greater than our ability our promises surpass our might we rejoice in the freedom that is called nidre's true gift the freedom to begin a new year without fear of failure to aspire to be god's image in the world we tremble because we are mortal we rejoice in our gratitude for life we rejoice with trembling and intercoal nidre to face our humanity let our speech be pure and our promises sincere let our spoken words every vow and every oath be honest and well intentioned let our words cause no pain bring no harm and never lead to shame distrust or fear and if after honest effort we are unable to fulfill a promise a vow or an oath may we be released from its obligation and forgiven for our failure let our speech be pure and our promises sincere me oh would me is oh foreign oh lee on lord lord foreign all vows resolves and commitments vows of abstinence and terms of obligation sworn promises and oaths of dedication that we promise and swear to god and take upon ourselves from this day of atonement until the next day of atonement may it find us well we regret them and for all of them we repent let all of them be discarded and forgiven abolished and undone they are not valid and they are not binding our vows shall not be vows our resolves shall not be resolves and our oaths they shall not be oaths we invite you to be seated as we take a breath and prepare ourselves to hear the stirring sounds of the cello performed by cellist aaron merritt and pianist alan caves we thank them hey yes um so my foreign now so so so thank you that was so beautiful on this perhaps the eve of the holiest night of the calendar i confess to you that this year i am really struggling with god in january my 23 year old nephew jonathan a medical student and all around great human being was diagnosed with stage four cancer at first the prognosis was good but then as treatment after treatment failed the news became increasingly unbearable people all around the globe in every language and of every faith were praying for him i prayed for him too endlessly but no matter how much we prayed in no matter how many languages our prayers have not yet been answered there has been no miracle some people may find comfort in believing that everything happens for a reason that it was meant to be to me those words are blasphemy i cannot believe in a god who determines in the words of our liturgy who shall live and who shall die who shall recover from stage four cancer and who shall not who shall be fertile and who shall be barren who shall be loved and who shall be betrayed who shall get a tesla and who shall get a tumor how many of us struggle with this notion of an all-powerful god those who have lost a husband or a daughter or a job or a dream or maybe a wife who left for another man or a child who won't talk to you or a parent whose mind is fading or a cancer that's returned we sit here today each of us with our own losses our own disappointments our own quiet suffering we come to synagogue or virtual synagogue for our annual reckoning with god god the king god the author of life and death god of covid and catastrophes god who tells abraham to sacrifice his son isaac it's hard to have faith in that god this past june the jewish theologian richard rubinstein died rubenstein authored the well-known book after auschwitz in which he challenged the notion of an all-powerful god how can jews believe in an omnipotent beneficent god after auschwitz he asked yet rubenstein never renounced his faith only his belief in a traditional traditional notion of a god who rewards and punishes and rabbi harold kushner who wrote the bestseller when bad things happen to good people asked why do we have to insist on everything being reasonable why must everything happen for a specific reason why can't we just let the universe have a few rough edges from the ancient psalmist who cried out why have you forsaken me to modern day theologians all of us struggle with challenges to our faith or emunah as it is called in hebrew our name israel defines us one who wrestles with god this name must mean that it's okay to grapple with god to recognize that there is mystery beyond our understanding that there is so much in life that we cannot explain and even more that we cannot control as rubenstein demonstrated renouncing belief in an all-powerful or all-knowing god does not mean giving up on god it means letting go of an image that may not serve or support us in fact it may undermine our faith all together yes we live in a world god created with finite boundaries of decay injury and death but god also created this world with infinite grace compassion and love this is god as avinu a loving parent guiding us strengthening us and inspiring us to be a source of compassion and healing for others for those of us struggling with faith rabbi abraham joshua heschel offered a way of seeing god in the world why is the torah so seemingly obsessed with the problem of graven images heshel asked if you believe it is because god has no image then all of these images are merely errors but why then is idolatry such a great sin he asked the point heshel said is that god does indeed have an image you a human being are god's image you cannot make god's image you can only be god's image god's great beneficence was in creating us us each one of us to be god's image in the world as my family and i were coping with how to respond to this staggering news about my nephew i considered a passage from the talmud that has always heartened me the rabbis taught that visiting someone who is sick removes 1 60th of their pain the point of this teaching is not that 60 visits could actually cure someone but that the impact of our visits is concrete and quantifiable the formula of 160th appears elsewhere as well in the shokhan aruk a jewish code of laws we're taught the principle of battelle bishishim which explains how to determine whether something is kosher or not according to this principle if even a small trace of a non-kosher substance 1 60th of the whole or more will render something unkosher inedible for example if you are baking a bread and learn that there is a small drop of lard in the shortening you used if that drop is 1 60th or greater then the bread is no longer kosher the essential lesson here is that even the smallest amount can make a profound impact 160th is to teach us that we have the agency to transform someone's bitter suffering into something bearable to alter someone's loneliness and isolation into solidarity and comfort what makes this difference a text a phone call a cup of coffee from someone's favorite shop carpool help a warm blanket for the hospital waiting room walking someone's dog for them bringing a meal holding a hand some things in life cannot be fixed they can only be carried a wise person once said this is the way we take 1 60th of someone's pain away we help them carry it this is a spiritual power we have as once created but selem elohim in god's image to make god manifest in the world this faith this emunah is the fuel that empowers us to be god's image in the world in hebrew the word for faith is a term of responsiveness and relationship a term of commitment not of logical certainty says my friend and colleague rabbi david stern the word amane which we say at a prayer's conclusion comes from that same hebrew root as the word emunah when we say amen to a prayer for peace it's not simply a nod to the idea of peace but a commitment to work for it more than meaning so be it a main means i will make it so the word for faith in hebrew amino first appears in the book of exodus chapter 17 having successfully crossed the sea from slavery to freedom the israelites are attacked by their quintessential enemy amalek moses tells joshua to go do battle with amalek while he stations himself at the top of a hill with his brother aaron and and this is where something extraordinary happens because whenever moses holds up his hands israel prevails but when he lets his hands down amalek prevails soon as you can imagine moses hands grow heavy and he can no longer hold them up alone so aaron and one on each side hold his hands up for him the torah tells us that with their help his hands remain steady until the sun sets his hands were steady in this first appearance of the word for faith emunah in the torah the meaning is steady or reliable but what's most significant is that this emunah is not about faith in god but rather a steadiness that comes from being held or supported by others when we are tired when we feel like we cannot go it alone this emunah is about faith being a team sport it's about how we sustain others when they are inconsolable how we reflect god's image to one another how we take away one sixtieth of someone's pain to soften the sharpest edges it's not about fixing but carrying not about curing but holding each other up despite my questions my doubts and my struggles i try to begin each morning by reciting the moda ani prayer a prayer of gratitude that expresses my thanks to god each day for renewing my breath the prayer concludes with the words rabbah great is your emunah great is your emunah your faith or trust in me o god not great is my faith in god but great is god's faith in me that's really turning the tables on faith it's meant to teach us i think that god is counting on us believing in us trusting in our hands it means god is expecting us to be as heschel taught god's image in the world but we cannot do it alone this past year has been unimaginably hard for my sister and brother-in-law for my nieces and nephews for all of us we are angry heartbroken confused and fraying at the edges but we are also sustaining each other calling visiting praying sending care packages text messages and sharing more love intimacy and support than we ever have before several weeks ago our whole big family gathered in buffalo new york to celebrate my nephew's somewhat impromptu wedding to his beautiful high school sweetheart sydney and as we whirled around the room in a raucous horror lifting jonathan and sydney up on chairs grasping each other's arms and shoulders as we whirled around it felt as if we were literally holding each other up this is our emunah our commitment to each other to my nephew jonathan and to god and it is this emunah this faith in a presence that is beyond us and between us that is helping to carry each one of us none of us can explain the brokenness of our world or god's role in fixing it but despite our doubts and questions and even anger emunah is the faith that we are here to make it better that god needs us to make it better that we need each other to make it better and from this emunah this faith we draw the strength to go on we may live without guarantees but what we do know is we can remove one sixtieth of someone's pain we can hold each other up to bear what's unbearable and we can bring glimmers of god's light into the darkest of places kenya he wrote zone may we have the strength and the courage to make it so i mean darkness who foreign the way when they feel alone and our darkest days i shall shine together to transform darkness into is oh be the one be so please rise as you are able for the bahu you are my witnesses says adonai god is the first god is the last there is no god but adonai testify for me says adonai in your love for me teach your children embracing torah now and forever we accept god's sovereignty and reverence treating others with love studying torah may this be our will as we witness no lord please be seated and you shall love the lord your god with all your heart with all your soul and with all your might and all these words which i command you on this day shall be in your heart shall be in your heart and you shall teach them diligently unto your children and you shall speak of them when you sit in your house when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up and when you rise and they shall be for friendless and upon that you may remember and do all of my commandments and be holy our sages taught it is proper to mention the exodus from egypt in our morning prayers and also at night we celebrate the going out from egypt in the morning light full of confidence and vigor as we enter the new day but in the evening weary from the day's exertions cast down and fearful at the coming of the night what can the exodus teach us then our nighttime prayer brings hope and trust in the future as god did not abandon our people long ago through the long dark night of exile so the holy one will be with us in time to come to stand by the one you love that is the true essence of faithfulness the meaning of emunah as rabbi pomeran so brilliantly and touchingly taught us tonight so it is written in the psalms to proclaim your kindness in the morning and your faithfulness in the nights sing with joy in the mornings of your life when light surrounds you and the world seems beautiful and good and in the evenings of your life when you dwell in sorrow and the world seems dark do not despair oh say oh we oh is we lift our voices bodies and souls for the central part of our liturgy hot dafila please rise as you are able to hello hello hey foreign me oh foreign oh me the yay our god and god of the generations before us may a memory of us ascend and come before you may it be heard and seen by you winning your favor and reaching your awareness together with the memory of our ancestors the memory of your sacred city jerusalem and the memory of your people the family of israel may we be remembered for safety well-being and favor for love and compassion for life and for peace on this day of atonement amen eternal our god remember us be mindful of us amen and redeem us for a life of goodness and blessing favor us with your words of deliverance and mercy show us the depth of your care god we await your redemption for you reign with grace and compassion we pray that god will receive our prayers with loving acceptance rit say please be seated they are is oh let's see we look deep in our hearts and recite the vidue confessional eloheinu of eloheia tenu of imotenu tavo le fanecha te filatenu val titala mithenatenu our god and god of all generations may our prayers reach your presence and when we turn to you do not be indifferent adonai we are arrogant and stubborn claiming to be blameless and free of sin in truth we have stumbled and we have strayed we have done wrong the ways that we have missed the mark encompass our entire alphabet of shamnu i know he i they hear oh foreign wrong know new i me i please join together of these wrongs we are guilty we betray we steal we scorn we act perversely we are cruel we scheme we are violent we slander we devise evil we lie we ridicule we disobey we abuse we defy we corrupt we commit crimes we are hostile we are stubborn we are immoral we kill we spoil we go astray we lead others astray our sins are collective please join with me for these sins our god we ask forgiveness the ways we have wronged you deliberately and by mistake and harm we have caused you in your world through the words of our mouths the ways we have wronged you by hardening our hearts and harm we have caused in your world through careless speech the ways we have wronged you through lies and deceit and harm we have caused in your world through gossip and rumor al-hait shakutan and le fanecha the ways we have wronged you by judging others unfairly and harm we have caused in your world through disrespect to parents and teachers al-qaeda life the ways we have wronged you through insincere apologies and harm we have caused in your world by mistreating a friend or neighbor the ways we have wronged you through violence and abuse and harm we have caused in your world through dishonesty in business for all these failures of judgment and will god of forgiveness forgive us pardon us lead us to atonement the ways we have wronged you openly and secretly and harm we have caused in your world by losing self-control the ways we have wronged you through sexual immorality and harm we have caused in your world through consumption of food and the ways we have wronged you by giving in to our hostile impulses and harm we have caused in your world through greed and exploitation life the ways we have wronged you through cynicism and scorn and harm we have caused in your world through arrogant behavior the ways we have wronged you by hating without cause and harm we've caused in your world through offensive speech the ways we have wronged you with a slanderous tongue and harm we have caused in your world through a selfish or petty spirit so all these failures of judgment and will god of forgiveness forgive us pardon us lead us to atonement am i there for those who need me giving of my heart completely have i been caring and have i been patient if i forgiven without reservation do i take my days treated others even handed and shown compassion to the homeless i've been humble before my creator hello and have i raised my voice against injustice have i been giving or have i been selfless hello hello beyonce we pray that god will hear our voices shema kolenu i don't know a um oh lord oh know oh to fear loved as the ark doors are open we rise and face jerusalem for the singing of avinu malkenu moment you want no oh know oh oh foreign know he knew m foreign see good evening steve pardo your temple be shalom president i want to take this opportunity to thank all of our clergy for a beautiful and a very thoughtful service and sermon i also want to make a couple of announcements and then a couple of words to add to that first of all there will be a full day of activities tomorrow please check your temple website for all the offerings here are just a few highlights morning services will begin at 10 a.m and can be viewed on the temple's watch page or on facebook or the temple's youtube channel the virtual youth experience for grades k through 5 will begin at 11 45 am please check the website for the zoom link virtual torah study will begin at 1 30 pm and virtual meditation at 2 30 pm that will be led by marta singerman and cantor siegel please check the temple website for the zoom links to these offerings children's service will begin at 2 30 pm and can be viewed on the temple watch page lastly yom kippur afternoon services begin at 4 pm and will be immediately followed by yiscor and the nila services these can be viewed on the temple's watch page facebook or the youtube september and october are very busy months here at the temple and we will be sending out emails in a full list of offerings of the events for sukkot and simchat we hope you can join us this monday september 20th at 5 pm for our sukkah decorating and song experience we will decorate the sukkah shake the lulav and the eatrog and sing sukkot's songs and hear sukkot's stories since we can't all share a meal at the sukkah we will offer a pizza to go for all families so please contact mark branic at mark at tbsmb.org for more information and finally monday october 18th we are looking for a few good golfers and plenty of not so good golfers to join us at the miami beach golf club for the 200 2021 temple bei shalom golf open we will be teeing it off at 1 pm and for any information after that please contact craig burko at craig tbsmb.org for more information now just for a couple of words on this cole nidre 5782 i want to reflect upon this year's theme our temple be shalom community being together now that's a little ironic surely disappointing and after 18 months of covid absolutely exasperating there are so many adjectives that we can choose this year but being the optimist that i am i choose being grateful i choose being humbled and i choose being blessed you see i feel that we are actually closer than ever as a community we may be together in spirit technology but we are more deeply committed to our temple and each other yes we do miss together being in person together our rosh hashanah tash event in must park is a testament to what we yearn for we may have experienced these past two high holy days in our homes but as a community together we have had an incredibly vibrant and engaging virtual experience produced produced by one of our own congregant families chris and carlos sloan who were one of the recipients this past year of our coal hakavote awards on behalf of the temple we thank them again for bringing us together during my kol nidre speech last year i reflected on my jewish journey of temple beshalom for over six decades as life cycle moments of bashert and reminiscing about how important temple best shalom has been in my life i spoke to what may have seemed at the time a very quiet and empty synagogue like tonight but even tonight as i reflect on the reality of this moment our spiritual home is actually filled with precious memories of family and friends who were a part of my jewish journey my beloved parents of blessed memory joe and doris pardo my bestert and loving wife adrian my incredible kids now adults daniel carley and josh my siblings jeff michelle and elisa nieces and nephews and many of you who have shared the simchas and other life cycle moments with our family you see we are all together as a community through our many shared experiences and deep connections we are a rich and vibrant congregation composed of multi-generational families we are also a melting pot of multinational multicultural committed jews who seek out to engage in socially just ways of jewish living and innovative ways to make a difference in the world together we yearn for those experiences that are the secret sauce that makes temple be shalom our second home we will remember this year and we remember this past year this is a historic time in which temple be shalom has persevered and thrived due to the leadership of our clergy and its board of trustees the strength and dedication of our staff and the resilience and the philanthropy of each of you joining together collectively as one congregation i thank you for all the support that you have given to this temple and for the support that you have given me you all have gone above and beyond i want to give special thanks to marcie zeskin another kohaku vote award recipient and her entire staff tbs foundation school and the elementary education is thriving thanks to margie's team and thanks to our young families who together maintain and protect the health and safety of our children following the prudent protocols of our covet task force under the guidance of our council medically dr kenny ratzen our third ko ko hakavod award recipient and dr robin strauss our pediatric medical expert together we will continue to keep our children safe and healthy on april 2nd of 2022 we will celebrate the temple's 80th anniversary honoring all of our past presidents 12 of who are still very active temple leaders and under the leadership of our past presidents jack carson and margie barron and our philanthropy chair michael weinberg we have embarked together on a campaign to reach 80 planned gifts to temple best shalom and as of this yom kippur we have already exceeded our goal with over 50 planned gifts thank you jack margie and michael so please join us on april 2nd at the temple for a special shalom fest 2022 honoring our rich 80 year history we all pray that we can celebrate together in person again this upcoming spring in the september hot hole i spoke of the covet haze that is slowly lifting just in time for my second and last year as your president it has been a great honor and i am grateful for the opportunity well it was not exactly the presidency i had envisioned when i was selected in march of 2019 pre-covered and while the decisions that had to be made on an almost daily basis were unpredictable and required continual pivoting i always knew that you would be there to support those decisions and for that i am especially grateful i am also grateful humbled and blessed to have a sacred partnership with our senior rabbi rabbi pomerantz and our executive debt director jeff graf by the end of this secular calendar year 2021 we will have a new strategic plan for the temple under the leadership of alan pecor and bart chepanik and our pillar chairs and their pillar members i thank all of them and all of you for your survey input during this process the temple is a wonderful oasis of community spirituality education and social action that will continue to adapt to the changing environment that we all live in and next year 5783 you will hear from our next president vanessa ressler who has been a strong leader for several years and is well prepared for the decisions that will be made and be faced in the future vanessa will be singing her cole nade dre speech in true a cappella style so on this cole nidre 5782 on behalf of my entire family i wish each of you a happy healthy and sweet new year gemar katima tova may you be inscribed in the book for a good life and i wish you a very meaningful and easy fast thank you thank you steve for your beautiful words for all that you do and for your leadership we are so deeply appreciative we continue our service with our concluding prayers as we turn to the elenu and once again rise and face jerusalem they knew she know i invite you to remain standing as we approach words of kaddish please take a moment to hold in your heart all of your loved ones who go with you wherever you go all those who have died this past year those who have died of covid in the champlain towers those who have died of catastrophes we hold them all in our hearts with our own as together we recite these words of kaddish may the author of peace and peace to all who mourn and comfort to all who are bereaved here and everywhere and let us say amen we will conclude our colony dre service this evening with an old favorite adonai lum please join in i please return to the land of your soul return to who you are return to what you are return to where you are born and reborn and reborn return again return again return to the land of your souls you

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Length: 108min 20sec (6500 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021