Yom Kippur | Ruth & Allen Ziegler Main Sanctuary, and Family Minyan | 5782

[Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] so is [Music] foreign [Music] girls [Music] [Music] [Music] before [Music] we stand before you on this yom kippur with our hearts and our souls in our hands praying that you will help us to elevate who we are to come closer to the original intention with which you gave us our lives and our souls we pray not only for life but for goodness not only for years but for death may you draw us closer to one another into you and in the year ahead help us create a better world a kinder world a world more in line with the principles of your torah and of our faith amen [Music] [Music] and feed [Applause] [Music] [Music] naughty [Applause] foreign [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] i am [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign god [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] the torah reading for this morning for the day of yom kippur is found on page 278 in the maxor it talks about the sierra azazel the scapegoat and of course the scapegoat has a somewhat different meaning in the torah from what it has in common parlance in the torah it is the sacrificed offering in two different ways one to the altar and one to the wilderness that represent different ways of assuming the sins of the people once again on page 278 we begin at the very top of the page from the book of leviticus chapter 16. m [Music] [Music] oh foreign [Music] [Music] okay okay [Music] [Music] where are we um oh [Music] [Music] is found on page 279 in the middle of the page [Music] [Music] m a foreign page 279 in the middle of the page page 279 in the middle of the page verse 12 for the fourth aliyah [Music] baruch [Music] [Music] um [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] um [Music] i [Music] [Music] is [Applause] ah [Applause] hello foreign uh oh [Music] a [Music] oh [Music] we're on page age 281 and you will see in the previous sentence and in this sentence the description of yom kippur it shall be a sabbath of complete rest to you and you shall practice self-denial that's how the our translation has which can also mean you shall afflict your soul and then it says it is a law for all time that doesn't say that explicitly about all the laws in the torah but about yom kippur it says it is a rule forever page 281 middle of the page [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] please rise for the reader's kaddish [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] please be seated before we continue with the mafta reading which you will find on page 282. i want to thank those who read the torah for us this morning first of all cantor feldman golda mendelson debbie faronic ellen adele tiffany faranik mcabee asher and shirona nazarian i also want to take this moment of pulpit privilege to mention you know how the supreme court always has had like a jewish seat at least in most recent years sometimes more than one jewish seat so the beverly hills city council has always had a sinai seat i know they're aware of that and since girona is running for beverly hills city council i just want to say that we don't endorse it's all i want to say i just gave you some historical context and mentioned something that's all i did on this yom kippur i have nothing to repent for return now well a few things but nothing i said page 282 the bottom of the page the mafter reading and our baal mafia this morning is musa suma page 282. angela angela madahi is going to be our bald mafter and musa is going to be reading ah moosa's reading and angela's here for next year [Music] [Music] for those who are ill in our congregation and community [Music] a may the source of strength will bless the ones before us help us find the courage to make our lives [Music] m [Music] [Music] the renewal [Music] please rise [Music] please be seated page 284 page 284 the haftarah for this day of yom kippur from yeshayahu from isaiah will be chanted by angela madahi [Music] a [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] um elohim [Music] m [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] is we want to thank our past president angela medahi for chanting the haftarasso beautifully for us this morning and we continue now on page 296 with you hallelujah please rise so [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] is a tree of life to those that hold fast to it its ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths are peace return us to the beauty and wonder of the days of old in our time so that we might once again know the magic and the mystery of your word and your will and your lord [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] please be seated in a moment we're going to do the khatsikarish followed by the silent amidah if you were following the torah reading and the haftarah you got the sense that there was a contrast and it is the contrast in some ways between atonement and repentance atonement is ritual atonement the sierra la zazel the goat that goes off into the wilderness the goat that is sacrificed on the altar the temple service that is ritual atonement and ritual purification but then the prophet comes along and talks about the goodness the way we live our lives that the fast if it is not a fast that thinks of others that gives to others is not the kind of fast that god wants over time ritual has diminished and in fact in particular in this year with the pandemic the ritual is diminished because the services are a little bit shorter because if you're watching at home on a television or a computer it does not have the same ritual power and therefore it is incumbent upon all of us to increase our own focus on the emotional and repentant part of yom kippur to try to dig more deeply into ourselves and into our lives so that we can fulfill the words of the prophet and not only read about the service in the temple it isn't easy to do but among the many descriptions of yom kippur easy is never an adjective that has been applied the khatsikaddish is going to begin in a moment on page 298 and then the first invitation of this morning to really look inside yourself the silent amidah beginning on page 300 and concluding on page 311 please rise [Music] one [Music] [Music] [Music] my [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] yes so um um um when you have concluded your amidah please be seated uh there was a time when people estimated the time of day by the world and not by the clock and so the rabbis had to figure out what time is the right time for the morning prayer for the shema and they couldn't say o'clock so instead they said when you can see and recognize the face of your friend which has both a beautiful spiritual as well as a practical meaning when you can actually see the face of your friend that's a call to prayer among other things that's what happens at the synagogue you walk in and you see the face of your friend we are lucky enough to have people who act as friends mansur slamboli who you saw taking the torah out for us has been one of the faces that have greeted people as friends for years and years here michael silverstein the same both with men's club and here in the sanctuary and of course rabbi dershowitz has been the friend of everybody at sinai temple for many many many years we have a lot of people who could be the trigger for saying the shema and that is part of the rationale for why it is that normally we begin the henony prayer with the cantor at the back because that way you can see the face of the person who is praying for you of course just as in ancient times you needed nature and today you use the clock i suppose in ancient times you needed to see the face in person and today you can use a screen it's not quite the same but this year we're going to begin the henani prayer in which the khazan prays on behalf of the congregation not by having cantor feldman begin in the back and walk to the front but by having him begin the prayer in the front and god willing next year if you are sitting in the back you will see his face face to face page 312. [Music] he [Music] he'll need me most [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] me [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] my [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] may it be your will adonai god of abraham isaac and jacob sarah rebecca rachel and leia great mighty awe-inspiring god who responded to moses saying yeah i will be with you that my prayer reach your throne through the merit of the honest righteous and devout people and for your own sake praised are you merciful god who hears prayer [Music] [Music] [Music] my [Music] to be [Music] we rise for the beginning of the repetition of the amidahs the ark is open page 313. [Music] foreign [Music] oh [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] they are [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] me [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] blessed [Music] i [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] oh [Music] [Music] me [Music] a lot of morality is a question between what is intrinsic and what is enforced we all respond to outside enforcement i promise you that you are less likely to speed if you spot a police car in the rear-view mirror and yet we understand that real morality is what is intrinsic it's what you do whether someone's watching or not in pirkeia vote it says that you should be [Music] well it says a man but it's talking about a mature adult responsible human being says this in a place where there are no mature human beings you should be one and one of the interpreters says it literally means when no one's watching in a place where there are no people you should act as though there are in other words you should act decently it's like the story about bialik the hebrew poet who on shabbat was with two friends of his in his house in israel and they were smoking and the rabbi came by the rabbi opens the door and says what are you doing and one of them goes oh i forgot it was shabbos i'm sorry rabbi and the second one says you know i forgot you're not allowed to smoke on shabbos i'm sorry rabbi and bialik says ah rabbi i forgot to close the curtains in other words do you act the same privately that you do publicly and this is what the unatama tokef is about in part because on the one hand there is the who will live and who will die and that's the external the enforcement but the other part is that every human being writes their own story in other words when no one's watching how do you act when there isn't an enforcement do you have an intrinsic morality that keeps you doing what you should do when no one else is there yom kippur is predicated in part on the idea that god is watching but also on the idea that that's not ultimately why we should be moral this is how we raise children we tell them you shouldn't do that you shouldn't do that until we hope the day comes when they internalize that message and they act that way even when a parent isn't there watching anymore the uunatana tokef tries to remind us both that in theory we are never alone but also that even if we are we have custody of our own souls and should care for them page 315 let us speak of the sacred power of this day profound and awe-inspiring on it your sovereignty is celebrated and your throne from which you rule in truth is established with love you are a judge and prosecutor expert and witness completing the indictment bringing the case enumerating the counts you recall all that is forgotten and will open the book of remembrance which speaks for itself for our own hands have signed the page please rise [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] over [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] i [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] here [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] m [Music] [Music] i [Music] me [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] no [Music] [Music] [Music] utterance [Music] me [Music] um [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] have power to transform the harshness of our destiny though we are as a broken shard as withered grass as shriveled flowers a passing shadow a fading cloud a fleeting breeze a scattered dust and a dream that vanishes you god have no end to your years your time has no measure and therefore we pray that you link our name our souls and our destiny with yours we are [Music] [Applause] [Music] please be seated like to thank celeste and celine amin for the wonderful rendition of hashanah thank you both so much it is now my pleasure for a few words about our synagogue to call upon our past president eric diamond thank you rabbi wilpy if you want sinai to be here for your children then you need to be here for sinai those were the words that were spoken to me nearly 25 years ago by dorothy salkin that began my active involvement at sinai temple the charge resonated deeply within me and it led me here today you see i care deeply about sinai temple and i know all of you do too four generations of our family spanning more than 70 years have affiliated with sinai temple the sisterhood office is named in memory of my wife's grandparents b and sam smartrich of blessed memory and i was privileged to serve as president of the congregation from 2011 until 2013. sinai has enriched our family in so many ways many of our closest friends are here being here led me to wonderful professional and personal relationships and opportunities i met my dear friend and mentor max webb sitting in the pews here on a saturday morning over the years my wife debbie has remarked that at times when people are most in need when they're most vulnerable the sinai temple community steps up and supports them she uses the phrase we do death well but it's really a lot more than that since she has such a deep understanding of the community i asked my wife for advice with this speech so she responded by asking me what motivates you to give and i answered her i give when i'm inspired so she looked at me and said so inspire them explain to them why you're so committed to sinai temple there are several things that i could share with you today but one of them is by far the most meaningful and having obtained his permission i want to talk to you about my son jeffrey and his journey at sinai before his second birthday jeffrey was diagnosed with autism and since then he's worked harder than anyone i've ever seen to overcome his circumstances we were devastated when jeffrey could not follow his older brother jason into sinai akiba academy jeff desperately wanted and we wanted for him to have a meaningful jewish education so we worked with rabbi brian schultenfrey and religious school director danielle cassin to create a plan for jeffrey to attend the sinai religious school and we recruited a young woman to be jeff's school aide she grew up here at sinai and her parents are close friends jeff attended the regular religious school classes with his aide on saturday excuse me on sundays and on weeknights he forged real connections with our faith with our community and with his classmates and one of those classmates will always hold a very special place in my heart because he repeatedly served as jeffrey's voice in a series of moses aaron's speeches where jeffrey wrote and his young man spoke so like his mother and his brother jeffrey studied for his bar mitzvah with ariel cohn he learned to read torah and haftura and he was able to recite them at a service here at sinai temple following in the footsteps of his grandfather his mother and his brother sinai temple's clergy and staff and members made all this possible for jeff and for our family we in turn are committed to sinai so that sinai can do the same things for so many more families who have needs and right now our community needs your help we are incredibly vulnerable kovid is disrupting everything all you have to do is look around the room sinai's membership is now 25 smaller than it was two years ago we've lost 400 dues paying families even in the best years dues and fees only cover 60 or 70 percent of the budget supplemental donations like this appeal are needed to cover the balance there are so many things here that are not paid otherwise religious school tuition night basketball a speaker's program college student outreach and support the beth bracha special needs program that helps others like jeffrey achieve a meaningful relationship with judaism and sadly because of cutbacks over the years we've had to eliminate things that we miss like the sinai speaks newsletter and our adult education program a well-known rabbi a well-respected fundraiser in texas california and connecticut once explained to me that every successful solicitation is based upon a very simple concept he would look at a donor and he would explain to them that god has been incredibly generous in sharing his grace with the donor can't that donor please share just a portion of god's grace and generosity with someone who is less fortunate each year approximately 400 families most of whom gather to pray in this room provide the majority of the response to sinai's annual appeal this year i ask you can't you share just a little bit of your good fortune with those who are less fortunate if you can give a little please give a little if you can give a lot please give a lot over the years our family has been able to fold down tabs for increasingly large amounts to respond to the appeal this year because of the need we will increase our gift and fold down the next largest tab on the pledge card so please join our family please fold down a larger tab and make your gift to the synagogue during the appeal and if you feel comfortable please fold down the second tab and add to your commitment show us that you care about sinai and that you want it to be here for our children and for our grandchildren please share a portion of god's grace and generosity with those less fortunate because you can make this contribution to sinai and you can still afford to take your family out to dinner on sunday night your dollars will allow us to continue to provide activities and support for our community so here's how it works right you take out your ticket you peel off the sticker you take the pledge card and you stick your sticker on the pledge card then you fold down a tab or two and you hand it to the ushers who are passing through the room and if you're watching online i'm told there are prompts that will lead you to be able to give as well i wish each of you gemar hatimatova that you and those near and dear to you will be sealed in the book of life for a year of health a year of happiness and year of good fortune thank you lunch [Music] they [Music] the [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] i [Music] so [Music] [Music] we turn to page 317 as we rise for our cadusha page 317 [Music] the [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] me [Applause] [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] um [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] me [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] me [Music] you may be seated we turn to page 321 middle of the page [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] old [Music] god [Music] foreign oh oh [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] i [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] please rise for the alainu prayer in the middle of page 325. [Music] so [Music] cold [Music] [Music] oh thank you [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] a node please be seated for uh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] foreign oh [Music] [Music] [Music] is me [Music] m [Music] me [Music] um irving and harry are baseball fanatics it's all they can talk about or think about and sadly harry becomes sick gets sicker and it's clear that harry's dying irving says to him listen harry i'm sorry but the truth is really the only thing i want is after you pass away if there's any possibility come back like in a dream or something and let me know is there baseball in heaven harry says i promise if i can i will let you know sure enough harry dies and a week later he comes to irving in a dream he says irving i have good news and i have bad news it's what he says the good news is there's baseball in heaven and everything goes that's wonderful what's the bad news he says you're pitching thursday one of the things that i like about that joke is that it captures a reality that is true for some of us which is some of us believe there's something after this life but we still don't want to go there if there is an afterlife we'll find out when the time comes and yet the truth is that i was struck this year by the reality that for all the yisker sermons i have given in the course of my life and i have given a lot of eusker sermons i never gave one that told people what jews believe about the afterlife which would seem to be a pretty important topic for a yusker sermon and not only that but of all the fundamental questions of belief that jews ask or that jews have wrong impressions about i would say the afterlife might be number one i cannot tell you how many times i have heard people confidently say judaism doesn't believe in an afterlife that's not true not at all but in order to understand this we need to do a little spade work here and i want to start off before i talk about jewish belief or afterlife or any of that i want to start off by addressing those of you right now who are thinking why would i bother with this you die you go into the ground that's it i know that the great scientist jbs holding once said not only is the world queerer than we suppose but it is queerer than we can suppose and in fact if you at all have any curiosity in modern physics where there is talk of multiple universes where things are going on sometimes the same as here but with differences or that this is all actually a computer simulation and we're all playing out the computer code of a still higher intelligence but you take that seriously because it comes from the mouth of a scientist then all i can say is how could you not entertain the possibility that there is another world in which human beings exist beyond this one in all those multiple universes that physicists posit couldn't be couldn't there be one where we're there or if we're not there now where we get to eventually so i at least want to open your mind to the possibility that there are things we do not know and that the comment i'm rational therefore i don't believe it is irrational because if you were rational you would know that our minds just like our eyes and our ears and our senses are limited compared to the enormity of what is and therefore to say i know it isn't true is an irrational statement now i understand of course why someone would say that because we've never been there and not only that but the before life that is before you were born it didn't bother you at all right nobody nobody here in the 14th century was saying this is really upsetting that i haven't been born yet unless maybe you watch the beginning of outlander in which case it's a problem but otherwise we realize that existence is as nabokov put it a brief crack of light between two darknesses yet once life has been brought into the world you start to wonder if the principle is that no energy is ever lost it may be transformed but it's not lost that's a law of thermodynamics then what happens to the energy that ease me now i will tell you that judaism has different theories and you know that right we say in the amidah who resurrects the dead which means physical bodily resurrection you come back at whatever age i don't know it poses all sorts of problems but that you come back as a physical being which i grant you is somewhat improbable hard to believe although as the talmud says if god could create you from dust once why couldn't god create you from thus twice which is a reasonable question nonetheless i'm going to leave resurrection alone for a minute and i'm also going to leave alone reincarnation which is another thing that doesn't exist in mainstream judaism but in mystical judaism reincarnation is also a theory and perhaps a theory for another time but the idea that you have a non-physical part of yourself which is really what's at the core of all of this that idea is repeated again and again what's the first prayer a jew is supposed to say in the morning i am grateful to you the lord my god who has returned my soul to me as if in some sense you're parted with it when you're in deep sleep but it is returned to you we say it in every morning service god the soul you have given me is pure we by the way muck it up along the way but it starts off as being pure and that idea that idea that there is something non-physical about human beings is a very powerful idea once we start to physicalize it then we start to lose it so as soon as i start to describe what heaven is like it sounds ridiculous mark twain in letters from earth says people think they're going to lie on green fields and listen to harp music he said you actually wouldn't want to do that for five minutes while you're alive so why you think that will make you happy doing it for the rest of eternity i don't understand but it just shows how unable we are to conceive of a world that isn't this one after all before you were born into this world you could not have imagined this world who could have imagined buildings and tuna fish and eyes and colors and all these things that we've never experienced and remember that you learn things from experience that you cannot know by intellection by reason it's a famous experiment by a philosopher jackson it's a thought experiment but you can do it with me he says imagine we put mary in a room and mary is the world's most brilliant scientist and we teach her everything about vision she understands it like soup to nuts nobody in the world knows more about vision how it works how it operates than mary does then we open the door and show her a tomato she's never seen a color before has she learned something by the experience that she couldn't know by study and the answer of course is yes how many times have you said oh i knew this but until i experienced it i didn't realize what it was like so can we really imagine another world without experiencing it no but is such an experience possible maybe the prophet time was perhaps the greatest rabbi of the 19th century and he lived in a small town in poland called radun but people knew about him all over the world because he was his real name was rabbi israel mayor kagan but he was called the khafitzhayam because he wrote books especially about how one should speak or shouldn't speak and it was from the psalm who's the man that khafizhai means desires life nitsuru has shown khamera he flees from bad speech so he was known popularly as the time once a delegation of american jews 19th century went to visit the famous khufitskayam they found him in a little study with a rickety desk and a few books and they were amazed and one of them said where is all your stuff and he said where's yours and they said well we're just passing through and he said me too that belief the belief that in fact we were passing through and that there was something beyond this that belief by the way is part of the reason you say the qadhish why do you say the mourner's kaddish there are lots of reasons given but one is to give the nishama the soul of the person who has died in aliyah to help them on their way after death that's why it's so important to some people to have someone say kanish for them because that's what helps their soul along the way now you don't get helped along the way unless there's a way to go so in the bible there are a couple of hints but by the time you get to the talmud call israel all of israel has a place in the world to come and lest you think that the rabbis of the talmud were narrow and chauvinistic they also said in several different places all the righteous of all the nations have a place in the world to come you don't have to be jewish to have a place in the world to come jews should be proud of that but they assumed there was another place but they were not so foolish as to say and by the way the place has lawns and lovely homes i confess to you this is very typical of the rabbis you should forgive them the one one of the things that they do constantly describe heaven as is yeshiva ma'ala which is basically the religious school on high and as my talmud teacher once remarked for some that will be heaven and for some that will be hell right but the idea that you could study with god was for them ultimately paradise but you're allowed to have variations of that you don't have to accept that one but this idea that it was possible to be more than we are that we don't entirely disappear but that we transform in one way or another this is really important in the jewish tradition can you imagine having a god that loves you and abandons you the day you die in fact some midrashim some rabbinic legends talk about the idea that there's a storehouse of souls and as new people come into the world they draw from the storehouse of souls and that we pass on and that we discover a reality far beyond anything we could imagine last night those of you who are here know that i spoke about my father losing his father i know that this might surprise you but my father and i though both rabbis and i have another brother who's a rabbi and one who's a scientist and one who's an ethicist we didn't that often have strictly religious discussions but occasionally we did and once i remember a few years before he died i was walking with him along the schuykill river in philadelphia where i grew up and where he lived and i said you know that i've never asked you this before i don't think but what do you think happens after you die by the way this is a great question to ask people and if you have people in your life that you haven't asked ask them and i'll tell you what he told me he said i don't believe that human beings disappear and i thought that's exactly what i think i don't know what happens to us but i don't believe we disappear can you look in the eyes of someone you love and think that's all synapse no soul can you explore yourself and think ah this is just a physical thing there's nothing intangible in me even though we live in a world of intangibles imagination is intangible dreams are intangible concepts are intangible mathematics is intangible there is nowhere in the world where two plus two equals four exists as a sort of abstract theorem it's intangible but it's real so if we live so much in the intangibles can't there be something in us that is intangible maurice lam in his book on death and dying tells the following parable he says imagine twins in a womb one of them in the discussion that they're having back in the womb says you know this is it there's no world outside this we've never seen another world we've never experienced another world this is all we got but his brother says no i think there's more i think there's something out there now he says imagine that the one who believes is born back in the womb his brother is mourning a death out in the world we were celebrating a birth that he said is what it's like in this world and the next world now i've known that parable for many years told it before but this year it took on a special poignancy by something else that i learned that you just saw my whole life i always assumed that when we fall corim in front of the ark when the cantor and i you saw went all the way down put our faces to the ground in front of the ark i always felt that and experienced that as a moment of humility and creatureliness before the kardashbar who before god but this year i read the interpretation of the late chief rabbi of england emmanuel jackal buffett's he said when you fall co-in front of the ark it's a fetal position you're about to be reborn so there it is yiskar is a time when we hope for and pray for rebirth do we know we cannot know not the way we know empirical things but i for one don't believe that human beings human striving human genius human heartache human hopes i don't believe they all dissolve in a cloud of dust i don't believe that the people whom i loved disappear where they are how they are i do not know but that they are that they are i believe in a moment we will continue with the yusker service you will find it in your moxor in your high holiday prayer book and we begin with the 23rd psalm in just a moment which you will find on page 293. page 293. [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] johnny [Music] [Applause] [Music] for me [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] prayer is found in the booklets on page 8-11 or in the prayer books on page 291 i invite you to please rise and to recite the prayer appropriate to your loss you you you 293 hey [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] conversely [Music] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] lord [Music] [Music] exalted compassionate god grant perfect peace in your sheltering presence among the holy and pure whose radiance is like the heavens to the souls of those we've recalled today may their memory be a blessing may they rest in paradise master of mercy may they find eternal shelter beneath your sheltering wings and may their souls be bound up in the bonds of life you are their portion may they rest in peace amen is [Music] may god grant comfort and healing to the hearts of all who mourn and let us all say amen please be seated on this yom kippur we're going to have an abbreviated avodah and martyrology service leading into the end of the morning service morning afternoon service for those of you who are staying after uh rabbi artsin who is conducting the service in verad and i will be having a discussion about anti-semitism in the world and uh after that our cantorial intern kevin left our rabbinic intern excuse me kevin lefkowitz will be teaching and then we will have a break until uh we resume at 4 30 for the milka service and then at six o'clock for the ila service for the final service with chauffeur blowing at 7 30 or 7 31 depending if we if we if we're into the spirit sometimes we uh but we begin with the avodah service the voter service is the remembrance of the service in the temple which of course at the time was the principal service of the yom kippur day because we were for a long time a temple centered tradition and this was the one day when the high priest the kohen gadol would go into the kadoska doshim the holy of holies and sacrifices were offered and sin expiated for the entire people israel for the year a vote in modern hebrew means work or labor but in ancient hebrew means sacrifice and you can understand how the etymology went from one to the other are a voter service will be found this morning on page 330 page 330 as the ark is open we'll ask the congregation to please rise [Music] honey [Music] their home [Music] [Music] you [Music] oh [Music] god [Music] says [Music] um [Music] [Music] oh they all marry [Music] each year i'm struck by the fact that it is a painful reality of the jewish tradition that on our holiest year we have a martyrology service i suppose we take it for granted but we only take it for granted because we've been doing it for so long but i don't think for most religious traditions when they have their central event of the year they spend time thinking about all the people in their tradition that have been killed for belonging to their tradition and while for understandable reasons so much of the martyrology service becomes a remembrance of the shoah of the holocaust remember that the martyrology service has been in the jewish liturgy for many many many hundreds of years long before the catastrophe of europe because the history of the jews is littered with catastrophes and each contributed their poetry their readings their songs to the martyrology service beginning with the fall of israel and rome and the original elah ezcara these i remember which talked about the deaths of the rabbis of akiba of khananya bentarajon and all of their disciples and then in the middle ages through various tragedies that struck in babylonia and elsewhere through the crusades the inquisition local tragedies both east and west the communities remembered if not all of world jewry remembered and then of course culminating in the shoah the reality is that the losses are too enormous to adequately remember because for every person involved in the tragedy what they lost was their world and so there would be an understandable bitterness for each generation in thinking that they weren't remembered in our time it is also true that the martyrology is to us both a caution and a reminder of blessing for most of jewish history people couldn't imagine reciting these words when there was a state of israel and when jews could actually defend themselves that was a remarkable thing but it is also a caution because the hatreds that motivated so many of these tragedies that are anthologized in the pages of the martyrology those tragedies are not gone and so ela escara the theme of ayla ezra which is these i remember should be part of the theme of the jewish people because we have to remember them we have to remember them in recognition of the fact that if we forget not only do we betray their memories but we risk a repetition of what they suffered so i'm going to ask you to stand with me on page 344 to recite a kaddish that is not a personal kaddish but is a kaddish for all those who have died so many of whom had no one to say kaddish for them and if you look on page 344 some of the places where jews were killed are interspersed in the words of the kaddish and i'm going to recite those together with the words page 344. is [Music] anima is [Music] [Music] me me [Music] uh [Music] oh [Music] me [Music] is [Music] we pray that god hears our voices and hears the voices of those who cry out in pain in sorrow and in sin page 346 please remain standing for shema koleno [Music] oh [Music] r [Music] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] money [Music] oh foreign [Music] oh [Music] [Music] ah oh [Music] oh [Music] right [Music] [Music] he could not keep [Music] oh [Music] huh [Music] my [Music] rules [Music] please be seated but don't be too comfortable because it won't be for that long in a moment we're going to do kiana and then we do the final ashamnu and then the kaddish and that takes us out so just to prepare you since you don't have a scorecard page 347 guiana [Music] do [Music] we are insolent you are gracious and compassionate we are obstinate you are patient we are sinful you are merciful our days are a passing shadow but you are the one who truly is for time without end please rise for the new page 348 [Music] my [Music] is [Music] i [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] know [Music] i [Music] i [Applause] oh you examine our thoughts and feelings nothing escapes you therefore may it be your will to forgive our sins pardon our iniquities and grant us atonement for all our transgressions page one alkete [Music] foreign [Music] oh [Music] [Music] shannon i thought i saw you please remain standing for hyun page 358 i [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] oh oh [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] me [Music] m [Music] [Music] is [Music] a [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] says [Music] man [Music] all right maybe you can take that mike those of you by the way i hope this was set up it was supposed to be set up those of you who are interested in offering prayers in front of the ark that will be in cone chapel and they should have a rotation set up so that you can do that here it's all anti-semitism all the time and to join me in disapproving of anti-semitism is my friend and colleague rabbi brad artson who

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Published: Thu Sep 16 2021