Yom Kippur Morning Sermon 5784

 YK Sermon 5784 -- Jewish Future -- YK Morning

Four years ago I began one of my Yom Kippur sermons with a thought experiment. Imagine that a visionary philanthropist offered our kehilah an endowment of 20 million dollars on condition that we no longer charge membership dues. An endowment of that size with a conservative investment portfolio would produce more than enough income to keep our shul going without ever touching the principle. Unless, of course, so many people found out that there was a shul in Montgomery Village that didn’t charge dues and in fact was forbidden by the terms of an endowment gift to charge them. If our no dues policy resulted in a massive membership growth, we might have to hire more staff and expand the building to accommodate our greater numbers. We might find that the income from our endowment no longer covered our expenses. Would we simply continue to accept everyone who signs up as a member? Or would we try to define some non-monetary requirements for membership?

For the typical American synagogue, membership is defined financially. You fill out an application, you pay your dues -- or if you can’t afford full dues you make some kind of arrangement and pay a lesser amount -- and that’s pretty much it. If a congregation could no longer define membership by virtue of paying dues, what would be the criterion?

A few months ago Rabbi Danny Schiff, a friend from rabbinical school who is now the Federation Scholar for the Pittsburgh Jewish Federation, published a book called Judaism For A Digital Age. We were fortunate to arrange for him to speak over Zoom to my class on Contemporary Jewish Controversies this past spring. One of the questions Rabbi Schiff explores is why both Reform and Conservative Judaism are facing a crisis of numbers. To give you an example of what that crisis  looks like, the 2019 Washington Jewish Population survey revealed that between 2003 and 2017 the Jewish population of Greater Washington grew by 37% but the absolute number of synagogue members shrank slightly from 26,500 households to 25,600 households; and that 58% of Jewish children received no formal Jewish education of any sort at any point.

For several decades following the end of the Second World War, the suburban synagogue was in the Hebrew school and Bar/Bat Mitzvah business. Jews were moving  to the suburbs, which were ethnically and religiously mixed, from their urban, predominantly Jewish neighborhoods. The Jews in this exodus were mostly American born children of immigrants. When growing up they might have spoken English with their parents but they probably spoke Yiddish or Yinglish with their grandparents. The neighborhoods where they lived were overwhelmingly Jewish. The newly-suburban Jews might not have been religiously observant but they were steeped in Jewish culture.

Now they found themselves living in neighborhoods which might be ten or twenty percent Jewish rather than eighty or ninety. Their children were going to public schools with mostly non-Jewish classmates and very often the grandparents stayed behind in the “old neighborhood.” New synagogues were created at a dizzying pace and were sometimes unkindly labeled “Bar Mitzvah factories.” The typical membership trajectory saw a family join when their oldest child started Hebrew school and give up their membership shortly after the youngest kid’s Bar Mitzvah or maybe Confirmation in tenth grade. The fact that a significant percentage, perhaps even a majority, of families were only members for a few years didn’t threaten the stability of the model because there were always more families in the pipeline to replace them. Jewish parents would always want to make sure their kids had Bar or Bat Mitzvahs, the only way to do that was to join a shul and send your kids to Hebrew school, so people would join, pay the assigned dues, and send their kids to Hebrew school for the specified number of years. Postwar America placed a lot of importance on religion, and for American Jews, part of fitting in with their neighbors was to create and support synagogues, which were often located on the main thoroughfares of the new suburban neighborhoods as a sign of full Jewish belonging.

But this model started to crumble in the 1990s or so. More families had one Jewish and one non-Jewish parent, and even families with two Jewish parents didn’t always consider Jewish education a priority or feel the need to provide their children with Bar and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies. And if the family did decide that a Bar or Bat Mitzvah was important, there were other ways of doing it; independent Hebrew schools, tutors, free-lance clergy who operate on a fee-for-service model. 

What have we done wrong that got us in this situation? 

Rabbi Schiff says that Reform and Conservative Judaism continue to do an excellent job at what they were invented to do. They are both answers to the challenge of modernity -- how do we participate in a democratic, pluralistic society and still maintain our Jewish identity? The problem, says Rabbi Schiff, is that Reform and Conservative Judaism are excellent answers to questions that no one is asking anymore. When a US president whose daughter converted to Orthodox Judaism is followed by a president whose three children all married Jews; when the Vice President and her Jewish husband attended Rosh Hashanah services at the largest Conservative shul in the District of Columbia and have a mezuzah on their official residence’s front door; when the Jewish White House Chief of Staff resigns and is replaced by another Jewish White House Chief of Staff who is also part owner of a Jewish, albeit not kosher, deli named “Call Your Mother”; the question of how exactly we maintain our Jewishness while participating in general society is not exactly high on anyone’s list anymore. 

A few days before Rosh Hashanah I asked members of our community to answer the question “what is the purpose of Kehilat Shalom”? I set up a Google Form so that it could be done anonymously because I wanted people to feel that they could answer the question honestly without fear of offending me or being judged by me. Sixteen people answered the question; it’s impossible to know to what extent this is a representative sample but for a community of our size it is a pretty good rate of return. 

The answers to the question were quite varied. A number of them mentioned that Kehilat Shalom is or should be primarily a place of prayer. One congregant wrote that the purpose of Kehilat Shalom is to focus on providing spiritual experiences in the company of other congregants and that  all other activities are secondary. “Without the spiritual, Kehilat Shalom is a social club, and the rituals are pointless and might as well be scrapped.” But other congregants wrote that they are not particularly religious, but they view Kehilat Shalom as a source of friendship, of comfort, of connecting to their people, providing intellectual stimulation and doing good deeds. A couple of congregants wrote about the importance of religious school education and Bar and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies, which does not fit our current demographic situation at all. Some of the writers spoke about their attachment to our current building, and that no other synagogue sanctuary had ever given them the feeling that they get in this room. Others said their connection is to the community and not to the building, and that given financial realities we should consider some real changes.

COVID-19 simply accelerated changes and questions in American Judaism and American religious institutions generallly which were already on the horizon. There are more and more single person households, and the advent of online services and the convenience of praying at home in your sweats has served to further attenuate the nature of community. 

Rabbi Danny Schiff says: “People are asking themselves, ‘If I can do everything I want to do with life without having to compromise with somebody else, then why would I?’ Is that in line with classical Jewish thinking? If not, then is it something we should now take on as being a positive or take a stand against?  I’m not asking these questions with a particular agenda. I’m simply pointing out that this is a dramatic shift in the way that people live. Judaism needs to think that through and to have a thoughtful response.”

In my introduction to the Unetaneh Tokef prayer on Rosh Hashanah, I quoted Rabbi Lawrence Kushner’s observation that when we repent we acknowledge that we have done wrong and are not perfect; when we pray we reach out and acknowledge that we cannot fix what we have done wrong without external help; and when we give charity we give up a part of what we believe belongs to us. All involve a diminution of the ego and a sense of belonging to something bigger and beyond oneself. 

Because American synagogues have generally not asked for anything from their members other than money, synagogue membership has been for many a business transaction. While it is true that we use the term “member”, so does Costco. I am a “member” of Costco which asks nothing of me other than payment of my $60 annual dues. But if Keleigh and I ever reach the point where we shop at Costco so infrequently that it no longer seems worth the $60, we will not have any moral qualms or lose any sleep over our decision not to renew our membership. In being a member of Costco, I do not get a feeling of being part of something bigger than myself, something which transcends boundaries of place and time or connects me with my people’s past and future. I just get an opportunity to purchase multi-packs of organic salsa or 96-packs of K-Cups. 

There are new questions which postmodernity poses: in an era of artificial intelligence, what does it mean to be really human? Rabbi Schiff writes: “over the course of three decades, our technology, culture, society, financial system, media, marriages, families, sexuality, privacy standards, and even our mental functioning have changed. . . . The way we live, the way we work, the way we interact, the way we communicate, the way we think, and the way we curate and perceive our reality have all been refashioned. . . . This digital age is thoroughly discontinuous with what preceded it.”

The questions we are asking may be different in some ways than before, but in other ways they are not so different. What continues is the human quest for meaning and for ways to be less lonely. Our tradition has a lot to say about these questions. Synagogues in the next decades may look different in some ways than what has come before, but Rabbi Schiff says, and I agree with him, that they will still be the key institutions of Jewish life and Jewish community.

Synagogue membership is not a “fee for service” proposition where you are purchasing certain services. It is a brit kodesh, a holy covenant. It is a two-way commitment and a two-way responsibility. 

The Days of Awe are all about teshuvah, which while we translate it as “repentance” is really closer to “return.” There are certain values which we know we ought to live by. We know that we need community, that we need each other. We know that our society can be better, that taking care of our neighbor is more important than saving a couple of bucks, that caring about others and being cared about are basic human needs. Yom Kippur comes to remind us, to call us back to a better way of life. May we have the courage to live our lives in community and with concern for each other. 

Kol Nidre Sermon 5784

 YK Sermon 5784 -- Forgiveness -- Kol Nidre

“The most influential person in your life is the person you refuse to forgive.” A couple of months ago, someone I know shared a picture of this sign from the Madison Avenue Baptist Church in Manhattan on Instagram. There is a lot of wisdom in that sign.

I mentioned in my remarks at our joint Selichot service that my late father’s last remaining cousin passed away recently in New York. My brother went to a shiva minyan at the home of her daughter, our second cousin, and told me that our other cousin wasn’t there because he and his sister have not spoken to each other in five years. Neither my brother nor I know what is at the root of this family dysfunction and alienation but it’s hard for me to imagine that whatever one sibling did or said to the other, it justifies that kind of alienation and refusing to go to your sibling’s home even for shiva.

Many of us are familiar with the Talmudic teaching that while Yom Kippur atones for offenses we have committed against God, it does not atone for offenses we have committed against another person until we have apologized to that person and tried to fix whatever harm we have caused. But Moses Maimonides in his commentary on this teaching, says that we don’t only have an obligation to seek forgiveness from someone we have wronged. We also have the obligation to forgive those who have wronged us once they have taken responsibility for the wrong they have committed and asked forgiveness. In fact, Maimonides says, once a person has asked our forgiveness three times, they are automatically forgiven even if we refuse to forgive them. On top of that, the guilt for what that person originally did is now transferred to the one who refuses to forgive.

Because today is Yom Kippur, many of us may be more inclined to believe that there is an actual divine accounting of guilt and forgiveness than we would the other 364 days of the year. But Maimonides was not primarily concerned with divine accounting; he was concerned with what being unwilling to forgive and carrying a grudge does to our own souls. Carrying the burden of unforgiveness is like carrying a heavy chain that shackles our souls. When we hold onto grudges, anger, and resentment, it consumes our thoughts, poisons our hearts, and creates a divide between us and others. Unforgiveness can lead to bitterness, hatred, and a cycle of hurt that perpetuates pain across generations.

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, in her recent book “On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unrepentant World '' points out that there are two different words for “forgiveness " in Hebrew: mechila and slicha. Mechila might be better translated as “pardon.” It has the connotation of relinquishing a claim against an offender; it’s transactional. It’s not a warm, fuzzy embrace but rather the victim’s acknowledgment that the perpetrator no longer owes them, that they have done the repair work necessary to settle the situation. You stole from me? OK, you acknowledged that you did so in a self-aware way, you’re in therapy to work on why you stole, you paid me back, and you apologized in a way that I felt reflected an understanding of the impact your actions had on me — it seems that you’re not going to do this to anyone else. Fine. It doesn’t mean that we pretend that the theft never happened, and it doesn’t (necessarily) mean that our relationship will return to how it was before or even that we return to any kind of ongoing relationship. With mechila, whatever else I may feel or not feel about you, I can consider this chapter closed. Those pages are still written upon, but we’re done here.

Slicha, on the other hand, may be better translated as “forgiveness”; it includes more emotion. It looks with a compassionate eye at the penitent perpetrator and sees their humanity and vulnerability, recognizes that, even if they have caused great harm, they are worthy of empathy and mercy. Like mechila, it does not denote a restored relationship between the perpetrator and the victim (neither does the English word, actually; “reconciliation” carries that meaning), nor does slicha include a requirement that the victim act like nothing happened. But it has more of the softness, that letting-go quality associated with “forgiveness” in English.

Forgiveness is a serious challenge. Forgiving someone who has wronged us deeply can feel like an insurmountable task. We may ask ourselves, "How can I forgive when the pain is so real?" It is essential to recognize that forgiveness is not the same as condoning the wrongdoing. Instead, it is an act of releasing the hold that hurt has on our hearts. It is a process that brings healing and restoration. When we forgive, we free ourselves from the chains of bitterness, allowing us to move forward with grace and peace. Forgiveness does not erase the past, but it enables us to create a brighter future. As the great Rabbi Harold Kushner once said, "Forgiveness is an act of letting go of a hurt."

One of the most profound meditations I have read on forgiveness was published recently in the Jewish feminist magazine Lilith. It was written by my former Hillel colleague Mindy Sue Shapiro. Fifty years ago her father, a Baltimore businessman and politician, was murdered by two former employees he had fired, shortly before Mindy’s Bat Mitzvah.

Mindy and I are the same age, and she reports that like most fathers of his era -- and like my father -- he spent little time with his family. Since he was murdered shortly before her Bat Mitzvah, she did not really get to know him very well. But because he was a public figure, the trial of the two people who murdered him became a public spectacle -- during which she learned, at the same time everyone else did, that her father had an affair with his secretary.

As her father’s fiftieth yahrzeit approached, Ms. Shapiro asked herself some questions. “Where did the years go? Why am I still traumatized? Why am I not at peace? Why do some people find it easy to forgive when inside I still feel twelve? In my research, I have discovered there might be good reasons.” She began reading and studying about forgiveness and listening to a podcast called the Forgiveness Project. She writes that she learned a few things:

1. Shame is defined as  when wrongdoing is found out–there is public disgrace

2. Shame associated with trauma prevents trauma from washing away

3. Forgiveness allows one to detach from trauma 

4. Forgiveness—letting go of bitterness and anger—gives one freedom of mind and heart

5. What does one hold onto when they do not forgive? A story– is it true? Is it a feeling?

6. Hurt people, hurt people. As I learned in my Mussar studies, we all have a burden and when we are hurt it is helpful to recognize that the person who hurt us is operating from their own burden. 

She also sought out friends of her father so she could see him in a different light. She writes that “All of the discussions and learning made me think deeply about my father from different perspectives.  I realized that all of this time I expected him to be a perfect father and I have been disappointed for 50 years that he was not. But of course he was not perfect. No one is perfect, and while that might sound like not a big insight, for me it was everything.”

Rabbi Ruttenberg writes that “Maimonides’ concern about the victim being unforgiving was likely at least in part a concern for their own emotional and spiritual development. I suspect that he thought holding on to grudges was bad for the victim and their wholeness. That is, even if we’re hurt, we must work on our own natural tendencies toward vengefulness, toward turning our woundedness into a power play that we can lord over the penitent, or toward wanting to stay forever in the narrative of our own hurt, for whatever reason. And perhaps he believed that the granting of mechila can be profoundly liberating in ways we don’t always recognize before it happens.

[…]

If you are still so resolutely attached to the narrative that you were forever wronged, you are harming yourself and putting a kind of harm into the world. Try to respond to those who approach you sincerely — and who are sincerely doing the work — with a whole heart, not with cruelty.”

Forgiving others is an act of compassion and empathy. It requires us to see the humanity in those who have wronged us, recognizing that they too are flawed beings. Just as we seek forgiveness from God, we must extend the same gift to our fellow human beings. By forgiving others, we break the cycle of hurt and sow the seeds of reconciliation.

Equally important is the act of forgiving ourselves. We are all imperfect beings who make mistakes. Yom Kippur reminds us that we have the capacity for change and growth. By forgiving ourselves, we embrace the opportunity for self-improvement and a renewed connection with God.

May this Yom Kippur be a day of forgiveness, a day of transformation, and a day of profound connection with the Divine. G'mar Chatimah Tovah—may you be sealed for a good year, marked by forgiveness, love, and peace.

Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5784

 Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5784

Rabbi Charles L. Arian

Kehilat Shalom

“I’m worried about your drinking, Charles”

“Lihyot Am Chofshi B’Artzenu -- To Be A Free People In Our Land”

What’s the Connection?

Autumn of 2021 was a very difficult period in my life, both professionally and personally..  After not having services in our sanctuary for over a year,we had to  make plans for conducting  hybrid High Holiday services.. As you may remember, our Hazzan was unable to participate in our services because of her health problems. A beloved member of our community died by suicide days  before Rosh Hashanah. Personally,  my father was slowly dying in New York, causing me to  choose between two bad alternatives. Either I could wear myself out by frequent travel back and forth, or I could not make the trip quite as often and feel guilty that I wasn’t seeing him as often as I should.

I was having trouble sleeping, and feeling anxious, so I started therapy and met with a psychiatrist . She prescribed  an antidepressant and other  medication for anxiety and to  help with my sleep. 

For many years I had been a casual drinker and was known as a bourbon hobbyist. I conducted bourbon tastings for various nonprofit organizations and had even been quoted in the New York Times in a story about Jews and the whiskey business. But in the fall of 2021 I began to drink both more frequently and more heavily. The night before my father’s funeral, alone and depressed,  I got extremely intoxicated and behaved in a stupid and harmful way,  having repercussions that I continue to deal with nearly two years later. Looking back,  it’s a miracle I was able to conduct my Dad’s funeral the next day considering the condition I was in.

Not long after that, my wife Keleigh said to me that she was worried about my drinking. I will always be grateful to her for phrasing it exactly that way. She didn’t yell at me, she didn’t say I was an alcoholic, she didn’t demand that I stop drinking. She just told me that she was worried, and by phrasing it that way I felt comfortable enough to be honest with both her and with myself and acknowledge that I was worried too.

After discussing my concerns with my psychiatrist, she gave me a prescription for a medicine called Naltrexone. Naltrexone is a medication that blocks the effects of alcohol in the brain. It works by binding to the same receptors that alcohol  would normally attach to, thereby reducing the pleasurable or reinforcing effects. This helps in reducing cravings and dependence.  I was fortunate to find that after a couple of months of Naltrexone treatment I had no desire for alcohol at all and have been alcohol free for over a year.

Why am I sharing this with you? Not primarily to share  my issues with alcohol. Rather, it is to share the blessing I received when Keleigh shared her concerns with me in a way that I was open to hearing.

“To Be A Free People In Our Land”

In Leviticus 19:17 we are taught “you shall surely rebuke your fellow and not bear sin because of him.” This verse is a little confusing; the two parts of the verse seem to have little to do with one another. Rashi explains that the verse means we must rebuke another person who is doing wrong gently and discreetly , in a way that does not embarrass him or her. Only in this way can rebuke be effective, whereas embarrassing another person in public is, itself, a sin.

Maimonides says that we should not say “I will not sin, and if someone else is sinning that is between them and God.” We have to do our best to prevent another person from doing wrong. Between Maimonides and Rashi, we find ourselves in a complicated situation where we have to make a judgment call. If we can stop someone from sinning and don’t even try to stop them, Maimonides says we too have sinned. But if we rebuke someone too harshly or too publicly, in a way that humiliates them, we have also sinned, at least according to Rashi. 

Late last month, three prominent Israeli writers with roots in North America -- Matti Friedman, Daniel Gordis, and Yossi Klein Halevi, the cousin of our own David Markowitz -- wrote an impassioned essay in the Times of Israel called “Diaspora Jews: Time to Take A Stand.” They write: “when someone you love is in danger, you draw closer.”  When Keleigh knew that my alcohol consumption was causing serious harm, she spoke up. It would have been irresponsible for her not to do so. But she had to do so in a way that made it likely that I would hear what she was saying, that I would understand she was speaking up because she loved me, and because of that do what I needed to do to fix the problem.

As you probably know, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is a coalition between his own Likud party and far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties. Although they control a majority in the Knesset, they actually received only 48.4 percent of the popular vote in the last election. Although “judicial reform” was not part of their platform, since taking office they have proposed a series of laws that would undermine the independence of the Israeli Judiciary. They already passed a law that limits the Supreme Court’s ability to invalidate government actions. A 13 hour hearing was held at the Court earlier this week on whether this law itself will stand, but both the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Knesset have publicly stated that they will not abide by a Supreme Court ruling striking down the law . They have also proposed a change in the way judges are appointed that will give the Knesset majority more control over that process. And perhaps most worryingly, they have proposed a law that any decision of the Supreme Court can be overridden by a bare majority of the Knesset. Can you imagine how different US history would have been if the Congress could override unpopular decisions of the Supreme Court? Would we still have racial segregation in schools and public accommodations? Would same sex marriage still be illegal? Possibly; both decisions were highly unpopular when they were issued.

Classic Western democracy does not mean simply “majority rule.” The majority cannot do whatever it wants -- and it certainly cannot change the fundamental rules of the game without a broad consensus.

If you are involved in the American Jewish community and particularly the pro-Israel community, the names of Gordis, Klein-Halevi and Friedman will be quite familiar to you. Gordis and Klein-Halevi until quite recently were both regulars on the AIPAC and Jewish Federation lecture circuit. Friedman is somewhat younger than the other two but he has written two outstanding books in recent years which I have read -- one on the Aleppo Codex and one on Leonard Cohen’s series of concerts in the Sinai Desert during the Yom Kippur War. For them to not only take a stand against the current Israeli government but to actually urge Diaspora Jews to participate in demonstrations, sign petitions, and write letters against that government’s policies would have been inconceivable a few months ago. 

Gordis, Klein-Halevi and Friedman write: “This political crisis is not just one more Israeli debate over policy, but a struggle over the fundamental identity of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. . .  Vital institutions that require social solidarity, and most importantly the military, are splintering, as Israel’s most committed and productive citizens revolt against a leadership that is beyond the moral pale. The tech economy that buoyed the “start-up nation” is beginning to sink. State power is shifting from judges to extreme clerics. The voice of fundamentalist religion is emboldened. A year ago, Israel was a regional powerhouse. Within a year, we could be on the road to becoming another failed Middle Eastern state. This unprecedented threat requires unprecedented changes in the Diaspora’s relationship with Israel.

Diaspora support for Israel has traditionally taken the form of support for its government. But now the greatest threat facing Israel is its government. Jews in the Diaspora can no longer support Israel without asking which Israel they are supporting.

To treat Israel’s present leadership as a normative government is to be complicit in the self-destruction of the Jewish state. Diaspora organizations and leaders who continue to meet politely with government ministers and pose for photographs with the prime minister are failing the Israel that Diaspora communities helped create. At this fraught moment, Jewish organizations conducting business as usual are placing themselves on the wrong side of history.

We urge you to get involved in supporting the democracy movement. Attend the pro-Israel democracy demonstrations that happen weekly in Diaspora communities around the world. Invite representatives of the democracy movement to your community. Insist that your community’s missions to Israel include a meeting with movement leaders. Organize study groups to familiarize yourselves with the issues. Challenge your national Jewish organizations to respond to the state of emergency with the gravity it deserves.”

While I agree with Gordis, Friedman, and Klein-Halevi -- and have participated in three demonstrations for Israeli democracy in the last few months, the most recent this past Sunday -- I also think it is important to participate only in actions that are phrased as for Israeli democracy and not as against Israel. Every Saturday night for 36 weeks now, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have demonstrated to preserve their democracy under the slogan of “Lihyot Am Chofshi Be’Artzenu -- To Be A Free People In Our Land.”. By no means are all the demonstrators leftists or secular Jews -- surveys indicate that a good chunk of Likud supporters and Orthodox Jews oppose the government’s plans to curtail judicial independence. Both in Israel and throughout the world, demonstrators carry Israeli flags and end the demonstration by singing Hatikvah, Israel’s national anthem. Frankly, progressives in this country could learn a thing or two from the protesters in Israel. The democracy protesters in Israel are asking for our support, and those of us who agree with them should provide that support.

While I agree with Gordis, Klein-Halevi and Friedman, I don’t assume that everyone hearing me today does so. And that’s fine. If you know me, you know that I believe in reading and hearing a diversity of views and thinking for oneself. But if you think they are wrong, take the time to read up on what is going on in Israel today. Benjamin Netanyahu is Israel’s longest serving Prime Minister and has historically been very cautious. The Israeli “Start Up Nation” boom is to a large extent due to policies he put in place. But the Netanyahu of a few years ago is not the Netanyahu of today, (people can change for better OR worse)  if only because his coalition is much more Orthodox and right wing than previous coalitions. 

If you love Israel, if you are concerned about Israel, if you worry about Israel -- now is the time to find out what is going on, speak up, and take action. We cannot just sit and watch when a country we love is engaged in a situation which may, God forbid, lead to its destruction. But we have to speak up out of love, and try to do so in a way which will be heard and lead to positive change. Whether Netanyahu himself is willing to listen to the voice of the Diaspora is open to question -- but the Israeli public needs to know where we stand and the pro-democracy forces need our support. And we must never lose the hope -- HaTikvah -- that Israel can be the homeland that our grandparents dreamed of -- to be a free people in our land.

Shana Tova --may we all be blessed with a good year.