Executive Director and Senior Rabbi
Kol Nidre 5785

Teri Gross, the host of NPR’s Fresh Air, recently interviewed the Israeli author Etgar Keret, whose parents survived the Holocaust in Poland before emigrating to Israel. Reflecting that many Israelis have said they are glad the survivor generation has mostly not had to witness the last year, she asked him if he felt the same.  He said no, that he actually wishes his mother, who died five years ago, was still here to help provide perspective. Then, he told a story to illustrate what he meant:

“What I learned from my parents, and especially my mother, was the importance of controlling your own story. How important it is that when you live inside a reality, you don’t let other people define you.  As victim. As victor. You can’t let them constrain you to a story that doesn’t represent what you feel. I remember that when I was a child, she once took me to a pediatrician.  In the waiting room, there were not enough chairs.  A mother waiting there basically elbowed her little son, saying, “Get up, give her a seat.  She’s a holocaust survivor.” My mother was kind of surprised when the kid got up and said, “Please, lady, have my seat.” And then she asked him, “But why are you giving me this seat?” He said, “Because you are a holocaust survivor.”  And my mother said, “And what do you think it means that I am a holocaust survivor?”  So the child said, “I think that it means that you suffered a lot, that you were humiliated, that you were a victim, and that the most little thing that I can do is to give you my seat to compensate for that.”  My mother said to him, “You know, you are a smart child, and you gave a very interesting answer. But I want to offer you a different answer to what it means that I am a holocaust survivor.” She said, “I think what it means is that if your mother, you, and I would stand here in the waiting room for hours with no water and no food, you two are going to collapse. So I think you better hold on to your seat.”  As a child, I remember that I saw the power of owning your reality, not kind of sliding into the intended corner, and not doing the actions that social media expects you to do. Basically just saying, “This is my life, this is my story, and I’m going to tell it the way that I want to tell it.” 

I’ve talked in past years about Victor Frankel’s theory, also coming out of his experience as a Holocaust survivor, that while we do not control our circumstances, our ability to thrive within them depends on how we choose to respond. This idea has become central torah for me in my life and work. But now I want to add Etgar Keret’s mother’s gloss to it…our choices matter, including how we tell the story of what is happening to us.

I fear that in the last year, many of us, maybe even the whole Jewish People, have lost the thread on owning our own narrative, telling our own story. Because of this, we feel pushed into corners where we don’t think we belong, given labels like “oppressor”, “victim”, “fascist”, “self-hating”, “genocider”, “weak”, “racist”.  It’s terribly confusing…how can we be all of these things?  We can’t.  That person, that group being so labeled isn’t real, they’re a caricature. But they’re all things I’ve personally been called this year, which I know echoes the experience of many of you.

Our tendency, for many of us, when we’re pushed into corners where we don’t really fit, whether directly or collectively, is to get quiet. There are rational reasons for this. Sometimes, we hope that if we ignore it, it will go away. I have certainly considered whether drawing attention to an issue will only make it worse. It is hard to confront people. It sucks to feel isolated. We are honestly conflicted. It can be frightening to make yourself a target. Fizz, X, and other social media are such a cesspool; why bother? We aren’t experts or don’t feel we have enough information to counter all possible challenges. Someone else must be better positioned or better qualified to speak out. No one is going to listen anyway. These are all understandable feelings. And they might sometimes be true, to a greater or lesser extent. But there’s a danger that rational reasons become rationalizations and excuses for inaction. 

In his book “To Heal A Fractured World; On The Ethics of Responsibility,” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l teaches:

“There is no life without a task; no person without a talent; no place without a fragment of God’s light waiting to be discovered and redeemed; no situation without its possibility of sanctification; no moment without its call. It may take a lifetime to learn how to find these things, but once we learn, we realize in retrospect that all it ever took was the ability to listen. When God calls, He does not do so by way of universal imperatives. Instead, He whispers our name—and the greatest reply, the reply of Abraham, is simply hineni: “Here I am,” ready to heed your call, to mend a fragment of Your all-too-broken world." 

We are being called, each and every one of us, in this moment, to speak up for ourselves, and for our people.

When you see a text in your dorm thread accusing Israelis of genocide, and that doesn’t sit right with you, it’s a call to teach and reclaim our narrative.

When you feel pressure to leave a Jewish connection or activity off your resume because you’re afraid of what an unknown gatekeeper might think, it’s a call to stand proudly for who you are.

When you read something in the Stanford Daily, or the Stanford Review and think “this doesn’t speak for me or paint a clear picture of something I know”, it’s a call to write back and say your truth, or join the staff and get involved in shaping the coverage of news on our campus.

When your dorm leadership, a club you love, student government, or your union speaks on your behalf but isn’t speaking for you, it is a call to speak up.

When a colleague says something on social media, in passing, or in a staff or department meeting that doesn’t sit right with you, it is a call to reach out and share where you’re coming from and how what they’re saying impacts you. 

If these things are happening repeatedly, it’s an invitation to get organized, to multiply our individual voices into collective power to make our small world here and the big world out there more fair, more right, and more just. Not only for us, but for everyone.

In the words of the social activist Maggie Kuhn, “Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.”

The Torah is full of human, flawed people, just like us, who heard the call in their own times and answered with courage.  Abraham confronted God on behalf of the innocent in Sodom and Gomorrah. Shifrah and Puah, the midwives in Exodus, defy Pharoah and keep delivering and protecting Jewish babies. Nachshon Ben Aminadav steps out into the unparted waters of the Red Sea, walking up to his nostrils before the water recedes so that the rest of the Israelites can follow him to freedom. Queen Esther finds a way to use her privilege and position to protect her people.

These are our models, our heroes.  But none of their actions were a given. Jewish heroes aren’t saints; they’re humans. Humans who chose to respond with courage to the circumstances in which they found themselves.  All of those stories could have been stories of victims and victimization, of oppression and defeat.  But they aren’t.  Not the way we tell them.  And both the doing and the telling matter a great deal. They give us a map to follow, and we get to choose whether and how we follow in our ancestor’s footsteps.

The whole theology of Yom Kippur, the next 23 hours we spend together, tells us we are not in control of the outcomes. We don’t choose who shall live and who shall die.  We’re going to spend the next day together embodying the eternal truth that we are, each and every one of us, “a flower that will fade, a cloud passing by.” But we are in control of our inputs, in fact we are responsible for them. So, my message for all of us tonight is that it is time for each of us, individually and collectively, to take responsibility for our Jewish lives and for the lives of our community. To do that bravely and proudly, even (maybe especially) when our knees or voices tremble.

In moments of fear and trembling, this is what I take strength from—knowing that Jewish people, great ones and ordinary ones, have lived through harder times and bigger challenges than ours.  If they could face their moments and bring our people through to the other side, then surely we can too.

We have been offered a tough challenge. Several of them, actually.

To represent the Jewish people with pride in a moment when many people seem hostile again to our very existence.

To protect and strengthen the Jewish people here and everywhere.

To hold each other accountable, with kindness and with love, when we behave inside or outside the Jewish community in ways that do not honor Betselem Elohim, the divine reflection in every human being.

To recognize and use the power that we have for good and not to diminish ourselves with narratives or actions that are not worthy of our mission in the world—to be a light unto the nations by doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God.

I believe in God, and I believe in us too. In the words, again, of Rabbi Sacks:

“If you want to know the strength of the Jewish people, ask them to give, and then count the contribution. To win the Jewish battle, the battle of the spirit, the victory of heart, mind, and soul, you do not need numbers. You need dedication, commitment, study, prayer, vision, courage, ideals and hope. You need to offer people tough challenges through which to grow.” 

What is required in this moment is courage…a special kind.

“The Hebrew term for courage, ometz or ometz lev, literally means “strength” or “heart-strength.” Ometz is a core Jewish middah, a spiritual and ethical trait with which each of us is innately endowed as human beings formed in the divine image. Even those who consider themselves fearful or anxious can access the quality of ometz lev in any given moment.

In Deuteronomy, Moses imbues his successor Joshua with courage to lead the Jewish people into the promised land without him by charging him: chazak ve’ematz, “be strong and courageous.” Each of us receives a similar charge at the start of every new Jewish year. Psalm 27, recited throughout the month of Elul leading up to the High Holidays, ends with these words of exhortation: chazak veya’ametz libecha, “be strong, and strengthen your heart.” This verse encourages every one of us to cultivate the inner strength we need to meet whatever challenges emerge in the new year.

But practicing ometz lev does not require laying one’s life on the line. It doesn’t even require fearlessness.

The Hasidic master Rabbi Nachman of Breslov is known for his famous teaching: Kol haolam kulo gesher tzar me’od, vehaikar lo lefached klal. “The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the main thing is not to fear at all.”

But Nachman’s actual teaching is far subtler and closer to our experience. Rather than use the Hebrew word lefached (“to be afraid”), he uses the reflexive form, l’hitpached (“to cause oneself to be afraid”). For Nachman, courage is not about denying or repressing fear. Rather, the fundamental principle of courage is choosing not to frighten ourselves beyond the fear we already experience. Fear is unavoidable, perhaps even required. Courage involves moving forward despite our fear and not exacerbating our anxieties.

In fact, (as Rabbi Marc Margolius teaches) simply observing the fact that we are afraid, without judging ourselves for that emotion, offers the possibility of acting in a way that is not determined by that fear. That is ometz lev — doing that which is right and just, even in the face of challenging emotions.

(Margolius also observes that) As we grow in awareness of our inner strength, we also realize this strength can be directed towards both positive and harmful ends. Jewish tradition teaches us to connect ometz lev with the quality of chesed or lovingkindness, concern for others. According to a Midrash, there is no real courage in using one’s strength to push someone into a pit or off a roof. True courage consists of seizing the hand of one about to fall or lifting someone who has already fallen.

Cultivating ometz lev means applying our energy to protect and stand up for those who are at risk, including ourselves. We practice ometz lev whenever we leave our comfort zone, take an unpopular stand, expose our vulnerabilities, speak the truth, confront others, risk embarrassment or personal loss, or intervene on behalf of those unable to do so for themselves.

Jewish tradition teaches that the source of this courage lies within each of us, in our very heart.” 

A final thought on this idea of ometz lev, brave-heartedness, that I hope you will take with you tonight to give you strength when courage feels hard to summon. In our tradition, according to R. Israel Salanter, to enable ourselves to lead a life of courage, we are taught to treasure three qualities: not to despair, not to give in to anger, and not to expect to finish the task.

But also, in the immortal words of R. Tarphon, “while we are not required to finish the task, neither are we free to desist from it.

Chazak v’amatz my friends. Be strong and of good courage as we work together to write the next chapter of the Jewish story. It is good to be laboring at this sacred mission with all of you.

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