This is the sermon I gave on Rosh Hashanah morning at Temple Sinai of Cranston, Rhode Island.

How could there be a more terrifying moment for a rabbi than to stand where I am standing right now. It’s Rosh Hashanah. I am the new rabbi, here before the entire congregation for the first time, and you are all expecting and hoping that I will say something brilliant. I am doomed.

So, instead, let me say something appropriate to this holy day: I'm sorry. Forgive me. 

I am new here, I don’t know all the history and all the customs of Temple Sinai. I will make mistakes. Forgive me when I forget your name at the most embarrassing possible moment. When I stumble through your favorite Hebrew prayer, please, forgive me. I am sorry.

Five years of rabbinic school and fourteen years as a congregational rabbi is a significant amount of time. Over those years, I have learned a lot about how Jewish communities work and how to teach our tradition in ways that touch people’s minds and hearts. I have celebrated with families on their joyful occasions, and held their hands in moments of grief. Yet, despite all those experiences, my rabbinic education is still incomplete. I still have a lot to learn. I look to you, the congregation I now serve, to be my teachers.

So, when you come to me with a crisis in your life and I bumble for the right words to express my concern and sympathy, please know that I am sorry. When the day arrives that you come to services expecting your spirit to soar, and instead, you end up hearing me sing off-key, please know that I am sorry. I have a lot to learn.

I know that I am not the first rabbi you have had, either here at Temple Sinai or at other congregations where you have been members. I know that my predecessors were not perfect, either, but, still, you should know that my mistakes will be different from the ones they made. I will amaze you with my originality.

I know that you have high expectations for me based on your lofty dreams. That’s good. Dreams keep us moving forward, changing and renewing. In the last few months I’ve learned about some of your dreams – the dream of a new start for a congregation that is filled with optimism for its future – the dream of building on past successes with new growth and dynamism – the dream of expanding opportunities for adults to learn about Jewish thought, tradition and practice – the dream of building the congregation’s membership and strengthening its financial health.

Most everyone who studies to become a rabbi does so with some idea that there is – somewhere out there – a community that he or she can make better and that will bring out the best in him or her. Just as you brought me to your community with the hope that I could help you find new directions and realize your dreams, I also came with hopes and dreams of my own.

I come hoping to fulfill a vision of a congregation in which Judaism comes to life, a place where people find new meaning in their lives and a sense of spiritual fulfillment. I hope to help create a place where children and their parents can love learning together, a place where people have new insights about themselves and their relationship with God, a place where “community” is a word that means a group of people who genuinely care about each other, help each other through troubles, celebrate joys together, and find it within themselves to forgive each other’s flaws.

Cantor Wendy, who comes to Temple Sinai with me in this new adventure, also has dreams she brings with her to this congregation, the first she has served as the lead cantor. In the three months we have worked together, I have seen that her dreams, too, are joyful and full of life and hope. I see her passion to serve a community that truly loves to express itself in song.

So, we all have come together to share each other’s dreams. We all have big, bold dreams – probably bigger than we can expect to be realized fully. But that is the nature of dreams. We are in a relationship now – congregation, cantor and rabbi – and relationships are built on mutual commitment, mutual forgiveness, and, most of all, on sharing dreams. The best relationships happen when people are willing to listen to each others dreams and to answer with their own. 

Cantor Wendy and I have been amazed by how much you have turned toward us and shared yourselves with us in welcome and in friendship. We hope that we can reciprocate in turning toward you – but remember, you have a big advantage over us – there’s only two of us.

Relationship building is also a way of describing what the High Holy Days are about. We are called to make t’shuvah, which we usually translate as, “atonement” or “repentance,” but which literally means “answering,” or “turning.” At the most basic level, the Days of Awe are the time when we are called to turn toward God – to answer and continue the conversation, to renew our relationship with That Which Is Beyond Us.

This is a way of talking about God which many Jews find difficult. Entering into “a personal relationship with God” does not sound very Jewish to many of us. It reminds us of the catch-phrases of Christian fundamentalists. But relationship can be a deeply Jewish way of thinking about God. 

To Martin Buber, the great 20th century Jewish philosopher, relationship was the key to understand God as a reality. Buber wrote that God is found in relationships where two human beings accept each other in their entirety without preconception or expectation. Seen in this way, t’shuvah, returning to God, is the process of re-examining the relationships in our lives and striving to accept others just as they are. Our relationships are a reflection of how we relate to God. Repairing our relationship with God means repairing our relationships with other human beings, especially the people who are closest to us.

We ask ourselves at this time of year about those relationships: Have we treated people in a way that respects their unique dreams and aspirations, or have we made them adjunct to our own desires? Have we allowed ourselves to know in their entirety the people who are close to us – their many potentialities along with their faults and shortcomings – or have we befriended only those aspects that are most appealing or useful to us? Are we open to who they are now – constantly changing and growing – or are we stuck in perceiving them as they once were? Are we willing to say, “I am sorry. Forgive me,” when that is called for?

When we truly do make the effort to see others as total human beings – when we seek to know them, understand them, listen to their dreams – we come a little bit closer to reaching our own humanity. 

This is a paradox. Our dreams are what make us real, both to others and to ourselves.

If I do not see your dreams, you will not be real to me. If you do not see my dreams, I will be just an object in a set of robes, playing the role of a rabbi. Since we are in a relationship with each other, we are in conversation. We tell each other our dreams, each answering with our own dreams. Rabbis come to congregations as a place to make a living, to try out their ideas, and to be leaders. Congregations seek out rabbis for their programs and services, for opportunities to learn and to be led. When the relationship really works, though, each finds something more. In coming to know each other, rabbis and congregations help to make each other more real – like the velveteen rabbit in the children’s story. We give each other meaning by accepting each other as we are – our dreams along with our flaws, our triumphs along with our mistakes.

Not fourteen, not twenty, not one hundred years of rabbinic experience could teach me to know who you are. Despite the certificate hanging on the wall in my office that calls me, “Rabbi,” I cannot truly be your rabbi until I have learned from you, who you are and who you yearn to be. It is, of course, a process that can never end, since we are always becoming something new – and we can never be entirely sure just what it is we are becoming. 

But that’s okay. Relationship means acceptance and forgiveness. Please forgive me my shortcomings and failings. I will forgive you of yours. In this way, together, we will continue the conversation and continue to share our dreams. On this Rosh Hashanah, when we seek to turn to God, we can begin by turning toward one another in acceptance. That is how the journey begins.

L’shanah tovah tikateivu.
May you be written for a good year.

This is the sermon I gave on the night of Rosh Hashanah at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island.

Sixteen years ago, my wife, Jonquil, and I made a terrible, irreversible mistake. We had a baby in the month of September. Don’t get me wrong. We love Talia with all of our hearts. She is a fantastic daughter, but her birthday on September 12 is a bit problematic for a congregational rabbi. For the last sixteen years, I have had to take time during my busiest, craziest month of the year and spend it celebrating my older daughter’s birthday. It is her greatest flaw.

As if that was not enough, we went and made the exact same mistake again six years later. Eliana is an amazing child and we love and cherish her, but September 3 is just a very inconvenient time for a rabbi to be planning a child’s birthday party, shopping for cakes, and buying birthday presents. Talia and Eliana, we love you both, but why did you have to be born at a time when Abba should be writing sermons?

But, seriously, now. 

Isn’t this the way that life always works? The big events in our lives seem to come before we really feel ready. When counseling a couple before their wedding, I sometimes hear the young couple talk about postponing starting a family because they want to make sure that they don’t have their first child until they are ready. Like almost all experienced parents, I hear those words and chuckle. We know that nobody is ever “ready” to have a child. There is no such thing as a “good time” for the incredible disruption that is caused by the awesome responsibility of bringing a child into the world.

Children, we know, do many things for their parents. They transform their lives. Amid all of the diaper changes and feedings, along with the sleepless nights and the terrifying fear of, God forbid, something going wrong, parents discover in their children a little piece of the Ultimate. We peer into the eyes of our children and we see ourselves and our partners at different times in our own lives. We recognize, looking at our children, that there really are miracles in this world, and that we have an important role in making miracles. As much as parents shape their children, children shape their parents. They transform us in the way they force us to see ourselves as part of something beautiful and powerful that is much larger than ourselves. We believe that we shower our children with gifts – a home, a family, food to nourish them and love to sustain them – yet we see how we as parents are the real recipients of a great gift.

Sometime, it might be a good idea for us to thank our children for the incredible gift they have given us by allowing us to see ourselves. They have given us the gift of opening our hearts to Eternity. On Rosh Hashanah, we are particularly aware of the gifts that surround us that we usually take for granted.

I remember the day I became a father. Talia was born well after her due date, which had us filled with anxiety and worry. After Jonquil went into labor, the birth did not go as we had planned (surprise!), and we were mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted by the experience. (Of course, Jonquil, did the hard part. She was far more exhausted than I). 

But when I held that child in my arms for the first time, I remember how it felt like the entire universe had changed. Some great, hidden cosmic switch was flipped when I felt that surprisingly small and helpless creature against my body, when I looked for the first time into her little eyes.  I saw a face with many of my features and my wife’s features. She was so much like us, and so different, too. Wonder of wonders. And, when Eliana was born, it happened again. My universe doubled.

Like most parents, I have found that it is hard to maintain that feeling of the miraculous in my everyday interactions with my children. It’s not so easy to feel touched by the Infinite when you’re cleaning up a diaper blowout, chasing a runaway toddler, dealing with a temper tantrum, asking a child to set the table for the fifth time in fifteen minutes, picking up last week’s laundry off the floor, or getting the child to turn off the computer games and get the homework done. Parenthood has plenty of frustrations, but it also has moments of transcendence. Those moments helping my child fall asleep after a hard day still remind me how lucky I am. I stroke her hair and quietly sing to her a Hebrew lullaby:

נומי נומי ילדתי, נומי נומי נים
נומי נומי חמדתי, נומי נומי נים
אבא הלך לעבודה, הלך הלך אבא
ישוב עם צאת הלבנה, יביא לך מתנה
נומי נומי ילדתי, נומי נומי נים
נומי נומי חמדתי, נומי נומי נים

[Sleep, sleep, my little girl, sleep, sleep
Sleep, sleep, my dear one, sleep, sleep
Daddy is going to work, to work he is going
He will return with the rising of the moon and bring you a gift
Sleep, sleep, my little girl, sleep, sleep
Sleep, sleep, my dear one, sleep, sleep]

As I watch her slowly drifting off to sleep, I see my past, present and future all rolled up into one. The child she is … once was me. The comfort I offer her, she will one day offer to her child. And one day, she may comfort me as I lay falling to my final sleep. We are all part of forever. We are all forever being birthed. Happy birthday, my dears, and thank you for this birthday gift you have given me.

Tomorrow afternoon, after each blowing of the shofar, we will pray and the choir will sing these words, “Hayom harat olam,” “This is the birthday of the world.” Rosh Hashanah is, by Jewish tradition, the anniversary of the creation of the world. It is the day that God gave birth to the world with the word, “יהי…,” “Let there be…”

On this night, I think of God as that first-time expecting parent, wondering when might be a good time to bring reality into being, only to find out that there is never a good time. I think of God worrying and fretting over the newborn world. I imagine God looking at the world and marveling at the idea that something beside God exists. Perhaps that is why God created the universe, to keep away the loneliness of being all that there is. 

There is good reason why the Torah says that we are created us in God’s image. We are so much like the inquisitive, creative and lonely God who created us. Yet, we are also so different from God. To God, I imagine, we are a miracle – that anything so small, fragile, imperfect and temporary can also be capable of beauty, love, dignity and determination. God looks at us and is amazed. Look at how marvelous life is! The beautiful world that God has given us as a gift – so full of sky and ocean, trees and mountains – has returned the gift to God a thousand-fold! Wonder of wonders!

As much as God shaped the world into being, I imagine that we have shaped God. God cries over our suffering, is angered by our acts of hatred and violence. God is moved by the way we freely care for each other and have compassion for one another. The God who once wanted to drown human evil with Noah’s Flood has learned from us. It was humanity who taught God that if the only response to wrongdoing is punishment, then the world will not survive. We taught God that, sometimes, a good parent has to be ready to quietly accept the faults and limitations of the child. A good parent must be able, sometimes, to forgive a child more than the child deserves. We taught God – who only knew perfection before we were born – how to live lovingly with imperfection.

Still, it is not easy for a transcendent God to love a world that is filled with things that are so crassly flawed. It is hard for God when we destroy the natural world with our waste and poison, when we run away from our responsibilities, when we get angry enough or senseless enough to kill each other, when we keep making choices that are hurtful to ourselves and others, or when we just plain will not listen to the wisdom we have received. 

For God, too, parenthood has frustrations, but it also has moments of transcendence. I imagine God, after all of the many millennia of the world’s imperfection, still gazing upon us in our sleep, and thinking of how good it is that we are part of this universe. Especially today, on the birthday of the world, God strokes our head to wipe away our pain and sings a quiet lullaby, remembering us as a newborn:

נומי נומי ילדתי, נומי נומי נים
נומי נומי חמדתי, נומי נומי נים
אבא הלך לעבודה, הלך הלך אבא
ישוב עם צאת הלבנה, יביא לך מתנה
נומי נומי ילדתי, נומי נומי נים
נומי נומי חמדתי, נומי נומי נים

I imagine that there must be times when God wonders why we were born, and at such an inconvenient time, too. But, on this day, on our birthday, God remembers that our imperfections and faults are part of what make us beautiful and filled with mystery. The God who is not capable of anything but perfection looks at us, and marvels at a creation that is so much like God, and yet completely different from God. Like any good parent, God sees in us a reminder of eternity.

On Rosh Hashanah, we can pretend to be able to see ourselves as God might see us. On this day that begins the Ten Days of Repentance, we strive to see ourselves as the frail and temporary creatures that we truly are. On this day, we learn new compassion for ourselves. We see ourselves as flawed, but still beautiful. We recognize that for us, it never seems like a good time to be born, or to be reborn. Yet, we must know that it is always the right time to do so. We remember that our sins and shortcomings are part of what makes us human. The punishment we suffer for them is often nothing more than the natural consequences of our own foolishness. We grieve for our mistakes, but we also forgive ourselves – and we accept God’s forgiveness – because we understand that imperfection is our natural state. It is the way that God has made us, and it is the way that God still is making us. 

Tonight, we see ourselves as newborns on the birthday of the world. 

We are given a birthday gift during these Days of Repentance, a chance to remake ourselves anew with the wisdom we have learned. We remember that, to God, we are the gift. We sing to ourselves a lullaby and hear God’s voice echoing the sound in our ears. נומי. Sleep. Sleep my little girl, my dear one. Your Father, your Mother loves you and accepts you. You are dear to Me. I bring you a gift. Be at peace.

L’shanah tovah tikateivu.
May you be inscribed for a good year.