President's Remarks Yom Kippur 5784: Collective Action

Offering a sermon on any day is an unusual activity for me. I opine, persuade, motivate and encourage for a living, but I do not sermonize. All this fire-and-brimstone about sins and transgressions is not my jam. So, for me to offer a sermon on Yom Kippur seems more like participating in the theater of the absurd. And yet I accepted the challenge to come up with a topic that is meaningful and still reasonable for me to say it.

What happened next was this: I found my mind racing with ideas in the middle of the night. I would clamber onto an idea and then reject it as trivial, lacking nuance, and, worst of all, simply too boring to say to a group of smart and caring people. I tried to think of meaningful stories or learnings to share. This year was harder than usual. Struggling on this for too long, my partner, Amanda, gently opined: “I think it is interesting that during the Yom Kippur services the community is asking for forgiveness for the sins of individuals.”

Aha! Something that makes sense to me! Our tradition teaches us that we are interconnected, and the choices we make collectively have consequences that extend far beyond our individual lives.

While I may not have personally undertaken a Ponzi scheme that has deprived people of their life savings or empowered the government of Israel to negate the role of its Supreme Court, these acts are part of our communal responsibility. Even if we have not directly participated in such actions, we must acknowledge that our society, our community and our world bear the weight of these awful actions.

Growing up, every time a Jewish person was indicted, convicted or announced in the media for doing something wrong, my father would say: “This is bad for all of us.” He was not a praying kind of man, but he knew that we had collective responsibility as Jews.

The concept of communal responsibility underscores the idea that we are all responsible for one another. This principle reminds us that we cannot turn a blind eye to injustices or unethical behavior, even if we are not the ones directly involved. We are, as a community, responsible for creating a just and ethical society.

When the foundations of justice are eroded, we must not distance ourselves from these issues, thinking they do not concern us. They concern us deeply, because they impact the well-being of our fellow human beings and the moral fabric of our society.

Teshuvah can be defined as repentance, but I prefer return—returning to the right path—and it is not a solitary act. It is not about isolating one’s self but rather a communal journey toward self-improvement and a serious decision to do better—much better.

The power of collective teshuvah lies in its ability to bind us together. We understand that the path to righteousness is not linear but filled with twists and turns. Just as we celebrate each other’s joys, we also stand by each other in times of remorse and transformation.

Yom Kippur is a day when we collectively acknowledge all the horrible things happening in the broken world that Rabbi referred to in her Kol Nidrey sermon last night and seek forgiveness. We do this not only for our personal failures but also for the collective mistakes, wrongdoings and actions of our community. By acknowledging our shared responsibility, we recognize the importance of working together to rectify these wrongs.

Today, let us reflect on how we can collectively address these issues, both within our congregation and in the wider world. It is not enough to distance ourselves from wrongdoing. We must actively engage in the process of teshuvah as a community.

As we pray for forgiveness and embark on this journey of self-examination, let us also commit to acts of tikkun olam, repairing the world. Let us work to ensure that justice prevails, that vulnerable individuals are protected and that we uphold the values of honesty, integrity and compassion in our community and beyond. This is very hard to do, but it is much easier even to try to do it—if we do it together.

In doing so, we fulfill our sacred duty of collective responsibility and demonstrate our commitment to creating a more just and ethical world. Remember, the power of change lies not only in the actions of a few but in the collective conscience of our entire community.

May this Yom Kippur serve as a catalyst for positive change, and may we all choose the path for a year of healing, unity and communal accountability.

Serving as a catalyst is challenging and demanding, but I have seen it happen—and happen here. We have many “tikkun olam-mers” in our midst, and I think working together seals us together for better outcomes and a better world.

That is how I like to think about the Book of Life and sealing our fates together—through teshuvah—choosing the right path—together.

May we emerge from this High Holy Day period with our spirits renewed and our community stronger than ever. We have been granted the opportunity to start anew, and we are not alone on this journey.