In just a few more days, the New Year will be upon us. Whether you will attend our services in person or join us online, we will gather together to express our deepest hopes and highest aspirations. We will pause to look within and examine the people we have become. We will commit ourselves to doing more in the coming year and to being the people we are meant to be so that our world will become a kinder, more just, more loving place.
There is much work to be done. Some of it requires wrestling with our innermost selves in moments of quiet contemplation. Some of it can only be accomplished in community, surrounded by Am Yisrael — a People yearning to be God’s partner in repairing the world. In this sacred task, we are supported by a tradition that is thousands of years old, one filled with wisdom that remains urgently relevant to the challenges that confront us today.
A story is told about a wealthy woman who lived in a small town centuries ago. She wished to bequeath to her fellow townspeople a worthy legacy and so decided to build a new synagogue so that her beloved community would have a fitting place to gather for worship, for study, for celebration, and for support. The project was completed just in time for the New Year. When the townspeople came to celebrate the opening of the synagogue, they noticed that there were no lamps inside. Even as they marveled at the beauty of the new edifice, they wondered how the building would be filled with light.
The benefactor pointed to brackets that were mounted all along the walls of the synagogue. She then gave each family in the town a lamp that was designed to fit perfectly into one of the brackets. She instructed them to bring the light with them each time they came. “Every time you join us for worship or for study, for celebration or for support, you bring light to your community.”
May the sacred words of our tradition contained within this machzor inspire us to be better and to do more. May the melodies of these days lift our hearts and fill us with gratitude and hope. May our community support us and carry us. And may each of us bring love, compassion, strength, and resolve so that these sacred spaces might be filled with the light of Torah.
— Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback
