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Rosh Hashanah Day I Sermon: Rock of Israel with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz
Manage episode 444402536 series 3143119
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One fine August night, after I got home from evening minyan, I picked up the phone and called my sister Beth, who lives in Los Angeles, just to check in. Beth shared that one of her summer projects was to feng shui their house that she and her family had lived in for 50 years. Just that afternoon she was working on the closet in her bedroom, one bag for goodwill, one bag for garbage, when she came upon a box in the bottom of her closet that she had not seen in years. She did not even remember that it existed. She opened the box, and it contained old birthday cards. Determined to clear her home of clutter once and for all, she was preparing herself to throw out even these sentimental relics when she noticed that one of the birthday cards was in our father’s unmistakable handwriting.
Our father died in 1981. This card was very old. When she opened it up, it said simply: Dearest Beth, you are my rock. Happy Birthday, Love Dad.
So much for the feng shui. Beth took out her black marker and wrote on the whole box: family treasures! Never throw away!
You are my rock.
Those are words of love that have been offered throughout Jewish history. In the Torah Moses calls God hatzur, the rock.
When the founders of the State of Israel got together in Tel Aviv to sign Israel’s Declaration of Independence, they could not agree on whether God belonged in the Declaration of Independence. Religious Jews argued: how can we not include God? After 2,000 years the rebirth of the Jewish state is a miracle. Secular Jews argued: how could we include God? The founding of the State was a secular impulse. In the end both sides agreed to put in Israel’s Declaration of Independence Tzur Yisrael, Rock of Israel. It would be a deliberate ambiguity. To the religious, the Rock of Israel meant God. To the secular, the Rock of Israel meant the Jewish people and Jewish history.
What would it look like for us to be a rock for the people in our lives? What would it look like for us, as we approach the one-year anniversary of October 7, to be a rock for Israel?
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