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Words of Wisdom

Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation Yom Kippur 5773

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Erev Yom Kippur Tuesday, September 25, 2012 / 9 Tishri 5773 Wrestling Our Way Home Sermon for Erev Yom Kippur Rabbi Brant Rosen

Yom Kippur Wednesday, September 26, 2012 / 10 Tishri 5773 Why Be Jewish? Page 9 Sermon for Yom Kippur Rabbi Brant Rosen Personal Reflection Page 15 Hannah M. Kaplan, JRC Member Yom Kippur Story Page 18 Syd Lieberman, JRC Member

Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation – Yom Kippur 5773

Locking Our Children Away Sermon for Erev Yom Kippur 5773

Rabbi Brant Rosen Tomorrow, as we do every year, we’ll hear the traditional Torah portion for Yom Kippur – a section from Leviticus that describes a powerful, if somewhat complicated, ritual sacrifice of atonement. Since it’s in Leviticus, the portion goes a little heavy on the animal evisceration – and I know that for many it can be a challenge to understand its relevancy to their lives. Nevertheless, even though we don’t atone by sacrificing goats any more, I do believe the portion has a great deal to teach us about repentance – and the complex interplay between individual and collective atonement. I certainly understand why this portion was chosen for a place of prominence in the Yom Kippur service. Despite the power of this Torah portion, however, I’ve often thought that there’s another one that is just as appropriate – perhaps even more appropriate – for Yom Kippur. I’m referring to the famous episode in the 32nd and 33rd chapters of Genesis, when Jacob wrestles on a riverbank with a mysterious stranger the night before he meets up with his estranged twin brother Esau. Anyone who’s read or studied this text will attest that it’s a phenomenal story with deliciously rich spiritual symbolism. Indeed, I often find myself returning to this portion for its insights on forgiveness, reconciliation and personal transformation. All of which, of course, are central themes to the Yom Kippur holiday. So on this Yom Kippur eve, please allow me to submit this story as an alternative Torah portion for your spiritual consideration. I hope its lessons will help us all engage more deeply in the spiritual work that lays ahead this coming new year. Before I get to the wrestling episode, however, we need a bit of back story. I know many of you are familiar with the story of Jacob and Esau, the twin brothers born to Isaac and Rebecca. Even before we meet Jacob and Esau, we learn that they were destined to struggle with one another – in fact they struggle together before they’re even born. During her pregnancy, Rebecca experiences great pain. When she asks God why, she is told that this is more than just average prenatal stress. She is told that the two struggling sons in her womb represent two separate nations, and that the older is destined to serve the younger. This rivalry plays out even during the moment of then twins’ birth. Esau, the elder, emerges first, followed by Jacob, who is grasping his older brother’s heel, as if he is trying to somehow make it out before him. For his pains, he is given the name Ya’akov, meaning, “heel.” As the twins grow up, it becomes clear they are polar opposites of one another in every way. Esau is a big hairy hunter who likes the taste of game, while Jacob is the milder one who prefers home to the wild outdoors. We’re also told that, in time honored Biblical fashion, the

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boys’ parents play favorites. Esau is favored by his father Isaac, while Rebecca prefers Jacob, who has been described by more than one interpreter as something of a Mama’s Boy If there was ever any doubt that Jacob was smarter and more calculating than his older brother, this point is driven home one day, when we find Jacob home cooking lentil stew. Esau comes home tired, sweaty and hungry from the hunt and asks Jacob for some of the food. Jacob, ever the calculating younger brother, says he will sell him some stew in exchange for his older brother’s birthright. Esau readily agrees, saying “I’m going to die, what good to me is my birthright?” I’d suggest we’re meant to feel some cognitive dissonance in response to this episode. On the one hand, it seems underhanded of Jacob to take advantage of his older brother’s vulnerability at that moment. One the other hand, he seems to understand the importance of family legacy more than Esau, who seems to value a bowl of lentils more than his own birthright. But on the other, other hand we already know that there is even deeper going on here – namely, destiny. Since it’s already been determined that the older is fated to serve the younger, perhaps we’re being asked to have a measure of compassion on both of these children, who are unwittingly, innocently playing into a fate that has somehow already been determined for them. Later, when Isaac is on his deathbed and nearly blind, he asks Esau to hunt some game and prepare it, so he can eat his favorite meal and give his eldest his final blessing before he dies. Rebecca overhears the conversation, and tells Jacob to disguise himself as his brother with animal skins, bring his father food that she will prepare, and trick his father into giving him his older brother’s blessing. Thus Jacob deceives his father into giving him the blessing that was meant for Esau. When Esau discovers the deception, naturally, he is devastated. He cries bitterly and asks his father if he has a blessing left for him. Isaac sadly tells him it is too late – he has already blessed Jacob and made him master over him. Esau vows to kill his brother and with angry sarcasm, comments that this must be why he name was named Ya’akov, which means “deceiver” as well as “heel.” Rebecca, fearing the worst, tells Jacob to leave home and flee to her brother Laban’s house until Esau’s fury subsides. It’s during his sojourn at Laban’s that Jacob grows into manhood. It’s not an easy sojourn – and with a bit of the old “what goes around, comes around,” Jacob himself becomes a victim of deceit at the hands of his uncle Laban. Still, Jacob becomes a successful and prosperous man. By the time he leaves his uncle’s house and starts for home he has a large family, with many servants and great wealth. Our portion, Genesis 32, opens with Jacob and his family leaving Laban’s house and heading toward Edom, where his brother Esau happens to reside. Jacob sends ahead messengers, in hopes of “gaining his brother’s favor.” The messengers return, telling Jacob that Esau,

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together with four hundred men, is coming out to meet him. Jacob, understandably frightened now, prays desperately to God, divides his family up into groups and sends them ahead separately, hoping to placate Esau with tribute. Then he spends the night alone on the bank of the Jabok river. During the night, Jacob wrestles with a mysterious “man” until the break of dawn. When the man sees that he cannot prevail against Jacob, he wrenches Jacob’s hip and says to him, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!” Jacob answers, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” The man asks, “What is your name?” and he replies “Jacob.” Then he says, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with beings divine and human and you have prevailed.” Jacob asks the man, “Please tell me your name!” But the man tells him he cannot and soon Jacob is left alone once more. Jacob then names the place “Peniel” which means “Face of God,” explaining, “I have seen a divine being face to face and I live.” As the sun rises, he makes his way across the river, limping on his wounded hip. As Chapter 33 opens, Jacob sees Esau coming with his 400 men. He divides up his family into two groups, then goes on ahead. He approaches Esau and bows low to the ground seven times until he is near his brother. Esau runs toward him and, weeping, they embrace and kiss one another. Esau looks at Jacob’s wives and children and asks “Who are all these with you?” Jacob replies, “These are my children, with whom God has blessed me.” Esau then asks, “Why have you sent all these ahead of you?” and Jacob says “To gain your favor.” Esau tells him he has more than enough wealth, but Jacob insists, “No, please do me this favor by accepting this gift, for to see your face is like seeing the face of God.” Esau eventually accepts his brother’s gifts and they both travel toward Esau’s home in Seir. After a brief sojourn, they part, and Jacob’s family travels on ahead to the city of Shechem. And with that, our portion ends. It’s probably obvious to you why I chose this story as an alternative Yom Kippur portion. At heart it’s concerned with teshuvah – repentance, the spiritual essence of this day and the entire High Holiday season. And if we read the story carefully, if we dig deeper under the surface of the narrative, we can see an entire process laid out for us in literary fashion. Indeed, Jacob’s struggle may well help us understand our own struggles – and the spiritual journeys we take every year at this time. Let’s start with the image of Jacob and Esau struggling in their mother’s womb. If we understand these brothers to be symbolic of human relationships in general, we seem to be told that conflict is our destiny – that relationships are somehow defined by struggle. While this may seem like fatalism, can we honestly deny it? Certainly we all dream of the day in which conflict between peoples and nations will be no more – but until that day, it seems to me, our job is not to deny or avoid the struggle, but to deal with the inevitability of conflict in a healthy and healing way. As I indicated earlier, I do believe we’re asked to hold a measure of compassion for every character in this narrative. There are no definite heroes or villains – only imperfect individuals

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who are struggling to do their best even as circumstances seem to conspire against them. So too in our own lives: none of us are all good or all evil – there is only the grey complexity of our humanity as we wrestle to control events that so often seem outside our control. If there is anyone who must bear the brunt of the blame in this story, in fact, I would suggest it’s God – the one who sets in motion events that will inevitably cause these people to experience conflict and pain. Regardless of our theologies – or whether we even have a theology at all – I think this aspect of the story rings true. Whether we believe it is Divine Will, karma, fate, or just plain randomness, there is so much in the world that is outside our control. We will never truly find an adequate answer to the question “Why does pain and struggle invariably seem to enter our lives and our world?” The only one we can and should answer, it seems to me, is “What are we going to do about it?” One of the most enduring questions asked about this story pertains to the identity of the mysterious night wrestler. The text, deliciously obtuse on this question, simply refers to him in Hebrew as an “ish” or man. Some say the man is an angel of God, some say he represents Esau, others believe he represents Jacob himself. The Freudians among us might say the man in Jacob’s Id; Jungians would likely say it’s his “shadow self.” So which one one is it? To that question I answer, of course: “Yes.” The mystery man certainly represents Esau, inasmuch as Jacob has been bearing considerable pain, guilt and anger toward his brother all these years: guilt over how he willingly deceived him, anger over the unfairness of his brother’s privileged status and pain over the unresolved nature of their relationship. Indeed, Jacob had likely borne the weight of these burdens for his entire adult life until up to this point. So too in our own lives. It never fails to amaze me how effortlessly we summon the strength to bear the staggering weight of this kind of painful baggage. We somehow manage to accommodate ourselves to the steady accumulation of hurt, guilt, resentment and anger toward those who are closest to us. We bear these burdens so skillfully and so well – but we rarely stop to consider the damage this weight actually does to us along the way. It’s painfully difficult to face those whom we’ve hurt – particularly those we love. When relationships become broken, we often tend to carry the wound around with us numbly. It can be terrifying to allow ourselves to truly feel the hurt of this brokenness. That might be one way of understanding Jacob’s wounding during his struggle. In the morning, he limps toward Esau – but he has not been defeated. On the contrary, he has finally, at long last allowed himself to drop his disguise and come face to face with his brother; to feel the pain he has avoided for so long. Mending our relationships necessarily entails pain, but if we do it honestly and openly, in the end we will find that when we look into the face of the other we will finally see, as Jacob says, the face of God looking back at us. Read another way, we might say that the mysterious wrestler represents Jacob himself. Some suggest that in fact by wrestling with Esau he is wrestling with himself – that his twin brother

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represents his “Esau side,” if you will. While in a literal sense, this is certainly a story about the relationship between two brothers, we could also read it as one man’s struggle to integrate two very different sides of himself: to own up to his physically powerful, sensual, bestial “Esau side” together with his intellectually powerful, wily, inwardly focused “Jacob side.” In this way, Jacob is finally taking off his Esau disguise and is facing that part of himself honestly for the first time. I’ve always been struck that the dialogue during the wrestling match and during Jacob and Esau’s embrace, it’s difficult to tell at first who is doing the talking during the conversations. In both cases, the dialogue goes back and forth so quickly it often takes more than one reading to discern who is who. This literary blurring of identities suggests to me that perhaps we might read this narrative as a story about one man – and his painful struggle to integrate his identity. It’s also notable that this story takes place on the bank of a river, on the eve of a crossing. So many stories in the Torah use the crossing of waters as a symbol for spiritual consciousness and transformation. Many commentators point out that the name of the river, Jabok, contains the same letters as the name Ya’akov, indicating that this struggle is taking place on the deepest depths of his own sense of self. The only place where he can integrate himself fully into a place of spiritual wholeness. And In the end he does indeed prevail. And notably, he receives a new name. No longer is he Jacob the deceiver, the one who grasps fruitlessly at the heel of his Esau idenity. Now he is Israel, the one who struggles to intergrate himself, to find wholeness on the deepest level and is transformed. Then Jacob himself engages in an act of naming: he names the place of his struggle “Peniel” which means “Face of God,” explaining, “I have seen a divine being face to face and I live.” This is precisely what is asked of us on Yom Kippur – and during so many other critical turning points in our lives. We seek to make ourselves whole. We are bidden to face the shadow parts of ourselves, the shadow parts of our souls, that we may truly bring together the disparate elements of our humanity and become the kind of people we are meant to become. This is a terrifying struggle, of that there is no question. But if we manage to engage in it with spiritual honestly and integrity we may find ourselves saying, as Jacob/Israel does, “I have seen a divine being face to face and I am live.” Face to face. Wrestling is an act that takes place face to face, with no barriers or artifice. Many diverse traditions, from the Ancient Greeks to Japanese Sumo wrestlers, view wrestling as a form of spiritual purification. And those who have wrestled will attest that there is a purity about it, a sense of face to face encounter in which nothing comes between the two parties involved. Again, Jacob’s face to face encounter contrasts sharply with his encounter with his father as a boy, when he disguised himself as another and stole a blessing through guile. Even though this had been already ordained by God, it is still quite possible that this ill-gotten blessing had dogged Jacob for his entire life.

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And perhaps this is the meaning of Jacob’s comment, “I will not let you go until you bless me!” That night on the riverbank, he finally gains his blessing honestly, not by way of disguise, but face to face, without deception. This happens to us every Yom Kippur, when we say in our liturgy “Hineini” – “Here I am.” On Yom Kippur, each of us stands unmasked, without artifice, in God’s presence. At least once a year we know that we must bare ourselves and our souls if we are to find the sense of atonement – the sense of “at-one-ment” – that we seek in our lives. This transformation, to be sure, is an ongoing, never ending process. At the end of our story, Jacob is transformed, his named changed from “Jacob the Deceiver” to “Israel the Godwrestler.” But if you read on through the rest of the Book of Genesis, you’d find he isn’t referred to exclusively by the name Israel. Interestingly enough, for the rest of his life, the text refers to him interchangeably as either Jacob or Israel. Does this mean that his transformation is a failure? Not all – it only means that his transformation is all too human. We never end the struggle. In the real world, transformation is not a magical one-time occurrence. It is a step by step, day by day, year after year process. Ideally, yes sometimes it feels tragically, we never really stop struggling until the day we die. In this regard, Yom Kippur truly is a spiritual gift. It offers us an automatic, annual opportunity for us to put our struggles in a kind of sacred context. To stop struggling long enough just to feel. To find the face of God in the faces of those we love. In the faces of those we fear. In our own. To let down the masks we hide behind long enough to glimpse our true selves – and for that one moment on the Yom Kippur day, we might understand what it means to be whole. There so much more to say about this story, which is only just a few verses long, yet never stops yielding meaning upon meaning. One level of meaning I did not explore tonight is the extent to which it also teaches us about struggle on a collective level. Indeed, both the names Jacob and Israel are used to refer not only to a Biblical character but to the Jewish people as a whole. And I would venture to say that this story provides a central paradigm – perhaps even the central paradigm – for collective Jewish identity today. But that’s for another sermon. (You’ll have to return here in the morning to hear that one.) In the meantime, I’d like to end my remarks to you with a poem I wrote this past year. As I said earlier, after this episode, Jacob is referred to as both Jacob and Israel until the day he dies. And to be sure, this episode does not mark the end of his struggles. There will be challenges ahead, including moments of great pain. Jacob/Israel’s role in the Joseph narrative is particularly tragic. But by the end of his life, he has come full circle. As Genesis ends, he is surrounded by his sons and offers them each his blessing before he dies.

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Here is my poetic rendering of that moment, from verses in Genesis, chapters 48 and 49:

now israel’s eyes were dim with age he said i can see the one in whose steps my father walked even when they led straight into the fire i see the one who answered my mother but could not relieve her pain i can see so plainly my own reflection masked and unmasked deceiver and deceived ascending descending wrestling embracing fleeing returning yes i see quite clearly these scarred and withered hands are the hands of jacob but the face is the face of god when he was ready to stop struggling jacob drew his feet into the bed breathed his last breath and finally returned home

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Why Be Jewish? Sermon for Yom Kippur 5773

Rabbi Brant Rosen Before I get started with my remarks, I’d like to briefly refer back to my Rosh Hashanah sermons. If you didn’t happen to be at services – or if your memory needs a little refreshing – I gave two sermons on universalist themes. On Erev Rosh Hashanah, I suggested a broader way of understanding Jewish monotheism – not so much “God is One” as “God is Everything.” And on Rosh Hashanah morning, I suggested a new approach to Jewish tribalism – not as mere loyalty to Jews alone, but as a sense of solidarity with all who share our sacred values of justice, equality and peace. In both of these sermons, however, I left one important question open – namely, if all this is true, Rabbi Rosen, then why be Jewish at all? If we do affirm that God is beyond religion, that we should break down barriers between faiths and peoples, and that we should rise above Jewish tribalism, then what’s the point of even affirming a Jewish identity? It’s a fair question – a critical question, in fact. Indeed, it’s a question that has been asked one way or another through every twist and turn of Jewish history over the centuries. We might argue it is all the more trenchant given the unprecedented global realities of the 21st century. With barriers between peoples and nations breaking down at an unprecedented pace, why be Jewish at all? This is the question that I’d like to explore with you this Yom Kippur. Before I do, however, I’ll tip my hand. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying I do indeed believe it’s possible to affirm a non-tribal Judaism – a spiritual peoplehood that espouses universal values and seeks solidarity with all who share them. In fact, I would go further and argue that Jewish life and Jewish tradition has something quite important to offer our 21st century globalized world. But in order to do this, we’ll need to accept that it cannot be the Judaism of previous generations. We’ll have to avoid the temptation to fall back on old paradigms that are becoming less and less relevant to a new generation of Jews – to define and reconstruct Judaism in bold and compelling ways. I won’t deny it’s a daunting proposition to take on such a task. To be sure, defining Judaism has always been a notoriously thorny enterprise. So let’s start at the beginning – with the ancient Israelite nation of the Hebrew Bible. Whether or not such a nation ever actually existed, there can be no doubt that our Jewish collective memory is firmly rooted in the narratives of the Biblical Israelites – a nomadic group of tribes that eventually, if briefly, became a sovereign empire in the ancient land of Israel. After the destruction of the Temple, in 73 AD, Judaism as we know it was born – and from here, definitions become a bit more complicated. For all our attempts to define what Judaism is, in some ways I think it’s easier to define what we are not. For instance, we’re not a nation in the traditional sense of the term. After all, Judaism as we know it developed in the Diaspora, in many nations throughout the world. And while Jewish tradition has always held

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out the dream of return to the land of Israel, until the relatively recent establishment of the modern Zionist movement, these yearnings were traditionally expressed in religious terms. According to Jewish tradition, our return to Zion would come at the end of days, after the coming of the Messiah. However, we can’t rightly say we’re just a religion either. Indeed, throughout Jewish history, we’ve referred to ourselves as Am Yisrael – the “People of Israel.” Judaism certainly has religious values and practices, but Jewish religion has always gone hand in hand with peoplehood. No matter where we’ve lived, no matter what we’ve believed – or even if we’ve believed at all – Jews everywhere have always maintained an underlying sense of belonging to one another. So perhaps we’re a culture? No, that’s not quite it either. It would probably be more accurate to say we are Jewish cultures. To be sure, Jewish life has developed in a myriad of countries throughout the world; Jewish communities have been shaped by a variety of different cultural influences. If we compared Medieval Spanish Jewish culture to Rabbinic Babylonian culture to pre-modern Lithuanian Jewish culture, we’d find that they all have their own languages, their own literature, cuisine, their own music, art etc. In truth, what is considered “culturally Jewish” has always been dependent upon time and place. This continues to be the case even today. Here in America, for instance, much of what we assume to be Jewish culture would be culturally alien to a Persian Jew, and vice versa. Then maybe we’re an ethnicity? That’s probably the most problematic definition of them all. How can we honestly say that Jews are an ethnic group when there are Arab Jews, Asian Jews, African-American Jews, White Jews, Hispanic Jews, African Jews and more throughout the world? It’s a particularly problematic definition in today’s post-ethnic America. Although American Jews are routinely referred to as an ethnic group, we’re witnessing a sharp increase in the number of Jews of color. Be’chol Lashon, a prominent Jewish Research and Education institute, estimates that at least 20% of the American Jewish population is racially and ethnically diverse – and that this number is on the rise. Now all of these complexities have been exacerbated even more by modernity, which has brought the Jewish people out of the ghetto and into open society in a unprecedented ways. It might be said that every Jewish movement today, one way or another, is itself a response to the challenges of the modern age. That is certainly true of Reconstructionism, which in my humble opinion has come up with the best definition of Judaism we can ever hope to find. As Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan famously put it, Judaism is “an evolving religious civilization.” What makes this definition so brilliant is the way it renders Judaism as greater than the sum of its parts. We are more than just a nation, more than just a religion, more than just a culture or ethnicity or race. Judaism is a civilization – the total product of the Jewish people’s spiritual strivings throughout history and around the world. Moreover, the product of our spiritual quest has always been evolving – constantly developing and adapting to ever-changing historical and social circumstances.

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If you think really think about it, it’s fairly amazing to consider the model by which we’ve forged our group identity. We’ve managed, over the centuries to literally create a global peoplehood that transcends national boundaries, that makes room for cultural diversity, and that affirms a dynamic, evolving religious vision. This, then, is my first answer to the question “Why be Jewish?” Because it gives us the opportunity to participate in this remarkable and still fairly unprecedented project. And I’ll say it again: this global peoplehood that transcends national boundaries, that makes room for cultural diversity, and that affirms a dynamic, evolving religious vision. I would go even further and say that this model has a great deal to offer in this particular age – as we witness an increasingly globalized post-ethnic, post-national world. Apropos of this, I’d like to restate something I said on Rosh Hashanah:

As we begin a new millennium, it seems to me, two forces seem to be heading in opposite directions at an increasingly faster pace. On the one hand, the barriers between peoples and nations are breaking down at an unprecedented pace – yet in other corners of the world we are witnessing a retreat into even greater sectarianism and nationalism. Thus, given our the ways in which we’ve defined our own history until now, I’d suggest this is a time of reckoning for Jews. How will we view the outside world? Will we circle the wagons and view the outside world with suspicion? Or will we see our future as connected to the future of others and open our community up to this new global reality?

As Reconstructionists, as liberal Jews, as Americans, I believe the answer must be the latter. Our world needs those who can model how to create peoplehood without borders, how to affirm connection across cultural and ethnic lines, how to worship God in an intellectually honest and non-coercive way. So that’s my first answer: our model. My second answer to the question “Why Be Jewish” has to do with our method. And here, I’d like to refer to my sermon last night, when I discussed the story of Jacob’s late night wrestling match, and the change of his name from Jacob to Israel:

Indeed, both the names Jacob (“Heel/Deceiver”) and Israel (“Godwrestler”) are used to refer not only to a Biblical character but to the Jewish people as a whole. And I would venture to say that this story provides a central paradigm – perhaps even the central paradigm – for collective Jewish identity today.

As I mentioned last night, this story has a great deal to teach us about our own spiritual and existential struggles. In addition, however, I believe it also teaches us about the very essence of our collective identity as Jews, as Am Yisrael – “the people who struggle with God.” Jacob is one character in the Torah, but he is also much more. According to Jewish tradition, Jacob/Israel is also a surrogate for the Jewish people writ large. Throughout the Bible, we see the name Jacob or Israel used interchangeably to mean either the man Jacob or the people Israel.

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The most well known example of the latter is probably the Mah Tovu, the verses from the book of Numbers that have become a famous part of our liturgy:

“Mah Tovu ohalecha ya’akov/Mishkentecha, Yisrael!” – “How goodly are your tents, oh Jacob, your dwelling places, oh Israel!”

These words, of course, do not refer to the Biblical Jacob – they refer to us. In very profound way, Jacob/Yisrael is the “collective us.” And in a very real sense, Jewish tradition identifies his struggles as our struggles. Like our namesake Jacob, we are the ones who struggle with God and live. I’d suggest that this is much more than just a graceful literary allusion – I believe it is deeply ingrained in the Jewish spiritual psyche. It is suffused throughout our Biblical heritage: Abraham and Sarah, Jacob, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonah and Job – all are iconoclasts par excellance – spiritual role models who refuse to take the world at face value and struggle actively with God. This ethic is also deeply ingrained in Talmudic tradition – which models a culture of debate and dialogue “le’shem shamayim” – “for the sake of heaven.” In modernity, our struggles have broadened as new Jewish movements have taken Jewish tradition in radically different directions, creating a kind of intra-communal discussion and debate on how to be Jewish in a world that is changing in so many ways. I would also suggest that our collective God wrestling has social and political dimesions as well. I don’t believe it is a coincidence that so many Jews have been part of movements for social change – many of whom were or are thoroughly secular, yet have still inherited the Jewish the value of struggle. Sixties radical Abbie Hoffman, for instance, was famously quoted as saying:

I see Judaism as a way of life. Sticking up for the underdog. Being an outsider. A critic of society. The kid on the corner who says the emperor has no clothes on. The prophet.

Why be Jewish? Because we model a spiritual peoplehood that values struggle and debate that is not afraid to take God to task, that seeks to challenge the icons of the status quo, particularly – as the Prophets so eloquently teach us – the icons of the powerful and the privileged. Now let me be clear: I’m not trying to argue that the Jewish people have a monopoly on the values of theological struggle and socio-political transformation. I don’t believe for a second that Jewish tradition is any more noble in this respect than any other tradition. This is not about religious triumphalism – (“Why be Jewish? Because we did it first and we do it best!”) But I am suggesting that there is still great relevance in this spiritual model and method. If anyone – including Jews – find a similar form of meaning in other religions, I’d say gai gezunterhait – “go for it.” I think we’re well past the point where we want to encourage Judaism through superiority claims, by promoting survival for survival’s sake, or God forbid,

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through fear of anti-Semitism. The best way to ensure the future of Judaism, it seems to me, is to celebrate it in a meaningful and relevant way. All the rest, it seems to me, is distraction – sometimes harmful distraction. In this day and age, there is a rich and varied marketplace of spiritual traditions, as there should be. But if you pardon the crass imagery, I believe by and large the organized Jewish community is doing a very poor job of marketing our product to our newest generation of Jews. In some ways, I think we’re barking up the wrong tree trying to think up snappy answers to the question “Why be Jewish?” Maybe if we did a better job at creating a compelling form of 21st century Judaism, the very question itself would be superfluous. Speaking personally, I’m enormously proud that JRC is the kind of community that models the kinds of qualities I’ve been discussing here. I like to think of us as true B’nai and B’not Yisrael – Godwrestlers – in the best sense of the word. We observe and celebrate our religious tradition with equal parts reverence and irreverence. We study, we question, we debate, we challenge and together and we grow from the experience. We teach our children – and our adults – in a manner that gives them room to question their tradition, to struggle with it, and live it in the way that makes sense to them – not in the way we think they must. We’re also expanding our previously tribal boundaries in important ways. While I don’t know the exact percentages, there is a significant number of interfaith families in our congregation – and I know that number is increasing. As a result, many of the most valued members of our congregation are not formally Jewish, yet they are participating in Jewish life, keeping Jewish homes, raising Jewish children in more impressive ways than most Jews in this country. While the more boundary-conscious in the organized Jewish community continue to view intermarriage as the death knell of the Jewish people, we see it as an invaluable opportunity – something that enriches the life of our community in innumerable ways. We ‘re also expanding borders in the way we understand Tikkun Olam – the sacred imperative to repair the world. While in the past, this has traditionally meant repairing the Jewish “olam,” we have been involved in any number of service projects locally and around the world that see fewer and fewer boundaries between the Jewish world and the greater world in which we live. I’m so proud that this past summer, JRC went on its third service delegation to Africa – a trip to Rwanda, in which we volunteered with NGOs doing critical health and development work in communities ravaged by HIV/AIDS and poverty. I’m particularly proud that of our sixteen participants, nearly half were teenagers. Does it matter that they went with their rabbi and their synagogue community? Let’s put it this way: if it wasn’t for their synagogue community, they may never have had the opportunity – and as long as we keep providing opportunities such as these, questions like “Why be Jewish” will be fairly irrelevant. So let me leave you with this vision: the vision of a people who have over the centuries learned to build a nation without borders, a multi-ethnic nation suffused with the beauty of a myriad of cultures, a nation inspired by a religious tradition it constructs and reconstructs in every age and in every generation. At its heart, a nation committed to the struggle for meaning in our lives and justice in our world. And in the end, a nation that has nothing to

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fear and every opportunity to gain from the remarkable changes underway in the 21st century. This is the vision that inspires me as a rabbi, a Jew, but most important, as a human being who considers all who struggle alongside me to be a member of my most important tribe. I hope it is a vision that inspires you as well.

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Personal Reflection Yom Kippur 5773

Hannah M. Kaplan, JRC Member Good yuntif, my name is Hannah Miriam Kaplan. I say my middle name to distinguish myself from the other two Hannah Kaplans in our JRC community. Yom Kippur has always been a day on which I think about healing and renewal. These two themes have dominated the last year of my life. In January 2011 I began a study abroad program through my university where I spent a semester living with a host family in Santiago, Chile. It was an incredible and life‐changing experience filled with traveling to exciting places, forging friendships with native Chileans, and becoming fluent in Spanish, my college major. During my time abroad I learned so many things, many of which were the unexpected result of a near‐death experience I suffered at the end of the semester. I spent one of my final weekends in Chile in June 2011 traveling with some close friends to a coastal city outside of Santiago. During that weekend I fell from a second floor youth hostel window when a guardrail broke loose, and I suffered a severesevereseveresevere Traumatic Brain Injury. In that instant my life changed from being a healthy young woman enjoying a weekend with friends to a patient fighting for survival. Despite the severity of my brain injury I don’t take it for granted that by some miracle my friends were able to quickly summon help, my spinal cord was intact, I was in close proximity to a hospital, and that hospital had a neurosurgeon available. Within the first twenty‐four hours of my accident, I underwent two brain surgeries at the local hospital and developed a life‐threatening infection. Three days later, I was airlifted by helicopter to a hospital in Santiago where I remained in a coma for weeks. After one month, I was stable enough to be transferred to Chicago by air ambulance. Once in Chicago, I spent a week in the Neurosurgical ICU, then a month at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago where I re‐learned basic skills like how to sit, stand, and walk. It took me five months to re‐learn how to talk and swallow. I could not form new memories. For instance, if you came to visit me, no matter how charming your personality, minutes after your exit I would have no recollection of our interaction. Also, I was frequently disoriented. Months after my accident, while living back at home in Evanston, when I was asked to point on a world map to where I was, I pointed to Chile. One night I got out of bed at four in the morning insisting that I had to go outside because my Chilean host family was coming to pick me up. Clearly I have progressed past this initial stage, in large part due to the extensive rehabilitation I have had over the past year, which has focused on improving my memory, social, academic, and everyday life skills. Despite my gains, I still struggle in many of these areas, most prominently with my short‐term memory. I can’t drive yet, and I’m not quite ready to live independently. However, I can complete many tasks in and out of the house on my own, I’ve been able to return to my love of running, and I just began a college

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level course. I’ve been volunteering in a preschool and in a bilingual classroom in Evanston. I’m still fluent in Spanish. I continue to see subtle ongoing signs of my recovery. My immediate goal is to return to Washington University in St. Louis to complete my undergraduate degree. Following that, I hope to pursue a career in education. So what have I learned from all of this? First, I have learned about the random nature of life. It is impossible for us to predict what cards life will deal us. I wasn’t planning for this to happen to me, but sometimes the things you don’t plan for can have the most impact. Thinking seriously about this randomness is scary because it’s a reminder that life is incredibly unpredictable and fragile. I feel that we can never be certain of what our futures hold, but that uncertainty shouldn’t stop us from living full lives. Given the opportunity, I would study abroad again in a heartbeat…I just wouldn’t sit on that window ledge. I hope that my story never deters you or anyone from stepping out and seeking new experiences. My injury also taught me about the goodness of others. I was lucky to be surrounded by my loving family and friends, and by medical professionals who stood by me every step of the way, no questions asked. People of many faiths and backgrounds rallied behind me and contributed to my recovery, especially the Jewish community. I know that Jews all over the world – friends and strangers alike — have had me in their thoughts, hearts and prayers, especially our JRC community that has been a tremendous source of support to my family. Interestingly, the Jewish community of Santiago came to the aid of my parents while they were by my side. For example, many members of the community who saw my obviously Jewish name in the newspaper after the accident reached out to my family and kept them company, invited them for Shabbat, and organized a tefilah service at the hospital. A rabbi in Santiago took them under his wing without questioning our affiliation or level of Jewish faith. His synagogue welcomed my parents and included me in many prayers. They also welcomed my Catholic Chilean host family, who became comfortable attending Shabbat services with my parents and were fond of exclaiming “Shabbat shalom”! My parents continue to be in touch with many of these new friends whom I hope to meet and thank someday. My life as I knew it changed forever the night of my accident. I know my personality is somewhat different than it was before and may never return to exactly how it was. I’m told my sense of humor is more juvenile than it ever was. If you ever make a stupid joke in my presence, count on me to laugh the loudest. I also find that I am more easily frustrated and temperamental than I ever was before. While I continue to strive to recover my former self, I have realized that I need to learn to acceptacceptacceptaccept and lovelovelovelove this new Hannah Kaplan. I understand that I am not alone when it comes to learning to accept myself. We all face struggles dealing with our less‐than‐perfect selves in daily life. The challenge is being comfortable loving ourselves despite our imperfections. When I recovered enough to understand the severity of my injury, I struggled greatly with it because it felt so unfair. I feel that I’ve lived a very selfless life, that I’ve given to others and that I have sound morals and values. So, why me? Did I do something wrong? Was I being punished for something through this misfortune? As my recovery progressed I began to answer these questions. While I’ll never know God’s role in all of this, I don’t believe God

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planned for me to fall or was punishing me for anything I did. To paraphrase a well‐known bumper sticker, ‘stuff happens.’ I’ll also never know the role of God or prayer in my survival. The Yom Kippur before my accident, was I inscribed in the book of life? I’ll never know. All I do know is that from this tragedy, I have grown and learned many things that will stay with me forever. I believe we should strive to find the good in any situation we face. I hope to use my new knowledge to enrich the lives of others. I don’t know how I can do this yet, but it’s up to me to figure it out. If someone told me a year ago I would be up speaking here today in front of all of you, I would never have believed them. While I’ve always been a hard worker, I’ve never worked as hard on anything as I have on my recovery. Although my work is not done, and I still have many challenges to overcome, I’m proud of how my efforts are paying off. I’d like to personally thank the JRC community on behalf of my family for the outpouring of support and love you’ve given us through thought, deed, or prayer that has allowed me to stand up here today; I am so grateful for this opportunity. May you always have the strength and spirit you need to face your challenges, and may you have a year of healing and renewal.

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Yom Kippur Story 5773 Fanny Herself Fanny Herself Fanny Herself Fanny Herself (Chapter 3) by Edna Ferber

Source material adapted and told by Syd Lieberman, JRC Member It was about this time that Fanny Brandeis began to realize, actively, that she was different. Of course, other little Winnebago girls' mothers did not work like a man, in a store. And she and Bella Weinberg were the only two in her room at school who stayed out on the Day of Atonement, and on New Year, and the lesser Jewish holidays. Also, she went to temple on Friday night and Saturday morning, when the other girls she knew went to church on Sunday. These things set her apart in the little Middle Western town; but it was not these that constituted the real difference. She played, and slept, and ate, and studied like the other healthy little animals of her age. The real difference was temperamental, or emotional, or dramatic, or historic, or all four. They would be playing tag, perhaps, in one of the cool, green ravines that were the beauty spots of the little Wisconsin town. They nestled like exquisite emeralds in the embrace of the hills, those ravines, and Winnebago's civic surge had not yet swept them away in a deluge of old tin cans, ashes, dirt and refuse, to be sold later for building lots. The Indians had camped and hunted in them. The one under the Court Street bridge, near the Catholic church and monastery, was the favorite for play. It lay, a lovely, gracious thing, below the hot little town, all green, and lush, and cool, a tiny stream dimpling through it. The plump Capuchin Fathers, in their coarse brown robes, knotted about the waist with a cord, their bare feet thrust into sandals, would come out and sun themselves on the stone bench at the side of the monastery on the hill, or would potter about the garden. And suddenly Fanny would stop quite still in the midst of her tag game, struck with the beauty of the picture it called from the past. Little Oriental that she was, she was able to combine the dry text of her history book with the green of the trees, the gray of the church, and the brown of the monk's robes, and evolve a thrilling mental picture therefrom. The tag game and her noisy little companions vanished. She was peopling the place with stealthy Indians. Stealthy, cunning, yet savagely brave. They bore no relation to the abject, contemptible, and rather smelly Oneidas who came to the back door on summer mornings, in calico, and ragged overalls, with baskets of huckleberries on their arm, their pride gone, a broken and conquered people. She saw them wild, free, sovereign, and there were no greasy, berry-peddling Oneidas among them. They were Sioux, and Pottawatomies (that last had the real Indian sound), and Winnebagos, and Menomonees, and Outagamis. She made them taciturn, and beady-eyed, and lithe, and fleet, and every other adjectival thing her imagination and history book could supply. The fat and placid Capuchin Fathers on the hill became Jesuits, sinister, silent, powerful, with France and the Church of Rome behind them. From the shelter of that big oak would step Nicolet, the brave, first among Wisconsin explorers, and last to receive the credit for his hardihood. Jean Nicolet! She loved the sound of it. And with him was La Salle, straight, and slim, and elegant, and surely wearing ruffles and plumes and sword even in a canoe. And Tonty, his Italian friend and fellow adventurer — Tonty of the satins and velvets, graceful, tactful, poised, a shadowy

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figure; his menacing iron hand, so feared by the ignorant savages, encased always in a glove. Surely a perfumed g — Slap! A rude shove that jerked her head back sharply and sent her forward, stumbling, and jarred her like a fall. "Ya-a-a! Tag! You're it! Fanny's it!" Indians, priests, cavaliers, coureurs de bois, all vanished. Fanny would stand a moment, blinking stupidly. The next moment she was running as fleetly as the best of the boys in savage pursuit of one of her companions in the tag game. She was a strange mixture of tomboy and bookworm, which was a mercifully kind arrangement for both body and mind. The spiritual side of her was groping and staggering and feeling its way about as does that of any little girl whose mind is exceptionally active, and whose mother is unusually busy. It was on the Day of Atonement, known in the Hebrew as Yom Kippur, in the year following her father's death that that side of her performed a rather interesting handspring. Fanny Brandeis had never been allowed to fast on this, the greatest and most solemn of Jewish holy days Molly Brandeis' modern side refused to countenance the practice of withholding food from any child for twenty-four hours. So it was in the face of disapproval that Fanny, making deep inroads into the steak and fried sweet potatoes at supper on the eve of the Day of Atonement, announced her intention of fasting from that meal to supper on the following evening. She had just passed her plate for a third helping of potatoes. Theodore, one lap behind her in the race, had entered his objection. "Well, for the land's sakes!" he protested. "I guess you're not the only one who likes sweet potatoes." Fanny applied a generous dab of butter to an already buttery morsel, and chewed it with an air of conscious virtue. "I've got to eat a lot. This is the last bite I'll have until to-morrow night." "What's that?" exclaimed Mrs. Brandeis, sharply. "Yes, it is!" hooted Theodore. Fanny went on conscientiously eating as she explained. "Bella Weinberg and I are going to fast all day. We just want to see if we can." "Betcha can't," Theodore said. Mrs. Brandeis regarded her small daughter with a thoughtful gaze. "But that isn't the object in fasting, Fanny — just to see if you can. If you're going to think of food all through the Yom

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Kippur services — —" "I sha'n't?" protested Fanny passionately. "Theodore would, but I won't." "Wouldn't any such thing," denied Theodore. "But if I'm going to play a violin solo during the memorial service I guess I've got to eat my regular meals." Theodore sometimes played at temple, on special occasions. The little congregation, listening to the throbbing rise and fall of this fifteen-year-old boy's violin playing, realized, vaguely, that here was something disturbingly, harrowingly beautiful. They did not know that they were listening to genius. Molly Brandeis, in her second best dress, walked to temple Yom Kippur eve, her son at her right side, her daughter at her left. She had made up her mind that she would not let this next day, with its poignantly beautiful service, move her too deeply. It was the first since her husband's death, and Rabbi Thalmann rather prided himself on his rendition of the memorial service that came at three in the afternoon. A man of learning, of sweetness, and of gentle wit was Rabbi Thalmann, and unappreciated by his congregation. He stuck to the Scriptures for his texts, finding Moses a greater leader than Roosevelt, and the miracle of the Burning Bush more wonderful than the marvels of twentieth-century wizardy in electricity. A little man, Rabbi Thalmann, with hands and feet as small and delicate as those of a woman. Fanny found him fascinating to look on, in his rabbinical black broadcloth and his two pairs of glasses perched, in reading, upon his small hooked nose. He stood very straight in the pulpit, but on the street you saw that his back was bent just the least bit in the world — or perhaps it was only his student stoop, as he walked along with his eyes on the ground, smoking those slender, dapper, pale brown cigars that looked as if they had been expressly cut and rolled to fit him. The evening service was at seven. The congregation, rustling in silks, was approaching the little temple from all directions. Inside, there was a low-toned buzz of conversation. The Brandeis' seat was well toward the rear, as befitted a less prosperous member of the rich little congregation. This enabled them to get a complete picture of the room in its holiday splendor. Fanny drank it in eagerly, her dark eyes soft and luminous. The bare, yellow-varnished wooden pews glowed with the reflection from the chandeliers. The seven-branched candlesticks on either side of the pulpit were entwined with smilax. The red plush curtain that hung in front of the Ark on ordinary days, and the red plush pulpit cover too, were replaced by gleaming white satin edged with gold fringe and finished at the corners with heavy gold tassels. How the rich white satin glistened in the light of the electric candles! Fanny Brandeis loved the lights, and the gleam, and the music, so majestic, and solemn, and the sight of the little rabbi, sitting so straight and serious in his high-backed chair, or standing to read from the great Bible. There came to this emotional little Jewess a thrill that was not born of religious fervor at all, I am afraid. The sheer drama of the thing got her. In fact, the thing she had set herself to do to-day had in

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it very little of religion. Mrs. Brandeis had been right about that. It was a test of endurance, as planned. Fanny had never fasted in all her healthy life. She would come home from school to eat formidable stacks of bread and butter, enhanced by brown sugar or grape jelly, and topped off with three or four apples from the barrel in the cellar. Two hours later she would attack a supper of fried potatoes, and liver, and tea, and peach preserve, and more stacks of bread and butter. Then there were the cherry trees in the back yard, and the berry bushes, not to speak of sundry bags of small, hard candies of the jelly-bean variety, fitted for quick and secret munching during school. She liked good things to eat, this sturdy little girl, as did her friend, that blonde and creamy person, Bella Weinberg. The two girls exchanged meaningful glances during the evening service. The Weinbergs, as befitted their station, sat in the third row at the right, and Bella had to turn around to convey her silent messages to Fanny. The evening service was brief, even to the sermon. Rabbi Thalmann and his congregation would need their strength for to-morrow's trial. The Brandeises walked home through the soft September night, and the children had to use all their Yom Kippur dignity to keep from scuffling through the piled-up drifts of crackling autumn leaves. Theodore went to the cellar and got an apple, which he ate with what Fanny considered an unnecessary amount of scrunching. It was a firm, juicy apple, and it gave forth a cracking sound when his teeth met in its white meat. Fanny, after regarding him with gloomy superiority, went to bed. She had willed to sleep late, for gastronomic reasons, but the mental command disobeyed itself, and she woke early, with a heavy feeling. Early as it was, Molly Brandeis had tiptoed in still earlier to look at her strange little daughter. She sometimes did that on Saturday mornings when she left early for the store and Fanny slept late. This morning Fanny's black hair was spread over the pillow as she lay on her back, one arm outflung, the other at her breast. She made a rather startlingly black and white and scarlet picture as she lay there asleep. Fanny did things very much in that way, too, with broad, vivid, unmistakable splashes of color. Mrs. Brandeis, looking at the black-haired, red-lipped child sleeping there, wondered just how much determination lay back of the broad white brow. She had said little to Fanny about this feat of fasting, and she told herself that she disapproved of it. But in her heart she wanted the girl to see it through, once attempted. Fanny awoke at half past seven, and her nostrils dilated to that most exquisite, tantalizing and fragrant of smells — the aroma of simmering coffee. It permeated the house. It tickled the senses. It carried with it visions of hot, brown breakfast rolls, and eggs, and butter. Fanny loved her breakfast. She turned over now, and decided to go to sleep again. But she could not. She got up and dressed slowly and carefully. There was no one to hurry her this morning with the call from the foot of the stairs of, "Fanny! Your egg'll get cold!" She put on clean, crisp underwear, and did her hair expertly. She slipped an all-enveloping pinafore over her head, that the new silk dress might not be crushed before church time. She thought that Theodore would surely have finished his breakfast by this time. But when she came down-stairs he was at the table. Not only that, he had just begun his breakfast. An egg,

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all golden, and white, and crisply brown at the frilly edges, lay on his plate. Theodore always ate his egg in a mathematical sort of way. He swallowed the white hastily first, because he disliked it, and Mrs. Brandeis insisted that he eat it. Then he would brood a moment over the yolk that lay, unmarred and complete, like an amber jewel in the center of his plate. Then he would suddenly plunge his fork into the very heart of the jewel, and it would flow over his plate, mingling with the butter, and he would catch it deftly with little mops of warm, crisp, buttery roll. Fanny passed the breakfast table just as Theodore plunged his fork into the egg yolk. She caught her breath sharply, and closed her eyes. Then she turned and fled to the front porch and breathed deeply and windily of the heady September Wisconsin morning air. As she stood there, with her stiff, short black curls still damp and glistening, in her best shoes and stockings, with the all-enveloping apron covering her sturdy little figure, the light of struggle and renunciation in her face, she typified something at once fine and earthy. But the real struggle was to come later. They went to temple at ten, Theodore with his beloved violin tucked carefully under his arm. Bella Weinberg was waiting at the steps. "Did you?" she asked eagerly. "Of course not," replied Fanny disdainfully. "Do you think I'd eat old breakfast when I said I was going to fast all day?" Then, with sudden suspicion, "Did you? "No!" stoutly. And they entered, and took their seats. It was fascinating to watch the other members of the congregation come in, the women rustling, the men subdued in the unaccustomed dignity of black on a week day. One glance at the yellow pews was like reading a complete social and financial register. The seating arrangement of the temple was the Almanach de Gotha of Congregation Emanu-el. Old Ben Reitman, patriarch among the Jewish settlers of Winnebago, who had come over an immigrant youth, and who now owned hundreds of rich farm acres, besides houses, mills and banks, kinged it from the front seat of the center section. He was a magnificent old man, with a ruddy face, and a fine head with a shock of heavy iron-gray hair, keen eyes, undimmed by years, and a startling and unexpected dimple in one cheek that gave him a mischievous and boyish look. Behind this dignitary sat his sons, and their wives, and his daughters and their husbands, and their children, and so on, back to the Brandeis pew, third from the last, behind which sat only a few obscure families branded as Russians, as only the German-born Jew can brand those whose misfortune it is to be born in that region known as hinter-Berlin. The morning flew by, with its music, its responses, its sermon in German, full of four-and five-syllable German words like Barmherzigkeit and Eigentumlichkeit. All during the sermon Fanny sat and dreamed and watched the shadow on the window of the pine tree that stood close to the temple, and was vastly amused at the jaundiced look that the square of yellow

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window glass cast upon the face of the vain and overdressed Mrs. Nathan Percles. From time to time Bella would turn to bestow upon her a look intended to convey intense suffering and a resolute though dying condition. Fanny stonily ignored these mute messages. They offended something in her, though she could not tell what. At the noon intermission she did not go home to the tempting dinner smells, but wandered off through the little city park and down to the river, where she sat on the bank and felt very virtuous, and spiritual, and hollow. She was back in her seat when the afternoon service was begun. Some of the more devout members had remained to pray all through the midday. The congregation came straggling in by twos and threes. Many of the women had exchanged the severely corseted discomfort of the morning's splendor for the comparative ease of second-best silks. Mrs. Brandeis, absent from her business throughout this holy day, came hurrying in at two, to look with a rather anxious eye upon her pale and resolute little daughter. The memorial service was to begin shortly after three, and lasted almost two hours. At quarter to three Bella slipped out through the side aisle, beckoning mysteriously and alluringly to Fanny as she went. Fanny looked at her mother. "Run along," said Mrs. Brandeis. "The air will be good for you. Come back before the memorial service begins." Fanny and Bella met, giggling, in the vestibule. "Come on over to my house for a minute," Bella suggested. "I want to show you something." The Weinberg house, a great, comfortable, well-built home, with encircling veranda, and a well-cared-for lawn, was just a scant block away. They skipped across the street, down the block, and in at the back door. The big sunny kitchen was deserted. The house seemed very quiet and hushed. Over it hung the delicious fragrance of freshly-baked pastry. Bella, a rather baleful look in her eyes, led the way to the butler's pantry that was as large as the average kitchen. And there, ranged on platters, and baking boards, and on snowy-white napkins, was that which made Tantalus's feast seem a dry and barren snack. The Weinberg's had baked. It is the custom in the household of Atonement Day fasters of the old school to begin the evening meal, after the twenty-four hours of abstainment, with coffee and freshly-baked coffee cake of every variety. It was a lead-pipe blow at one's digestion, but delicious beyond imagining. Bella's mother was a famous cook, and her two maids followed in the ways of their mistress. There were to be sisters and brothers and out-of-town relations as guests at the evening meal, and Mrs. Weinberg had outdone herself. "Oh!" exclaimed Fanny in a sort of agony and delight. "Take some," said Bella, the temptress. The pantry was fragrant as a garden with spices, and fruit scents, and the melting, delectable perfume of brown, freshly-baked dough, sugar-coated. There was one giant platter devoted wholly to round, plump cakes, with puffy edges, in the center of each a sunken pool that was

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all plum, bearing on its bosom a snowy sifting of powdered sugar. There were others whose centers were apricot, pure molten gold in the sunlight. There were speckled expanses of cheese kuchen, the golden-brown surface showing rich cracks through which one caught glimpses of the lemon-yellow cheese beneath — cottage cheese that had been beaten up with eggs, and spices, and sugar, and lemon. Flaky crust rose, jaggedly, above this plateau. There were cakes with jelly, and cinnamon kuchen, and cunning cakes with almond slices nestling side by side. And there was freshly-baked bread — twisted loaf, with poppy seed freckling its braid, and its sides glistening with the butter that had been liberally swabbed on it before it had been thrust into the oven. Fanny Brandeis gazed, hypnotized. As she gazed Bella selected a plum tart and bit into it — bit generously, so that her white little teeth met in the very middle of the oozing red-brown juice and one heard a little squirt as they closed on the luscious fruit. At the sound Fanny quivered all through her plump and starved little body. "Have one," said Bella generously. "Go on. Nobody'll ever know. Anyway, we've fasted long enough for our age. I could fast till supper time if I wanted to, but I don't want to." She swallowed the last morsel of the plum tart, and selected another — apricot, this time, and opened her moist red lips. But just before she bit into it (the Inquisition could have used Bella's talents) she selected its counterpart and held it out to Fanny. Fanny shook her head slightly. Her hand came up involuntarily. Her eyes were fastened on Bella's face. "Go on," urged Bella. "Take it. They're grand! M-m-m-m!" The first bite of apricot vanished between her rows of sharp white teeth. Fanny shut her eyes as if in pain. She was fighting the great fight of her life. She was to meet other temptations, and perhaps more glittering ones, in her lifetime, but to her dying day she never forgot that first battle between the flesh and the spirit, there in the sugar-scented pantry — and the spirit won. As Bella's lips closed upon the second bite of apricot tart, the while her eye roved over the almond cakes and her hand still held the sweet out to Fanny, that young lady turned sharply, like a soldier, and marched blindly out of the house, down the back steps, across the street, and so into the temple. The evening lights had just been turned on. The little congregation, relaxed, weary, weak from hunger, many of them, sat rapt and still except at those times when the prayer book demanded spoken responses. The voice of the little rabbi, rather weak now, had in it a timbre that made it startlingly sweet and clear and resonant. Fanny slid very quietly into the seat beside Mrs. Brandeis, and slipped her moist and cold little hand into her mother's warm, work-roughened palm. The mother's brown eyes, very bright with unshed tears, left their perusal of the prayer book to dwell upon the white little face that was smiling rather wanly up at her. The pages of the prayer book lay two-thirds or more to the left. Just as Fanny remarked this, there was a little moment of hush in the march of the day's long service. The memorial hour had begun. Little Doctor Thalmann cleared his throat. The congregation stirred a bit, changed its cramped position. Bella, the guilty, came stealing in, a pink-and-gold picture of angelic

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virtue. Fanny, looking at her, felt very aloof, and clean, and remote. Molly Brandeis seemed to sense what had happened. "But you didn't, did you?" she whispered softly. Fanny shook her head. Rabbi Thalmann was seated in his great carved chair. His eyes were closed. The wheezy little organ in the choir loft at the rear of the temple began the opening bars of Schumann's Traumerei. And then, above the cracked voice of the organ, rose the clear, poignant wail of a violin. Theodore Brandeis had begun to play. You know the playing of the average boy of fifteen — that nerve-destroying, uninspired scraping. There was nothing of this in the sounds that this boy called forth from the little wooden box and the stick with its taut lines of catgut. Whatever it was — the length of the thin, sensitive fingers, the turn of the wrist, the articulation of the forearm, the something in the brain, or all these combined — Theodore Brandeis possessed that which makes for greatness. You realized that as he crouched over his violin to get his cello tones. As he played to-day the little congregation sat very still, and each was thinking of his ambitions and his failures; of the lover lost, of the duty left undone, of the hope deferred; of the wrong that was never righted; of the lost one whose memory spells remorse. It felt the salt taste on its lips. It put up a furtive, shamed hand to dab at its cheeks, and saw that the one who sat in the pew just ahead was doing likewise. This is what happened when this boy of fifteen wedded his bow to his violin. And he who makes us feel all this has that indefinable, magic, glorious thing known as Genius. When it was over, there swept through the room that sigh following tension relieved. Rabbi Thalmann passed a hand over his tired eyes, like one returning from a far mental journey; then rose, and came forward to the pulpit. He began, in Hebrew, the opening words of the memorial service, and so on to the prayers in English, with their words of infinite humility and wisdom. "Thou hast implanted in us the capacity for sin, but not sin itself!" Fanny stirred. She had learned that a brief half hour ago. The service marched on, a moving and harrowing thing. The amens rolled out with a new fervor from the listeners. There seemed nothing comic now in the way old Ben Reitman, with his slower eyes, always came out five words behind the rest who tumbled upon the responses and scurried briskly through them, so that his fine old voice, somewhat hoarse and quavering now, rolled out its "Amen!" in solitary majesty. They came to that gem of humility, the mourners' prayer; the ancient and ever-solemn Kaddish prayer. There is nothing in the written language that, for sheer drama and magnificence, can equal it as it is chanted in the Hebrew. As Rabbi Thalmann began to intone it in its monotonous repetition of praise, there arose certain black-robed figures from their places and stood with heads bowed over their prayer books. These were members of the congregation from whom death had taken a toll during

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the past year. Fanny rose with her mother and Theodore, who had left the choir loft to join them. The little wheezy organ played very softly. The black-robed figures swayed. Here and there a half-stifled sob rose, and was crushed. Fanny felt a hot haze that blurred her vision. She winked it away, and another burned in its place. Her shoulders shook with a sob. She felt her mother's hand close over her own that held one side of the book. The prayer, that was not of mourning but of praise, ended with a final crescendo from the organ, the silent black-robed figures were seated. Over the little, spent congregation hung a glorious atmosphere of detachment. These Jews, listening to the words that had come from the lips of the prophets in Israel, had been, on this day, thrown back thousands of years, to the time when the destruction of the temple was as real as the shattered spires and dome of the cathedral at Rheims. Old Ben Reitman, faint with fasting, was far removed from his everyday thoughts of his horses, his lumber mills, his farms, his mortgages. Even Mrs. Nathan Pereles, in her black satin and bugles and jets, her cold, hard face usually unlighted by sympathy or love, seemed to feel something of this emotional wave. Fanny Brandeis was shaken by it. Her head ached (that was hunger) and her hands were icy. The little Russian girl in the seat just behind them had ceased to wriggle and squirm, and slept against her mother's side. Rabbi Thalmann, there on the platform, seemed somehow very far away and vague. The scent of clove apples and ammonia salts filled the air. The atmosphere seemed strangely wavering and luminous. The white satin of the Ark curtain gleamed and shifted. The long service swept on to its close. Suddenly organ and choir burst into a pæon. Little Doctor Thalmann raised his arms. The congregation swept to its feet with a mighty surge. Fanny rose with them, her face very white in its frame of black curls, her eyes luminous. She raised her face for the words of the ancient benediction that rolled, in its simplicity and grandeur, from the lips of the rabbi: "May the blessing of the Lord our God rest upon you all. God bless thee and keep thee. May God cause His countenance to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. May God lift up His countenance unto thee, and grant thee peace." The Day of Atonement had come to an end. It was a very quiet, subdued and spent little flock that dispersed to their homes. Fanny walked out with scarcely a thought of Bella. She felt, vaguely, that she and this school friend were formed of different stuff. She knew that the bond between them had been the grubby, physical one of childhood, and that they never would come together in the finer relation of the spirit, though she could not have put this new knowledge into words. Molly Brandeis put a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Tired, Fanchen?" "A little."

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"Bet you're hungry!" from Theodore. "I was, but I'm not now." "M-m-m -- wait! Noodle soup. And chicken!" She had intended to tell of the trial in the Weinberg's pantry. But now something within her — omething fine, born of this day — kept her from it. But Molly Brandeis, to whom two and two often made five, guessed something of what had happened. She had felt a great surge of pride, had Molly Brandeis, when her son had swayed the congregation with the magic of his music. She had kissed him good night with infinite tenderness and love. But she came into her daughter's tiny room after Fanny had gone to bed, and leaned over, and put a cool hand on the hot forehead. "Do you feel all right, my darling?" "Umhmph," replied Fanny drowsily. "Fanchen, doesn't it make you feel happy and clean to know that you were able to do the thing you started out to do?" "Umhmph." "Only," Molly Brandeis was thinking aloud now, quite forgetting that she was talking to a very little girl, "only, life seems to take such special delight in offering temptation to those who are able to withstand it. I don't know why that's true, but it is. I hope — oh, my little girl, my baby — I hope — —" But Fanny never knew whether her mother finished that sentence or not. She remembered waiting for the end of it, to learn what it was her mother hoped. And she had felt a sudden, scalding drop on her hand where her mother bent over her. And the next thing she knew it was morning, with mellow September sunshine.

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