I went into Yom Kippur the other day with some trepidation.

They were reasons very complex—and some too personal to explain here.

Still, I decided I would be open, to see wherein might lie the blessing of the day.

I thought I had had my heart cracked open already on Rosh Hashanah—so what more was there? But that moment I described last week turned out to be just a preview.

During Kol Nidre, the eve of Yom Kippur, the theme of the rabbi’s sermon was Jewish shame: centuries of oppression that resulted in the need to hide: for fight or flight, and fawning.

Yes, fawning—like a dog wagging its tail and rolling over on its back, exposing its belly to show that it is not a threat.

He talked about Jews being ashamed of simply being—but also appearing to be too “tribal.” And of Jews historically giving up their Jewish roots in favor of universalism.

All true.

But it felt problematic to me. Because the reasons Jews have rejected their Judaism over the centuries are so incredibly complex and multilayered, going much deeper than oppression.

The same can be said for Jews rejecting Zionism, or Israel as a Jewish State: also very multilayered. It’s a politic that Jews brought up in a Zionist world, where their identity is so closely tied to Israel as a State that they don’t know how to be Jewish without it, find hard to understand. It is this attitude that has spawned and grown the idea that Jews who oppose Zionism or the Israeli State are full of shame and self-loathing.

But I know from personal experience that Jews who chose—and continue to choose—universalism over tribalism do so because they know deep in their heart that it is “only together that we can get it together” (quoted from Reb Zalman, the founder of the Jewish Renewal movement)--and they know this because of Jewish values!

That’s universalism.

The message of the sermon also felt problematic to me because it seemed to stress victimization vs. triumphalism as a central theme. We should be proud of being Jewish, proud of supporting Israel (at all cost?), which will make us triumphant in the face of increasing antisemitism. 

Reb Zalman also saw Jewish triumphalism as very harmful and dangerous, because it carries within it a sense of victimhood.

At the same time, he advocated strongly for Jews to hold on to our customs and rituals; we, like all peoples, he said, have a special role to play on Earth.

These were the many and complex thoughts rolling around in my head as I entered Yom Kippur day.

When it came time for Yizkor, when we remember our dead, the rabbi led us in a communal mourning for those who had died on October 7th last year.

Since I’d been knocking gently on my chest to crack open my heart, I was ready. I cried for them and their loved ones who suffered—and continue to suffer within Israel.

And the tears kept coming. Much more than they had on Rosh Hashanah.

Silently, I opened the space big enough to include everyone else who has lost sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers—both children and adults, innocent and maybe even not so innocent—who have died because of this war--because they are human, too, caught up in a system of hatred and revenge.

My tears were tears full of pain, but also of anger, fear, and helplessness—frustration at a political situation made worse, manipulated by powerful figures for personal gain, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Yes, I hope and wish that Palestinians who join Jewish spaces that support their plight can also cry for the Jewish dead. But I can only do my own work, as a special friend said to me recently.

When we transitioned to personal losses, I wondered what my parents would say if they were alive. I heard, or imagined, “We wanted to leave you a better world.”

The floodgates were open, and they wouldn’t stop. The tears kept coming. 

And therein lay the blessing of the day. 

I went home and slept for hours that afternoon.

And I felt cleansed and ready to get up the next morning and travel for a wedding I was officiating—yes, the day after Yom Kippur!!

Ironically, sandwiched between warm, sunny days, was a very rainy cold day in Upstate New York—and the wedding was taking place outdoors, at the edge of the woods, with only a tent covering overhead. (We were freezing!)

This was an interfaith couple. It had been very important to them to find an officiant who was aligned with their political views—and bilingual in Spanish and English.

This couple shares a deep respect for all peoples, and the Earth. They understand that we are all interdependent, and that joining together is crucial for our communal survival.

Thus, they embrace the universal.

But they also share a deep respect for their own—and each other’s—-roots. They strive to preserve their traditions.

Thus, they embrace the tribal—the particular—as well. So much so that they wanted a rabbi as their sole officiant.

So they found me!

When it was time for the processional from the farmhouse to the tent by the barn (did I tell you there was a barn?), they did their best to time it during a lull in the rain.

But as they were processing, the skies opened up.

And as they stood under the chuppah, the wedding canopy draped with the bride's Salvadorean grandmother’s lace and embroidered table cloths (see photos here!), I started by talking about the rain.

“There are two explanations for the rain,” I said.

"One is that God is crying with us for the state of the world." (They nodded solemnly.)

"The other is that God is sending down so much blessing for you on you wedding day." (They smiled broadly.)

The bride, in her beautiful, creamy, satin gown and her Jewish great-grandmother-in-law’s crocheted hundred-year-old veil trailing behind, shivered as big teardrops fell from the sky—and blessing poured down.

I talked about coming out of the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur, a day when we vow to be better—to do better—so the world can be a little better place to live.

And I talked about the next big holiday coming this week, Sukkos, when we commemorate the temporary structures the Israelites sheltered in during their forty years in the desert—much like the temporary structure of the canopy above our heads in that moment. 

I talked about how it feels like we’re in the desert now, wandering, unsure of our destination as a country and as a world.

But that the home we build is not a material structure, but rather a feeling we create—something they will create together.

I talked about Jewish marriage in general, and theirs in particular, and its potential to both be and offer a kind of Tikkun, a repair, through the binding of their souls in this moment—and the social justice work that is so central to their lives.

That, juxtaposed with the shattered world we live in—held in the iconic broken glass that typically ends a Jewish marriage ceremony.

I could feel their deep love for each other, and their hope and wish to leave something better for future generations.

And therein—within the love and the tears and the hope—lay the blessing for the day. 

This coming Shabbat, we read the last weekly Torah portion of the year. Moses finally dies, but before he dies, God allows him to view the Promised Land from afar. And he gives blessings to all the tribes individually in the form of a poem: V’Zot Ha’bracha, “And This is the Blessing.”

This is how the story ends. But it ends only to begin again next week.

So here is my blessing as we enter into the holiday of temporary structures in an insecure world:

As we begin again, and as our work continues, may we be deliberate about preserving the particulars of our tribes while also embracing universalism.

Because we can only get it together, together, to build a home that includes life and prosperity for all, in our country and in our world. 


We can only work on ourselves, and the work starts with each of us.

And please say Amen.