Rosh Hashana Morning Service, Saturday, September 19^th, 9:30am-12:30pm

From Sarah to Saima,

A Secret Formula for Changing the World

In 1978 while doing my undergraduate work at Brandeis, I wanted to volunteer with Battered Women.  Charity begins at home… I turned to Jewish Family Services in Boston where I was told that in the Jewish Community, domestic violence was not an issue. 

 I contacted the Casa Myrna Vazquez Shelter for Battered Women.  I was received and trained as a counselor.  It was there among the clientele that I would meet the Jewish women from the greater Boston area who were victims of domestic violence.

This summer, while travelling to Israel with our Congregation, we focused a meaningful portion of our trip to Tikun Olam.

Deuteronomy 14:22 teaches “You shall set aside every year a tenth part of all the yield of your sowing…”  A fundamental teaching that establishes us as responsible for one another.  As I am blessed it is my privilege and responsibility to care for others.

In the midst of our magical trip we spent an afternoon picking tomatoes, harvesting the tithe for a non-profit organization that distributed the produce to families living below the poverty line.

Later we drove up to the Northern Border of Lebanon and met with a Unit of the IDF, delivering luxuries that were otherwise not available to the soldiers.  We learned from these 18, 19 and 20 year olds what the reality is.  This is the Border where Ehud Goldwasser and Ron Arad were captured.  Whether it is the border of Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, or the West Bank… there is no Ocean, River or Mountain Range that divides Israel from the hostile nations surrounding her… we stood with these young Soldiers, and looked 100 feet (less than the distance between me and those of you sitting in the last row) across the border into the eyes of neighboring armies.  Boys and girls doing what people have called impossible, helping to guarantee the survival of Israel.

And here is the irony… we do care if Israel survives.  We do care if there are children who are hungry.  We do care if there are women who are battered.  But how do we translate our “concern” into deed?

This morning we learned about three of our ancestors, Sarah, Hagar and Chanah, women of action who took control of their circumstances to save themselves and their families. 

Chanah turns prayer into deed, Hagar sees what needs to be done and Sarah doesn’t wait for the miracle but creates it.

The voices and experiences of biblical and contemporary women inspire us toward what is possible, inspire us to our Jewish identity.

Hosted in the Druze village of Pequin, we met a restauranteur who addressed our group sharing pieces of his Druze heritage.  He accepted that a Modern Druze man might be sexually active outside of a traditional marriage while simultaneously condoning “honor killings” if a women acted in a manner that defied the moral code established for women.

In the same village, we met a Druze woman named Savta Jamallia, widowed with three children, without marriage prospects and facing poverty, against all odds in Druze culture, she built an empire that began in her backyard and today has blossomed into a thriving international business employing only women, hundreds of women. 

On our way to Jerusalem, we opted for a “rest stop” in the Desert Development town of Jerucham.  Established in the fifties, Jerucham is a place where poor, ethnic immigrants to Israel were settled and left unseen.  We reserved a table for lunch in the living room of a woman named Sarah; tables set from wall to wall, and we feasted on a delectable homemade Morrocan meal.  Sarah and two women who had established the Non-profit organization The Culinary Queens of Yerucham spoke to us about their project.  This non-profit enabled single unemployed immigrant women without formal educations who were responsible for sustaining their families in the desert, to use a skill that they had been trained to do, cook, turning their skills, their kitchens, their warmth and hospitality into a viable commodity that could sustain their single parent households.

How many of you have been to Jerucham?  How many of you have friends or relatives living in Yerucham?  How many of you have been to Jerusalem, or have friends or relatives living in Jerusalem? 

Jerusalem is the place where we love to explore and express our Zionism.  Jerucham is the place where immigrants from Rumania, North Africa, Yemin, Morocco, Tunisia, Iran, the Soviet Union and Ethiopia were settled.  In Israel, Yerucham is considered the sticks.  Today this is not how the people of Yerucham perceive themselves.  In the world of American Judaism many might consider Kingston the sticks.  This is not how we define ourselves.

During my Annual Sabbatical Month I have the opportunity to visit other congregations.   In one of those Congregations I sat in services gazing at a 20 foot banner with bold letters declaring “SAVE DARFUR” arching over the Bimah.  For this Congregation their commitment to Social Activism was their prayer.

Imagine, your Synagogue as the place that you affirm your identity as the heartbeat by which you meet and change the world.  To change the world, it seems like such a vast and tall order.  Saving Darfur, how do we begin?  How do we change our community and change the world.

In the August 23^rd Magazine of the New York Times, there was a story of a Pakistani woman named Saima Muhammad, who having borne only girls to her “deadbeat unemployed” husband found herself beaten daily by her husband and brother in law and shunned by her sister in law and mother in law.  Uneducated, poverty stricken and marginalized in her traditional Pakistani household Saima took out a $65 loan from the Kashf Foundation that lends tiny amounts of money exclusively to women who are poor, to start their own businesses.  With this loan and the one skill she had, Saima launched her own embroidery business.  The business succeeded and grew exponentially.  Today, having paid off her husband’s bad dept, 30 families from her village as well as her husband are employed in her business, she is supporting and educating her own daughters, she is supporting her extended family, and she has established herself as a force to be reckoned with commanding respect and stature that will transform her life and the lives of her children.  In fact, the political, economic and educational empowerment of women is a tool for radical change addressing Global Poverty and reversing the trends of radicalism and terrorism in the world.

Sarah from the Bible, Hagar, Chanah, Savta Jamallia, Sarah from Yerucham and Saima Muhammad… as women who are empowered have changed their lives and the lives of their families and change the world.

Still, in this world, gender equality is not accepted as a universal human right.

To create and actualize a dream and to sustain ourselves, we must lean on and return to our core values from which all else flows.

In all of the Congregations that I visited during my Sabbatical, we have one of the warmest, most vibrant, authentic, spiritual congregations… with toddlers growing up in our Pre-school, school aged children being educated in our wonderful Religious School, a bar and bat mitzvah program not duplicated in the largest most affluent, renowned  Congregations in the United States.  We are cultivating an environment for teens finding their way to adult study in Confirmation, mentoring other youth in the religious school, exploring leadership and Jewish identity in our Youth Group, becoming Torah readers, a growing core of Adults finding that “Jewish learning” is a core part of their identity, a core group that has shaped their Judaism through Social Activism, volunteers who have responded to the responsibility of sustaining the Congregation and a prayer community that integrates meditation and spirituality with tradition and exploration.   We are Courageous enough to stand up and integrate interfaith families into our Jewish vision.  We are flexible enough to launch a Rhinebeck Satellite, a shared monthly Sabbath meal with early services, a monthly musical Shabbat, weekly Sabbath morning study during Shabbat morning minyan.  We are the address for interfaith dialogue and celebration each and every Thanksgiving.  We regularly staff a community Soup Kitchen, we have created a hand on annual “re-building” project together with St. John’s to renovate and respond to families of need in our community.  When a member of our Congregation are born or die, the entire Jewish Community and the Community at large, is touched and impressed by the sanctity, respect, caring and love that emanates from this Bimah and from this Congregation.  Three years ago here at Temple Emanuel, there was no Brotherhood.  Sisterhood, while held on by the valiant efforts of a handful, had waned into the ether.  Today Brotherhood and Sisterhood have not only become viable entities, they have assumed critical roles in sustaining our Congregation.  You did this because you value Judaism as an essential part of your life and you believe that from your core emanates the strength and identity by which you meet the world.

However you and I hear frequently that we are lost, we are in the desert, we will fail. It is time to take stock and pay attention to what is right in our Congregation.  It is time to recognize that when you and your neighbors need your Congregation, your Rabbi and your Synagogue, we were here.   

What sign do I want to hang over this Bimah on this New Year that will facilitate your prayer and your deeds for this coming year?  Imagine a banner, an expanse of 20 feet arching over the Aaron Ha-kodesh declaring in bold letters “Temple Emanuel as a Community for changing the World”.

But what we have created is at risk and there are issues we must tackle. 

And here is the irony… you do care if Temple survives.  Before you can address the world, you must know that you have secured your home, the place where your “core” values and identity are preserved, lived and passed on.

Charity must begin at home.   Rosh Hashanah is a call to action and a call to return home.  Today I am calling you home.  I am asking that every single member of this Congregation not sit and wait for what you think will come or the miracle you hope will come.  But hold yourselves responsible, seize the moment.  

And when you address the need in this your home, you will have the foundation from which to address the world. 

Rabbi Yael Romer, Rosh Hashana 5770