Yom Kippur Sermon 2024-5785
This summer, Alissa and I went on our first trip without the kids for over three days in 18 years. We went to Israel this summer as part of a program. We knew this wasn’t the typical vacation as soon as my father-in-law, driving us to the airport, asked us where our will was, you know, “just in case.”
Now, Alissa is already scared of flying, but we were also flying into a war zone, so she was pretty anxious. Her father asking her where the will was put her over the edge. She was in full freak-out mode! So she sat down and started writing a letter by hand. After the second paragraph, I was starting to freak out; if she wrote all three letters, we’d miss our flight! And also, how could you rush your final letter to your kids?!?
I had to think fast: I told her: “Listen, honey, I’ll make a deal with you: let’s write the letters on the plane, and if we survive the flight, we can mail them. Now, please, can we get in the car?!?”
To get serious for a moment, this experience got me thinking about my last words with my mom. For those who don’t know, I completed my year of mourning the loss of my mother, Rachel, this summer on Tisha B’av. The last time I spoke with my mother was a typical phone call. I said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Unfortunately, we didn’t speak the day she died. No last words or wishes, but a hopeful text message at 6:40 am. I saw her again, but she never saw me.
I hate to admit it, but it stuck with me all year.
No matter how sure you are about how your loved one feels about you, you wonder: Did I disappoint her somehow? Was she proud of me? Was there something she wanted to tell me but never had the chance to?
This exercise got me thinking about ethical wills. I have taught classes on ethical wills and written more than a couple. My kids have several chapters of a book by now, but I’d never received one, and I thought I never would. But the night before her unveiling, a year after she passed, we found the letter she wrote to us, her children, whom she called “her greatest accomplishments.”
Have you ever experienced the joy of finding something you thought was lost forever? Maybe it was a cherished keepsake, a long-forgotten letter, or even a piece of wisdom that resurfaced when you needed it most. The emotions that accompany such discoveries can be profound, often filling us with a sense of wonder and gratitude.
In our lives, we can be the bearers of such moments for others. We can leave something behind for our families that is truly lasting. Something that could be used by someone, maybe a relative, maybe not, years later, and bring meaning to this world again.
Your voice can grace this earth again, long after the last person has spoken your name.
I want to share some miraculous stories with you today: the story of the letter I found, the story of a Torah we found, and the lessons we learned together.
I knew she wrote us an ethical will because I taught a class on ethical wills, and she took it. A couple of years after I taught the class, I was in my childhood bedroom, opened up a drawer, and I found that handwritten letter from the class that night. I started to read it:
To my Children: David, Richie and Sandy,
As you read this letter, I am no longer here with you.
And then, I stopped. It felt like I was violating her trust and my siblings, and she had plenty of time left on earth. But when she got sick years later, I went back to my room, I opened the drawer, and it wasn’t there. But, the night before her unveiling, my father found it, and we heard it for the first time, read by my sister at the funeral.
Our tradition speaks of ten things that were created on the eve of the first Shabbat. It’s a strange list, including the mouth of the well that gave Bnai Israel water in the desert and the mouth of the donkey that spoke to Balaam. But I wanted to focus on one of those things: Torah.
Our people’s story, everything we stand for, was written before creation, and it was made for us, living in our time. The Torah is the ethical will that God left for us.
That morning at the unveiling, I heard 148 sacred words written by my mother many years ago for us. She never knew we would hear them at this moment, when we needed it the most. I poured over every word, I read the letter often and at times, and it gave me great peace, and a sense of healing and wholeness.
It felt like God spoke to me. It was like someone gave us a gift, just at the moment we needed it the most.
“To my Children: David, Richie and Sandy,
As you read this letter, I am no longer here with you. Please don't be sad, my time on earth has been good. I feel that I accomplished much. You three are my most cherished accomplishments. You have made me proud every day.
As you know, your grandparents came from Poland, they worked very hard to give us a better life and so has your father and me. What I want to depart to you is for you to be true to yourself. To remember, your upbringing, to be happy with your lot. Money does not buy happiness. When you work, do the best every day.
“Do today what could be done tomorrow,” as your grandfather Abram often said.
Spend time with your family, both immediate and extended family.
Be generous with your time.
All my Love,
Mom”
You can do the same thing. You can leave something behind, you can plant a seed for a tree whose fruit you will not taste, but your descendants will, and it might be at a moment of great need.
You can leave something behind for someone else to pick up.
This brings me to the miracle we are experiencing together right now.
This Torah is unlike any other, yet it is exactly like every other Torah—identical in words, spaces, and holiness. But this Torah has witnessed four miracles. I want to share the story of three of those miracles, told to us by Lois Roman, a trustee with the Memorial Scrolls Trust in London, England.
The first miracle began in Bohemia and Moravia, modern-day Czech Republic and Slovakia, where Jewish life flourished for over 1,000 years. As Jewish communities thrived and moved to larger cities, a surplus of religious artifacts accumulated, and in 1906, the Jewish Museum in Prague was established to preserve them. But by the 1930s, the rise of the Nazi Party brought terror. After Kristallnacht and the Nazi invasion of Bohemia and Moravia, Jews feared for their sacred items. At first, it was business as usual, but then Nazis started collecting things from small Jewish villages. An SS Officer asked the Jewish curators of the Prague museum to have these outlying Jewish areas send all their precious items, like rare manuscripts and art pieces, to Prague. The SS officer chose the Jewish Museum of Prague to hold the items. The curators of the museum saw an opportunity. They approached the SS officer and said, "Mr. SS officer, we're collecting all the stuff we can put on a museum exhibition of all of these great ancient books that we're finding, but we need more to make it an excellent exhibition. How about we send a second letter and we tell the Jews, send us all the Judaica you have. And because we're curators, and we can read Hebrew, and we know about Judaism, we can sift through for the very best things.”
The SS officer fancied himself a historian and thought this would be a great career builder, so he allowed the curators to proceed with their plans. In less than a year, 200,000 pieces of Judaica came from every small town in Bohemia and Moravia to the back door of the Jewish Museum: Torah scrolls, Ner Tamids, Arks, Siddurim, benches, ancient wooden carvings, musical instruments, and more.
The curators cataloged every item on index cards, and they started packaging things together. They even convinced the SS Officer to let them house all the precious items in the oldest synagogue in Prague because why would the Nazis burn all these expensive paintings and art?
It was an example of both Jewish resistance and Jewish heroism.
The second miracle happened after the Holocaust.
85% of the Czech Jewish population was murdered. Out of the original curators, only one survived and returned to Prague. When the Communists took over in 1948, they wanted to use all of the old synagogues for party headquarters. The curator returned with an idea for them: let me clean them all out for you. I’ll dispose of all the stuff, and you can use the spaces. The Communist official agreed immediately; his problem was solved. The curator collected all the Torahs and hid them one place: an abandoned synagogue on the city's outskirts.
And there they lay, for years, until the third miracle.
The third miracle happened during the Cold War. Art dealers from London stumbled upon the forgotten Torah scrolls on the city's outskirts and brought them to London. Keep in mind that this was during the Iron Curtain. There was no news in and out of the Soviet-dominated countries, let alone people, but they were able to get all 1,564 Torah scrolls to London. When they arrived in London in 1964, they were found in terrible condition—burnt, damaged by bullets, and stained with blood. But, the scrolls carried a sacred message, with some containing notes asking, “What will become of us? Please remember us.”
Because of these scrolls, the Memorial Scrolls Trust Foundation was created, an organization that loans out these Torah scrolls to congregations around the world.
When Marty Radnor was talked into becoming president of our shul, none of us had any idea that a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic was about to start. We did many amazing things together and accomplished a lot, but there was something Marty was adamant about from day one: Acquiring a kosher Holocaust Torah. In the midst of figuring out how to move services on Zoom, run a congregation virtually, and raise much-needed funds, Marty would end every meeting, "How’s the Holocaust Torah coming along?"
After a year of Marty asking us how the Holocaust Torahs were coming along, we were able to find a Holocaust scroll, but it wasn’t kosher. Thankfully, the Sofrim in London were able to kasher the scrolls onsite.
This is the final miracle. We are the first congregation to use this scroll since before the Holocaust. We really do not know how old it is, but it is at least from 1900 or before. But we know where it came from: Moravia and Bohemia. None of my grandparents were in America before the war, and my father's side comes from Moravia and Bohemia.
Remember, they found notes in the scrolls: “What will become of us? Please remember us.”?
I wonder if any of those communities could ever imagine that one of their descendants, the few who made it out, is now a rabbi in a faraway land, using their sefer Torah to carry on their legacy.
We pass down Torah, not just the scrolls, but its wisdom, its essence. We leave it to the next generation, ensuring they inherit our teachings and spirit. And this Torah, this legacy, has journeyed with us through every trial and triumph in Jewish history. As we contemplate what we leave behind, I am reminded of something my mother insisted I read at my bar mitzvah.
It was a poem she found in a High Holy Day Mahzor, written by Howard Kahn. At the time, I didn’t fully grasp its depth, but today, it resonates with me more than ever, my second Yom Kippur without her.
The poem speaks of two very different bar mitzvah experiences, and yet it reminds us how the struggles of our people live within us, shaping our collective story:
At my bar mitzvah, my mother insisted that I read this poem, "At my Bar Mitzvah - and his" written by Howard Kahn which she found in a high holy day Mahzor:
When I was thirteen, I became Bar Mitzvah.
When he was thirteen, he became Bar Mitzvah.
When I was thirteen, I studied-the pathways of the Bible and roadways of the Talmud.
When he was thirteen, he studied-the canals of Warsaw and the sewers of the Ghetto.
At my Bar Mitzvah, I took an oath to live as a Jew.
At his Bar Mitzvah, he took an oath to die as a Jew.
At my Bar Mitzvah, I lifted my voice and sang.
At his Bar Mitzvah, he lifted his fists and fought.
At my Bar Mitzvah, I read from the Scroll of the Torah.
At his Bar Mitzvah, he wrote a Scroll of fire.
At my Bar Mitzvah, I started my road of life.
At his Bar Mitzvah, he began his road to martyrdom.
When I was thirteen, I was called up to the Torah-I went to the Bimah.
When he was thirteen, his body went up in smoke-his soul rose to God.
When I was thirteen, I became Bar Mitzvah-and lived.
When he was thirteen, he became Bar Mitzvah-and lives now within each of us.
This poem captures a painful contrast between the privileges we may take for granted and the unimaginable sacrifices others endured. Times are tough for us, but imagine telling a 13-year-old Jewish boy in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942 that there would be a state of Israel with an army fighting its 6th war since 1948. He wouldn’t believe you; how could there be a Jewish state with a Jewish army?
We carry with us the legacies of those who didn’t have the blessings of Jewish life that we have experienced since the Shoah. They live on through us, and their courage and strength become part of our inheritance.
This is why writing an ethical will—something that goes beyond material possessions—is so important. Just as those before us passed down their stories and sacrifices, we have the opportunity to pass down not only what we have but who we are. It’s a chance to reflect on the values and lessons you want to leave behind for future generations.
We are blessed to have the Ethical Will of our people in the form of this Torah scroll.
We use this Torah scroll at every Bnai mitzvah at CSK, and each one of our kids gets to hold it, along with their families, as part of our family education course.
This Torah is a part of Jewish people’s lives once again.
We read from it today.
We are part of this Torah’s journey of survival, from the ashes of the Holocaust to our congregation today, where we honor and remember the communities that once held it. This Torah represents resilience, hope, and the enduring spirit of the Jewish people.
But tonight, it’s not just about memory; it’s about action. We can be the ones who leave behind a legacy, who plant seeds for the future.
I want to encourage each of you to take a step toward that legacy. Just as my mother left us her letter, you too can leave something behind for your loved ones. Write a letter. You don’t need to wait for a perfect moment, or for it to be the end of your days. Take a few moments in the silence of your Sukkah next week—and write down the words you want your family to know about you. It doesn't have to be elaborate, just something from the heart.
On this day of memory, Yom Kippur, I invite you not only to remember but to take action—leave behind your voice, your values, and your love. Plant the seeds for those who will come after you, just as we hold onto the Torah and the words of those who came before us.
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