Yom Kippur Shacharit Welcome 5777 (Oct. 12, 2016):

Henry David Thoreau wrote, “In the long run, men hit only what they aim at.  Therefore…they had better aim at something high.” 

This morning, our presence with our selves and others, our prayer individually and collectively is about the work we engage in to become our best self.  Setting goals and aiming towards our potential is part of that work.  In the Hebrew language the verb “to be” is only articulate in the past tense and the future tense.  Perhaps this is an awareness that at each moment, we are always in between those two states.  We are always becoming.  With that in mind, it is our reality that we ought to constantly be aiming for something; I would argue that ought to be ourself, our best self.  Consider the space of Yom Kippur, this day long moment as the yearly station to pause, to be in the present, just for the moment, in order to once again aim at something high. 


___________________

Yom Kippur Shacharit Intro to Unetaneh Tokef 5777 (Oct. 12, 2016):

In the Unetaneh Tokef prayer, our moment of holding our mortality before our own eyes, we read, “Our beginning is dust and our end is dust; we struggle for our bread; our days are as a shadow that passes, a fading flower; a cloud passing by, a dream soon forgotten.”  And yet the fullness of life can be realized when we embrace this reality and transcend beyond.  This move beyond this challenging reality is to embrace all that is good, right and just in our lives and in the world around us.  We will always, I fear, be surrounded by events, experiences and people that challenge us.  Hardship, sadness and unfullfilling moments, though, can serve as the motivation to reach for more, to control what we can.  At the conclusion of this piece of liturgy, we find a three part recipe for this human realm over which we can affect our lives:  Repentance, prayer and charity, for these, when intertwined with what we cannot control, represent the forces for good.  When we recognize our ability to turn, for teshuvah, to offer prayer - a time for introspection and meditation on what is right and acts of gemilut chasadim - loving kindness and grow those moments in our lives, then, perhaps then the balance of our days is filled with the good.  May the shadows that pass be a reflection of all that is good in our lives, in our world.