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Rabbi Shulman's Sermons

Rabbi Ron Shulman's Sermons 5786 | 2025-2026

High Holy Day Sermons

Audio recordings and sermon texts below.
Video recordings will be available following the High Holy Days.

it's not hard to be a jew

Rosh HaShanah Sermon 2025 | 5786
 

 

 
Shanah Tovah! I greet you this New Year’s Day delighted we are together and grateful for our communal bond. Though the calendar marks just one more year since we were last here, my soul feels like it’s aged much more than that.
 
Maybe that’s why we keep two calendars. One tracks our time. The other tracks our souls. 2025 fills with headlines, joyous milestones, heartaches, appointments, and to-do lists. But 5786 reminds us. Collectively and historically, as Jews, we’ve weathered plagues, exile, millennia of worry, and TikTok. And still today, we show up. We say Shanah Tovah. We hope for the best. We begin again.
 
לְחַיִים טוֹבִים וּלְשָׁלוֹם L’hayim tovim u-l’shalom! For a good life and for peace! Perhaps more so than in recent years, this phrase from our High Holy Day prayers reflects our deepest desires. In a world desperate for healing and humanity, we yearn for goodness in our lives and peace for our people and our world.
 
So yes, as we greet one another today, we are older in age, and older of soul. It’s to our older souls, more than our respective ages, that I wish to speak.
 
By soul, I mean our inner spiritual core, of God, if you wish. In human terms, soul is the essence of our awareness and conscience. It is our moral fulcrum, steadying our balance and sustaining our equilibrium in an unstable world.
 
And yet, on this New Year’s Day, as in so many months past, I find myself off balance. Off balance in heart and soul. Off balance in a way I’ve never quite felt before as an American Jew. Perhaps I’m not the only one who feels this way.
 
On Rosh HaShanah last year, the pain of October 7th was still raw and burning.
 
Today, that pain endures. As Diaspora Zionists, we are learning to live with complexity. We love Israel no less. We defend Israel even more. We know Israel intimately, perhaps better than most. We cherish what Israel means to the Jewish people, our history and our future.
 
We don’t abandon our family, Israel, during difficult days. We don’t punish Israel while she’s undergoing a harsh stress test. We stand up for Israel, and for our concerns, our values, and our hopes. And yet, like so many in Israel itself, we also wrestle with honest questions about profoundly complex circumstances.
 
As time goes by, I find opinions less useful and accurate information invaluable. So many seem so certain about the quandary that is Gaza. I’m just not sure what they’re so sure about. Except this. The suffering is a tragedy.
 
A tragedy for the hostages who languish near death in tunnels and pens on day 717. For their families and all decent people who still cry out in protest for their release and rescue.
 
A tragedy for Israel’s soldiers too long in battle, and for their comrades lost and injured in a just cause. A cause seemingly forgotten by too many outside observers.
 
A tragedy for children needing food and shelter and for their families and neighbors who seek safety and relief.
 
A tragedy for Gazan civilians unable to break free from the yoke of Hamas terror and oppression.
 
A tragedy for the people of Israel who are still living on October 7th while much of the world judges and rebukes them two years later with too much malice.
 
A tragedy for the Jewish people, for you and me. (And I’m not equating our heartbreak to those who truly suffer.) We are daily confronted with circumstances that confound and concern us as caring Jews and human beings.
 
Especially in moments when we see pain we cannot ease. When we respond to choices not of our own. When we hold points of view we don’t feel safe expressing. When antisemitism confronts us daily. Its persistence bewildering. Its flame singeing still.
 
This may be the most difficult experience the Jewish people have faced in my lifetime. I worry that a deep divide is emerging between differing visions of Jewish identity and the ways we live out our values.

We are witnessing a painful clash of ideas and moral sensitivities. On one side stands a chauvinistic nationalism intertwined with religious extremism. A world view that pursues nationalistic claims and religious visions seemingly unmoved by the consequences of their zeal.
 
On the other side stands a particularism paired with religious and secular tolerance. A world view that believes Jewish national destiny and identity must be grounded in both security and principled, safeguarded coexistence.
 
It’s unsettling. I don’t assume we all feel the same way, nor do we all think alike. But I do believe, as a result, being Jewish is harder for many of us right now than it ought to be. We’re off balance in a way we’ve never quite felt before as American Jews. Off balance in heart and soul. We simply weren’t prepared for this. And now, we’re trying to maintain our equilibrium.
 
How many of you have heard the phrase, “It’s hard to be a Jew?” A good many, as I assumed. How many of you know who first uttered the phrase? Also, as I expected, not too many.
 
After the execution of Russian Czar Nicolas II in 1918, as the Russian empire began morphing into the Soviet Union, the great Yiddish author and humorist Sholem Aleichem wrote a Yiddish comedy. A play about the difficulties of being Jewish in those early days of Soviet Russia. It premiered in New York City on October 1, 1920.
 
The play opens in a university café where two students, Jacob Schnyrson and Ivan Ivanov, are talking. Jacob points out to Ivanov the freedoms he enjoys which are denied to the Jews. Ivanov doesn’t believe Jacob. He thinks it’s just bad luck.
 
Here’s their dialogue:
 
IVANOV
What are you proposing?
SCHNYRSON
We swap. For one year. You become “Jacob Schnyrson,” Jew from Minsk. I become “Ivan Ivanov,” Russian student from Kazan.
IVANOV
So I eat gefilte fish, attend synagogue… and face all your “bad luck”?
SCHNYRSON
And I stroll into any club, live wherever I like, and watch doors open without a question.
IVANOV
And the winner buys the other…?
SCHNYRSON
A barrel of beer.
IVANOV
Deal.
 
In quick order, Ivanov struggles to learn Jewish customs. He encounters landlords who demand proof of birthplace. Police who make random checks. Classmates who treat him with suspicion. Meanwhile, Jacob, living as a Russian, finds how easily doors open for him.
 
Of course there’s a love interest. Hiding his true identity, Ivanov falls for a Jewish girl named Esther. Ater a variety of comedy mix-ups tensions rise. Ivanov, as a Jew, is stopped by police for failing to show the correct travel permit. The moment rattles him and deepens his empathy for Jewish struggles.
 
By Passover that year, the identity swap is wearing thin. Ivanov, now deeply attached to Esther and her family, the Shapiros, plans to confess the truth after the holiday. But before he can, two policemen arrive at the family Seder ostensibly for political reasons. In the chaos, both men admit the bet and the swap. At story’s end, Ivanov reflects.
 
IVANOV
If I learned anything this year, it’s this—
No matter the jokes, no matter the arguments…
It’s not easy to be a Jew.
In fact, it’s hard to be a Jew.
 
Not for me. I don’t know about all of you. I guess it depends where you’ve lived. I suppose it depends on what you’ve experienced. It probably depends on what formed your Jewish sensibilities. Given my life’s course, I have never been uncomfortable being a Jew.
 
It’s not hard to be a Jew. It’s hard to conceive of not being Jewish. It’s not hard to be a Jew. It’s hard to describe the depth of meaning, joy and purpose it brings. It’s not hard to be a Jew. It’s hard to be a Jew alone, without being part of a community like this. It’s not hard to be a Jew. But it is hard to be the focus of other’s ignorant hatred.
 
Which is why we find our souls’ balance and spiritual strength by reminding ourselves, or discovering anew, what we believe. What we know to be true. What grounds our integrity and humanity. What is hard, at least these days, is to be a Jew untethered to positive Jewish purpose and pursuits. Not to feel Jewish history and destiny flowing through who we are.
 
Many of us grew up to understand this. We’ve intuited and internalized it. But if you’re 25 or 30, let alone a high school or college student, today it’s not clear to me that you have a broad enough personal or historic lens to understand this. I sense that before the past couple of years it was comfortable and relatively easy for most of our children and grandchildren to be Jewish. I hope and pray it will be soon again.
 
Therefore, in the reality of this current moment, I want us to consider how we discuss Judaism and talk about being Jewish not only for ourselves but with our children and grandchildren. Amidst the noise, how can we help them figure out and affirm their Jewish places in the world? As they venture off with so much else to uncover and attain, what Jewish wisdom and spiritual strength can we help them discover?
 
We Jews are an irrepressible and miraculous people. Through both acculturation within and defiance toward every great (and gone) historic civilization, the Jewish people created a religious and cultural vision of what life ought to be in contrast with what life often is.
 
By every logic of history, we should not be here. Yet, in covenant with God, if you wish, because of every effort and vision of our ancestors, we inherit a heritage that has something to say at all times , in all places, to all people.
 
What is that message? Let’s eavesdrop on a Talmudic argument. At issue is defining eternal values and character traits for Jewish individuals to possess and model.
 
Rabbi Yohanan said: There are six matters individuals enjoy the profits of in this world, and nevertheless the principal exists for them in the World-to-Come.
אלו דברים שאין להם שעור
 
Translation. In all we are asked to be and to do, these take priority. These are our core value concepts. These matter most and endure through time and place.
 
And they are: Hospitality toward guests, visiting the sick, consideration during prayer, rising early to the study hall, helping children to engage in Torah study, and judging others favorably.
 
Translation. These character traits matter most. These are what sustain a community and embrace its members. Openness. Compassion. Contemplation. Learning. Teaching. Decency. An interesting list. A good list.
 
Until other sages ask. Is that so? And did we not previously learn these?
 
Translation. We prefer some other qualities.
 
And they are: Honoring one’s father and mother, acts of loving kindness, bringing peace between a person and another, and Torah study which is equal to all of them.
תלמוד תורה כנגד כולם
 
Translation. Respect. Lovingkindness. Dignity. Wisdom.
 
We can settle this curious disagreement by embracing all these traits for our relationships with each other and the world. Let’s call them the ten traits of a morally astute Jewish personality.
 
If we’re off balance in a way we’ve never quite felt before as American Jews; if we’re off balance in heart and soul; if we’re trying to maintain our equilibrium, then let’s turn inward to what matters most and is most desperately needed in the world.
 
I explain it this way. Show the world who a Jew is by showing the world who you are! Here are the ten traits of a morally astute Jew. Live these traits with conscience and honesty. Openness. Compassion. Contemplation. Learning. Teaching. Decency. Respect. Lovingkindness. Dignity. Wisdom. Simply put. We Jews demonstrate our devotion to God by caring about one another, and others.
 
We in this congregation, in our affirmation of Judaism, believe that the Jewish people profess a rational religion. A tradition, heritage, and culture intellectually rooted in sacred history. Our people’s wisdom for life cultivates conscience and common sense. We openly and honestly express wonder and worry. We ask probing questions and seek relevant answers. We cherish hope and dignity.
 
We affirm a reasoned and religious understanding of Jewish tradition rooted in both history and modernity. Our very presence and persistence in the world advocates for individual distinctiveness and freedom, for the dignity and equality of all human beings created in the image of God.
 
It is a privilege to be a Jew. As .2% of the world’s population, precious few of us walk through life so honored. Larger populations may not really know about us. But we show the world who a Jew is by showing the world who we each are.
 
In response to being so widely scorned and maligned in the public square and being shamed for anguish we did not cause, and choices we did not make, let’s be proud to be ourselves. Jews who demonstrate personal Jewish purpose. People who feel Jewish history and destiny flowing through who we are.
 
I began by reflecting that while the calendar marks just one more year since we were last here, my soul feels like it’s aged much more than that. By soul, I mean the essence of our awareness and conscience. Our moral fulcrum steadying our balance and sustaining our equilibrium in an unstable world.
 
In this New Year, let us delight in being people who bring decency and dignity into a world where they are all too often absent. Live the ten traits of a morally astute Jew. They are the human heart of Jewish values. The moral reasons we study Torah and practice Jewish tradition. This year, may we age in wisdom and conviction for the benefit of this world and a vision of a World-to-Come.
 
It’s not hard to be a Jew. It’s sacred! It’s precious! It’s beautiful! It is a privilege to be a Jew! Show the world. It’s not hard to be a Jew. For God’s sake, for our sake, for the sake of our children and grandchildren, and for the sake of everyone’s humanity: Show the world who a Jew is by showing the world who you are!
 
L’Shanah Tovah!
 
© 2025 Rabbi Ronald J. Shulman

memory and affirmation

Rosh HaShanah II Sermon 2025 | 5786
 

 

 
“Melekh al kol ha’aretz, mekadesh Yisrael v’Yom haZikaron.”
מלך על כל הארץ מקדש ישראל ויום הזכרון
 
Here we are again. A second day on which we welcome the new Jewish year. I’m often asked, not only about repeating today what we did yesterday, but about repetition in all our services.  We repeat elements of the liturgy over and again. Yesterday I was asked why we repeat the Amidah, first silent and then out loud – twice! Four times over the same words. To which I asked, do you remember what you were thinking about the first time?
 
Already five times this Rosh HaShanah (6 if you made kiddush last night as well as on Sunday evening, but who’s counting!) we have recited “Melekh al kol ha’aretz, mekadesh Yisrael v’Yom haZikaron.” We acknowledge God as Sovereign of all the earth, making the Jewish people and this Day of Remembrance sacred.
 
Rosh HaShanah is called the “Day of Remembrance.” On this day we are called to remember God’s covenant with us, the Jewish people, just as we trust God will remember each and all of us for goodness and for life.
 
Our ancestors imagined memory as a Divine quality. God transcends time and place. Our memories, however strong, are fleeting. Of God, memories are eternal. Unlimited by a particular incidence or coincidence. (Which is comforting until we remember how much we’d prefer God forgot.)
 
Human memory imitates God. By remembering we strive to overcome our own limits and reach toward eternity. Yet each of our memories are unique. Unlike any other thoughts we hold.
 
Our memories are not ideas. Our memories are images we see with our mind’s eye and feelings we sense in our hearts and souls. Memories are not abstract. Memories are tangible bonds we share with others, about others, and the fleeting moments of every day’s events.
 
I often wonder. Maybe you do, too. What are my earliest memories? What do I recall by myself? What do I claim to remember because of pictures I’ve seen or stories I’ve been told? More important. How far back do memories of our loved ones go?
 
Here’s another way to put it. Research suggests that most people are forgotten within three generations after their death. Looking back, I remember my grandparents and my parents. Some of you may be fortunate to remember a great-grandparent, too.
 
Still, I wonder. Given the tenor of our times, and the very tangible discomfort we who are Jewish deal with as individuals and as a community, how did my ancestors from a century or so ago respond to and confront the even more difficult and demanding threats they faced?
 
What if we could hear from those we didn't know who came before us? What if their experience could inform and inspire our own?
 
I looked for such insights in a variety of places. I couldn’t find what I wanted. So, I created it myself. In the form of an imagined letter. An homage to my own great-grandfather whom I never knew but for whom my father was named.
 
Imagine I’m holding in my hand a letter written in Lithuania, in the year 1895. Lithuanian Jewry, loving known as Litvaks, played a significant role in Jewish history, particularly as a center of Jewish learning, culture, and religious variety. The writer of this letter is a great-grandfather addressing a great-grandchild he can only imagine but will never know.
 
I place the writer in a small city, Vabalninkas, located in the northeast region of Lithuania today. The town and its Jews suffered a great deal during World War I. With the establishment of independent Lithuania after the war, some Jews began to return to Vabalninkas. Many were Zionists.
 
If you are not “Ashkenormative,” then from whatever your background, try to extrapolate the message here. (“Ashkenormativity” means assuming Ashkenazi Jews as the default, excluding Sephardi, Mizrahi, Ethiopian, and other Jewish identities and histories. Not right, true. But the only ancestry I know personally.)
 
This letter is a form of historical fiction, rooted in facts but told of my own creation. I set it to be written twenty years before the Great War.
 
Dearest Descendant,
Though I write these words in the year of 1895, you shall not read them for many generations hence. My heart stretches across the great chasm of time to embrace you.
 
I live in a town called Vabalninkas, nestled among the forests and fields of the Russian Empire. Life here is simple, often hard. We rise before dawn to pray, to labor, to study, and to raise our children in the ways of our ancestors. Our world is small but rich. Each day steeped in Torah. Each week anchored by Shabbat. Each year circling the sacred rhythms of our festivals. We live with joy, even in poverty, because our lives have purpose.
 
Here, life is tight and close. Our homes are modest, but our hearts are full. I am a tailor, as was my father before me. Crafting coats for gentiles and wedding garments for our own. Stitching together pieces to make something strong, something beautiful.
 
But we live under a shadow. It is not just the hunger or the harsh winters. It is the way the world sees us: with suspicion, with hatred. Czar Nicholas II’s men come with quotas and decrees. There are towns where synagogues burn, and neighbors turn on neighbors. Children are taunted, women spat upon, and men accused of crimes simply because they are Jews.
 
As the Czar’s decrees grow harsher, pogroms sweep through towns not far from ours. We do not answer with violence. We answer with dignity. With Torah. With song. With stubborn existence. We walk with our heads held high, knowing we are a people who have crossed deserts, stood at Sinai, and survived every empire that tried to erase us.
 
Someday, perhaps there will be a place where the Jew is not a guest, but the host. Where the calendar follows our seasons. Where our soldiers defend our cities. If such a place exists in your time, know that it was built by dreamers who were once tailors and teachers, bakers and rabbis, who dared to believe exile was not our destiny.
 
Meanwhile, in Vabalninkas there are whispers. Many are leaving. Crossing the ocean to a land called America. A place where a Jew might breathe freely and walk unafraid. I hope you are reading this there and that the whispers are true. In which case I ask you. Do not forget who you are. Do not forget what was paid for your place at the table. Carry our memory as a shield.
 
Child of my child’s child, I cannot know what trials you face. No time is free from hardship. But I hope you face yours with the strength we have passed down. The stubborn fire of our faith. The resilience of our stories. The wisdom of our sages. Remember, we are a people who bless even the bitter. Who study even in exile. Who light candles against the darkness.
 
Teach your children to question. To laugh at the absurdities of life, and to see holiness even in hardship. May you keep alive what I have only begun to carry. Our people are more than survival. We are covenant. Be proud. Be just. And never forget whose dreams you now live.
 
With trembling hope and eternal love,
Avraham Gershom ben Mordecai
 
“Never forget whose dreams we now live.” That’s our charge. To broaden not only what we see in the world around us, but what we remember from those who came before us.
 
These are difficult days for Jews. Days of being scorned and maligned in the public square. Days of deep distress about the quagmire entangling Israel. Days of disagreement and dispute. Even so, these are not the Jewish people’s worst days, even if they are ours.
 
So, we must learn not only from our experiences and recollections. We must learn from the memories of our ancestors we do not hold personally. Because we live their dreams now. In an American Jewish community, they could never conceive. In a State of Israel, they could only hope would come to be. In a 21st century, though ripe as it is with complexities and convolutions, in a 21st century filled with technologies, potentialities, and innovative opportunities for being Jewish no one who lived before now could possibly fathom.
 
Of our great-grandparents and those who lived before them, we must remember the strength we have received. The stubborn faith of a fire that burns bright and inspires still. The resilience of our stories old and new. The wisdom of our sages. The insights of our own.
 
Remember like they did. We are a people who bless even the bitter. Who study even in exile. Who light candles against the darkness.
 
We Jews are an irrepressible and miraculous people. Through ideals taught in God’s name, we believe we can redeem ourselves from challenging circumstances. We can live in the world that is as we believe it ought to be. The contemporary and evolved character of our Jewish lives reveals all of this.
 
Therefore, let me ask this of you. Every time you pause to complain, or hear someone else comment about, the latest disparaging antisemitic trope or incident, after you concur and console, counter with a Jewish affirmation.
 
Talk about your plans for a coming Shabbat or holiday celebration. Reference your last act of tzedakah by using that term to describe something good you or someone you know did. Mention a recent Jewish themed class, book, film, or cultural event that engaged you. Pull out a picture from your family’s most recent simhah or talk about an uplifting lifecycle event you just attended.
 
Invite whomever you are speaking with to join you at a synagogue service or upcoming gathering. Share some good news about Jews you just heard, be it from Israel (which has much good taking place amidst all the stress) or from other sources or media. Teach a simple lesson of Torah or Jewish lore you carry with you as an inspiring memory. Be a light of hope and a demonstration of positive, meaningful Jewish living. Counter Jewish oy with affirmative Jewish joy.
 
On this Day of Remembrance, we hope to be remembered, and to call upon our own memories, for goodness and for life. By remembering we strive to overcome what we must and raise ourselves up.
 
“Melekh al kol ha’aretz, mekadesh Yisrael v’Yom haZikaron.”
מלך על כל הארץ מקדש ישראל ויום הזכרון
 
God, Sovereign over all the earth, makes the Jewish people and this Day of Remembrance sacred. Throughout the days of this New Year, may we mimic that image of God with sacred purpose.
 
L’Shanah Tovah!
 
© 2025 Rabbi Ronald J. Shulman

the four questions

Erev Rosh HaShanah Sermon 2025 | 5786
 

 

 
Shanah Tovah! I greet you this New Year’s Eve delighted we are together and grateful for our communal bond. Though the calendar marks just one more year since we were last here, my soul feels like it’s aged much more than that.
 
Maybe that’s why we keep two calendars. One tracks our time. The other tracks our souls. 2025 fills with headlines, joyous milestones, heartaches, appointments, and to-do lists. But 5786 reminds us. Collectively and historically, as Jews, we’ve come through a lot. And still tonight, we show up. We say Shanah Tovah. We hope for the best. We begin again.
 
So yes, as we greet one another today, we are older in age and older of soul. But are we any wiser?
 
One year, on Erev Rosh HaShanah, the founder of Hasidism in the early 18th century, Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, popularly known as the Ba’al Shem Tov, the Master of the Good Name, gathered his students and asked them to reflect. “If you were to write your own ledger for this past year,” he asked, “what would you write?”
 
As an aside, the Ba’al Shem Tov’s question is a play on an important Talmudic text for this time of year. “Rabbi Kruspedai said in the name of Rabbi Yohanan: Three books are opened in God’s domain on the New Year. One for the thoroughly wicked, one for the thoroughly righteous, and one for the intermediate.
 
The thoroughly righteous are inscribed immediately and definitively in the Book of Life. The thoroughly wicked are inscribed immediately and definitively in the Book of Death. The fate of the intermediate is suspended from Rosh HaShanah until Yom Kippur. If they deserve well, they are inscribed in the Book of Life. If they do not deserve well, they are inscribed in the Book of Death.”
 
We are familiar, if not a bit uncomfortable, with this image. Our lives are consequential. Our days existential. Our Talmudic sages believed in a world beholden to and judged by God. A belief held to inspire and motivate people’s free will choices along with their hopes for justice in an unjust world.
 
Some of us may not hold to that belief literally, but we certainly understand it’s moral imagery. We are to hold ourselves accountable for living our best possible lives. For being our best possible selves. As we will prayerfully ask throughout these holy days. May we be inscribed in the Book of Life, לְחַיִים טוֹבִים וּלְשָׁלוֹם L’hayim tovim u-l’shalom! For a good life and for peace!
 
Perhaps more so than in recent years, this phrase from our High Holy Day prayers reflects our deepest desires. In a world desperate for healing and humanity, we yearn for goodness in our lives and peace for our people and our world.
 
Back to the Ba’al Shem Tov, who asked his disciples, “If you were to write your own ledger for this past year, what would you write?” At first, the students tried to recall only their proudest moments. Kindness shown. Prayers uttered. Acts of tzedakah.
 
After listening to his students’ thoughts, the Baal Shem Tov spoke gently. He reminded them: “The One who loves you most reads your whole book, not just the good pages. The missed chances, the sharp words, the patience you withheld. These also tell your story. And when you read your own ledger honestly, you can write a better one in the year to come.”
 
The students realized the exercise wasn’t to dwell on guilt, but to see clearly. To recognize blessings and shortcomings alike, so they could enter the new year with kavanah, personal focus and intention.
 
The Ba’al Shem Tov imagined that each of us keeps a spiritual ledger of our daily lives. I don’t think it’s literally a written record of what we did. I do think it’s a call to our inner consciousness. The totality of all we have experienced, felt, and become in the year gone by.
 
So, at this liminal moment when one-year flows into the next, let’s pause and reflect. Let’s each try to remember and review that spiritual, personal ledger we all somehow keep.
 
In our memories of the recent past, we may rediscover our joys. Many of them, I hope. Or our sorrows. Fewer of them, I hope. Or our successes and failures. Our fulfillment and regret. This evening, here and at home, sit introspectively and try to bring to mind and heart as many of your life’s moods and modes as you can.
 
In the spirit of the Ba’al Shem Tov’s imagery, we can also ask ourselves questions. Consider these four questions for yourself and your inner work this sacred season.
 
What did this past year give you? Many moments, I imagine. I hope of joy, of connection, of opportunity. Perhaps comfort, challenge, or even clarity.
 
What did this past year take from you? Not too much, I hope. Time, to be sure. Maybe energy or even certainty. Sadly, a dear and missed loved one.
 
What did this past year teach you? Perspective. To listen more and speak less. To learn rather than to know. Other life lessons taught by challenges you didn’t choose, and grace you didn’t expect.
 
What did this past year ask of you? A great deal, most likely. Patience. Effort. Courage. Flexibility. Healing. Resilience. Understanding. Forgiveness. Smiles and laughs. Frowns and tears.
 
Now, because of all you received, and lost, and learned, and answered, consider the impact on who you are and how any of this will guide you in this New Year.
 
It’s hard to know. I suppose that’s exactly what we’re here to contemplate over the next couple of days. Questions from the year gone by that linger. Questions we hope to answer this year by our choices and reactions. In our words and deeds. In happiness and not too much hurt.
 
Heshbon haNefesh, our tradition calls it. Taking an accounting of our souls. We hold ourselves accountable for that which matters most to us and for those who matter to us even more.
 
The Ba’al Shem Tov imagined that each of us keeps a spiritual ledger of our daily lives. What I describe as a call to our inner consciousness. The totality of all we experience, feel, and try to become.
 
Every person born into this world represents something new, something original. Martin Buber teaches that no one of us has ever existed before because, if there had been someone like any one of us, the world wouldn’t need each one of us as it does.
 
Know this as a New Year begins. There is something about each one of us present upon which the world depends. It may be our love. It may be our talent. It may be our passion or compassion. It may be our care, our training, or simply our presence. Maybe it’s something we do. Maybe it’s something we help others to do. Whatever it may be, we can never diminish our respective roles and places.
 
That’s why we keep two calendars. One tracks our time. Yet, on the eve of this new Jewish year, we are cognizant of the other which tracks our souls.
 
As 5786 arrives to remind us. The ledger of our lives is open before us. “וחותם יד כל אדם בו - V’hotem yad kol adam bo.” Inscribed by our own hands.  The deeds we’ve not yet done and the words we’ve not yet spoken will inscribe the ledgers we and, according to our people’s religious lore, God will come to review.
 
May we inscribe ourselves, and may we be inscribed, in the Book of Life, לְחַיִים טוֹבִים וּלְשָׁלוֹם L’hayim tovim u-l’shalom! For a good life and for peace!
 
L’Shanah Tovah!
 
© 2025 Rabbi Ronald J. Shulman
Fri, September 26 2025 4 Tishrei 5786