Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on June 7, 2020

I was reflecting back on my High Holiday sermon that I delivered at Palm Beach Synagogue this past September. I spoke about the upcoming year of 2020, how we must have a 2020 vision of hope and optimism. From the pulpit, I preached about how 2020 will surely bring us renewed clarity.

Little did I know, that 2020 would be perhaps the most tragic, confusing and tumultuous year of my lifetime. The year of a pandemic followed by pandemonia. The COVID-19 pandemic claimed hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide, shut down our country and devastated our economy. All of our realities and norms were suddenly shattered. All of our plans and expectations were utterly halted.

And then, when we were finally seeing some signs of light and recovery, when we were at the cusp of reopening our country, a police officer put his knee on a mans throat, choking him to death and choking our nation into sadness, anger and unrest.

What happens when everything shatters? When our expectations fracture and our society splinters? When our dreams dissolve and our hearts break?

What happens when our 2020 hindsight completely contradicts our 2020 vision? How do we ever move on?

We dont. We cant move on. We have to move forward.

I remember seeing a TED talk from a woman named Nora McInerny. She said something that forever changed my perspective on tragedy and grief. We dont move on from tragedy. We move forward with it.

The Jewish nation just celebrated Shavuot, the festival of the giving of the Ten Commandments. Descending the mountain 40 days after receiving the two tablets, Moses sees the Jewish people worshiping the golden calf. He takes the tablets and throws them to the ground, shattering a dream and fragmenting a people. Everything seemed lost. The world seemed broken. The loving marriage between heaven and earth seemed about ready to divorce.

Then came the holiest moment in Jewish history. The people decided they will reforge, rebuild and reunite as one people and follow His commandments.

On Yom Kippur we received the second set of tablets. Ever since, Yom Kippur is our annual reminder that we can be better, we can learn from our past and grow from it.

In his song Anthem, Leonard Cohen sings, There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

My 2020 vision was for a year devoid of cracks. My 2020 hindsight shows me that there are many, many cracks in life, in society, in the world.

Which inspires my new 2020 vision: to ensure that all of the cracks exist for one reason and one reason only: to let the light in.

Rabbi Moshe Scheiner

Palm Beach Synagogue

Read more from the original source:

Letter: Events of 2020 call for a new vision forward - Palm Beach Daily News

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