I begin with a story. The Master Key by Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin. A Chasidic tale.

One year, Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov said to Rabbi Ze’ev Kitzes, one of his senior disciples: “You will blow the shofar for us this Rosh Hashanah. I want you to study all the kavanot (Kabbalistic meditations) that pertain to the shofar, so that you should meditate upon them when you do the blowing.”

Rabbi Ze’ev applied himself to the task with joy and trepidation: joy over the great privilege that had been accorded him, and trepidation over the immensity of the responsibility. He studied the Kabbalistic writings that discuss the multifaceted significance of the shofar and what its sounds achieve on the various levels of reality and in the various chambers of the soul. He also prepared a sheet of paper on which he noted the main points of each kavanah, so that he could refer to them when he blew the shofar.

Finally, the great moment arrived. It was the morning of Rosh Hashanah, and Rabbi Ze’ev stood on the reading platform in the center of the Baal Shem Tov’s synagogue amidst the Torah scrolls, surrounded by a sea of tallit-draped bodies. At his table in the southeast corner of the room stood his master, the Baal Shem Tov, his face aflame. An awed silence filled the room in anticipation of the climax of the day—the piercing blasts and sobs of the shofar.

Rabbi Ze’ev reached into his pocket, and his heart froze: the paper had disappeared! He distinctly remembered placing it there that morning, but now it was gone. Furiously, he searched his memory for what he had learned, but his distress over the lost notes seemed to have incapacitated his brain: his mind was a total blank. Tears of frustration filled his eyes. He had disappointed his master, who had entrusted him with this most sacred task. Now he must blow the shofar like a simple horn, without any kavanot. With a despairing heart, Rabbi Ze’ev blew the litany of sounds required by law and, avoiding his master’s eye, resumed his place.

At the conclusion of the day’s prayers, the Baal Shem Tov made his way to the corner where Rabbi Ze’ev sat sobbing under his tallit. “Gut Yom Tov, Reb Ze’ev!” he called. “That was a most extraordinary shofar-blowing we heard today!”
“But Rebbe . . . I . . .”

“In the king’s palace,” said the Baal Shem Tov, “there are many gates and doors, leading to many halls and chambers. The palace-keepers have great rings holding many keys, each of which opens a different door. But there is one key that fits all the locks, a master key that opens all the doors.

“The kavanot are keys, each unlocking another door in our souls, each accessing another chamber in the supernal worlds. But there is one key that unlocks all doors, that opens up for us the innermost chambers of the divine palace. That master key is a broken heart.”

I struggled this year to prepare for the holidays. I tried to write and nothing made sense. I tried to study and could not concentrate. As the days of Elul passed, I knew I had to do something. One morning I sat down and let the tears flow. Only after writing what I am going to share with you now, was I able to return the over the following day to write the more joyous sermons you heard on Rosh Hashanah and that you will hear tomorrow, but I want to share the process with you.

A Letter to God from a Healing Broken Heart by Rabbi Birdie Becker 8.2018
Dear God,
It’s been a year since last I stood before the open book.
Into your hands, I cast my lot, but found there no safe nook.
Instead it opened every door that ever I had closed
And made me open wide the gates to things I never chose.
What is a human being if not a working piece of art?
What is a soul if not the depth of heaven when it parts?
To look inside the melding body only leads astray
   the final outcome we each reach when it’s the close of day.
I thought I had it figured out, I thought if I believed
Then fate would deal a hand of kindness on all that I perceived.
I thought that prayers and pledges, pleading, promises and tears
   would safely guard the future from the ‘lions, tigers and bears’.
Love came, and I did not grasp it hard enough, to gather it forever.
It passed away and with it went the best of my endeavor.
How can you ask of me to stand again before your open book?
How can you dare to say to me that life still brightly looks
   ahead to beauty, to wonder, to fulfillment, to all the world can hold?
You surely should have warned me of the losses to unfold.
You did! You say.
Well, I reject the notion that you did.
My heart was breaking every day, and I believe you hid.
Who by fire? Who by water? Who by agony?
Who from age? Who alone? Who with family?
Why this day? Why this hour? Why that one and not this?
Who can justify the meaning of the latest kiss
of death that moves the soul beyond this land to its next hallowed   sphere?
I don’t care what I am told, I want my loved one here.
To have and hold and share another day another year…
Another hour?
Another moment?
This grief I cannot bear.
Yet.. I will.
I will continue for God, that is the way
That You tell us You are with us, each and every day.
In our thoughts and in our hearts and even in our tears.
You let me rail against the dark, against the black, against the coming years
Of memories that will grow deep and stories to be told
Of feelings bearable someday and even humor trolled.
Who am I to question You?
Not Job or Abraham.
Not Hillel, not Sarah nor even 'Sam I am'.
Yet question You is what we do, each and every day.
Because it lets us know that You are never going away.
You’re here, right here, by my side.
And, I, as mad as I may be,
I know that You will never go too far away from me.
Like all good friends, You’re there to let me give a primal scream.
And when I’m at my lowest, it’s upon You I can lean.
I may not always understand, it’s not for me to agree.
The sun has once again revolved,
A year has passed by Your decree.
Who remembered? Who forgotten? By woman or by man?
Each held in love, caressed by grace in Adonai’s grand plan.
From off the earth each one has touched Shechinah’s wings and flown.
Belonging now to eternity,
Divine and Thine alone.
 
Life is a journey, my friends. What I want to impart to you most is that all relationships require work but you need never journey alone.

May your journeys this year be sweet and fulfilling.

We will soon all gather to begin the holiday season. Due to the divisiveness within which we are living, it seems somewhat more difficult to make teshuvah, the turning required to wipe away the sins of our past year. It seems so much easier to be able to blame someone else this year for our difficulties, for our failings, for our discontent. Perhaps more than in other years that is why we really need to come together and pray as a community, be a community, know we are part of a community despite our differences.
 
While Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur focus us on the ‘me’, they are followed quickly by Sukkot, a definite ‘us’ holiday. In fact, Sukkot not only helps to focus on ‘us’, but brings the joy of the renewal, of freshness experienced at Yom Kippur into full measure.
 
We remember the blessings of annanim kavod, the clouds of glory that accompanied us through the desert; our clothing and foot garments never wore out and we were protected from the elements of nature. This was the blessing we received when Moshe Rabbeinu received the second set of Esert HaDibrot, the Tablets of Commandments. In return, we begin the year performing a mitzvah. We build and dwell in a Sukkah. So anxious was the Maharil[1] to perform this mitzvah, he had the custom of beginning the building of the Sukkah the night after Yom Kippur.  We open our temporary shelters to guests, both ancestral and contemporary.
 
Inside the Sukkah, we lift and shake the Lulav, the four species. The Bahir[2] compares these species to human anatomy and our senses. Hadas (myrtle) is the eye that we must keep open against hate, bigotry and bribery. Aravah (willow) are the lips with which we may speak out for justice. The Etrog (citron) is the heart so that we feel compassion, love and empathy. The Lulav (palm) is the spine, that we be straight and strong, to serve as God’s loyal and grateful people. In bringing the four species together and shaking them in all six directions, we are reaching out, pointing a way, to promote the recognition of divinity in relationships, in community and among communities.
 
With the rising hatred in the world, may this be the year the Sukkah brings people together for rejoicing. Ken yihi ratzon. So may it be God’s will.
 
From my family to yours, wishing you a joyous, healthy new year.
L’Shanah Tovah Umetukah
Rabbi Becker
 
 


[1] Yaakov ben Moshe Levi Moelin, Talmudist of German Jews whose minhagim was a source for the Shulchan Arukh.

[2] Bahir or Sefer HaBahir is an anonymous mystical work, attributed to a 1st-century rabbinic sage Nehunya ben HaKanah 

TEKIAH! Wake Up! As the month of Elul ends and we head into the month of Tishrei, we enter with heightened awareness of how we look at the world and ourselves in it - or we should. The preparations for the High Holidays, gives us an opportunity to make the holidays a more meaningful experience. A facebook friend recently posted that he awoke to the sound an “intruder trying to enter a bedroom window!!!”  It turned out to be a raccoon that he chased away repeatedly for 30 minutes by periodically pounding on the window as it left and returned, left and returned. I wrote, “Happy to hear it was only a raccoon.” I saw him a week later. He told me that of the many responses he had received, mine was the only one with that perspective. OK, he said, “It takes a rabbi’s perspective.” But the truth is, it doesn’t. What it takes is a change of perspective.  

We have become so accustomed to looking at everything in the negative: politics, news, reports from authority figures, even weather. It takes practice to see the positives in life, but there is a positive side to each negative. That’s how the world was made. Two sides to the coin, three if you count the edge. That gives us more than one way to look at every situation.

Opening ourselves up to new perspectives allows us to enter the High Holidays more prepared. ‘Where I have done well and where I have gone astray’, will not be as daunting if you have been contemplating it over time. The wrestling of the soul becomes a familiar exercise and with it life appears different. Like the raccoon that came and went, you may feel that sometimes you are winning the wrestling match and sometimes it has you flat on your back, but the struggle is building strength for the inner spirit. Like all exercise, it takes time. That’s why each year we have the ten days of Yamim Noraim, (the Days of Awe), the month of Elul, and it is said that the Gates of Repentence are never closed. Keep the exercise going all year.

I wish you and yours L’Shana Tovah U’metuka, a very sweet and healthy New Year.

 

The Torah is filled with laws and calls for justice. Be holy, for I, Adonai your God, am holy. The holiness code instructs us how to behave but not how to feel or to think. This comes from behaving day after day in a given fashion. Learning to have a certain outlook, to anticipate specific outcomes, to seek outlets.

I have lived in Colorado for nearly thirty years. I cannot imagine awakening with anything in my heart but joy for another day, another opportunity to make life better. Not a day goes by that I am not appreciative of living in what I have come to call my piece of heaven and in the United States. 

Then, as the day evolves, being the news junkie I am, I let myself out of my heart and into my head. Who shall live and who shall die, we ask? And how? How shall it occur? I am wholly aware that on the other side of the world Jews are at risk. We are still fleeing from and being transported from harms way every year.  Christians are at risk in the Middle
East. Dozens of churches have been burned, though for some reason, until the latest Egyptian uprising, this was not making the nightly news. In India, Hindus and Muslim have been in constant conflict, and children have been attacked for singing their national anthem, though this, too, did not make our national news. 

Americans are sorely at risk. My prayers are with those who provide our country with strength and protection, who are
devoted to their chosen professions of service to the country. May they return to their families safely and with honor.

At a time in history when half the world is recognizing the human rights and dignity of people of every race, creed, color, ethnic and sexual persuasion, it seems that the other half of the world is racing head long in the opposite direction. Most of us are familiar with the phrase, tzedek, tzedek terdof, Justice, justice shall you pursue. (Deuteronomy 16:18 - 20) but not everyone knows what precedes those words.

18 You shall appoint  magistrates and officials for your tribes, in all the settlements that the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice. 19 You shall not judge unfairly: you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of the discerning and upset the plea of the just. 20 Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 

In the bronze age, the time in which Torah was written, humanity already knew some things about the human soul. They
knew that pride and power could distort a person’s judgment. They knew that an individual could bring an idea but a group was needed to implement it, the power of numbers – we might call it peer pressure. Maybe that’s why we need ten adult Jews to form a minyan, ten to pray. They knew that the soul is weak when tested and the body is weak when tempted. They knew that it is easy for wealth to blind the eyes of the wise and that words of the just - are just as easily confounded by gain. 

They knew that people needed a focus. They needed to be able to engage their senses. They needed to turn their hearts and reach their hands toward something tangible. They needed to be involved. 

Recently, while listening to a speaker, I was completely taken by a throwaway line because it was like a light bulb going off – it was just so true. He said, “It all began with the clicker.”   It all began with the clicker.    Suddenly, with no effort at
all, one could turn away from the sights and sounds they didn’t want coming to them over the TV. You didn’t even need to get out of your chair. Enjoying a light hearted show – click – now I don’t need to hear a plea for UNICEF. Getting into the rough and tough western – click – don’t tell me how many have died in battles. Fantasizing about living in that future world – click – I can’t be bothered with sink holes swallowing houses and resorts, or disappearing bee colonies. 

We want things to exist but we no longer want to be responsible for that existence. Institutions are included in those things we want to exist. We want the Temple or at least a Jewish community available when we need it, but we want to “click” the rest of the time. We want Israel to exist so we feel we have a refuge, or maybe a nice place to visit. We’ll even celebrate it on the holidays and chant ‘next year in Jerusalem’ when it is appropriate but otherwise, click – we have our own problems. And, indeed, we do.

It should send a chill down the spine of every Jew who knows even the merest trace of Jewish history that Russia is rounding up people based on their life style. The reform Jewish community is in the forefront of the LGBT human justice issue. I would go so far as to say that anyone who says, “I am not related to and have no friends who are part of the LGBT community”, that they can say that because most likely the people around them know how they feel and simply are not being open and honest.  Who by hatred? Who by fear? Justice shall you pursue.

As a country we are facing many issues. Issues that are further dividing us rather than helping us find unity. The World Health Organization has found gender violence to be the most common human rights abuse. “Worldwide, women aged 15-44 are more likely to be killed or maimed due to male violence than by cancer, malaria, war and traffic accidents combined.” Were it not for the Violence Against Women’s Act, enacted in 1994, the effects in the United States would be
even worse. Thanks to this Act, in the past 20 years the number of individuals killed by an intimate partner has decreased 34% for women and 57% for men. Who shall live and who shall die at the hand of the one they love? Justice shall you pursue.

Prior to entering the clergy world, I was a social worker. While I worked with several different societal groups including run-aways, the psychiatric unit at the VA, home health watch which has since become termed hospice care, my primary field for nearly 12 years was reproductive health care. I can’t help but look at what is happening in a third of the states in this country and wonder why they want to turn back the clock fifty years when it comes to women’s health care, family privacy and freedom of choice. Justice shall you pursue.

In Isaiah we read, “Is not this the fast I ask for: To unlock the shackles of evil, To loosen the thongs of the yoke, To send forth crushed souls to freedom, To tear every yoke in two!  To tear up your loaves for the hungry, To bring the poor wanderer home, When you see the naked, clothe them, When you see flesh and blood, do not turn aside! Then your light will burst forth like the morning and new flesh will cover your wounds.”  
 
He further says to reach out to the soul of the hungry and ease the soul of the bruised; to remove the menacing hand and the abusive words and the oppressive yoke.”

Jews have known disenfranchisement and subjugation in so many lands, not just Egypt and not just 2500 years ago. This is why our prayers are dotted with the reminder that we were strangers in a strange land. Our Torah is spotted with ‘you shall be holy for I your God am holy’. That is why our history is marked by involvement in civil rights wherever and whenever they appear. 
 
When Jews appeared on these shores in 1654, Stuyvesant tried to send them back to whence they came, the Portuguese Inquisition. When told by the Dutch West Indian company that they were to stay, (there was a no return policy) he enacted laws that restricted those colonists. They could not serve in the military but because they did not serve in the military they had to pay a tax for not serving in the military. They were not allowed to build a synagogue. Colonial voting laws were set locally and so in many regions, Catholics and Jews, Native Americans and African Americans along with all women were NOT allowed to vote.

English jurist William Blackstone wrote in the 1700s: The true reason for requiring any qualification, with regard to property, in voters, is that it gives a great, an artful, or a wealthy man, a larger share in elections than is consistent with
general liberty. Yes, they knew that in 1700.

August 26th marked the 93rd anniversary of voting rights for women. That week, Hadassah announced VISION 2020: Five goals to be achieved by the centennial anniversary of the 19th amendment:
Women in senior leadership positions
Pay Equity                                                    
Family-Friendly workplace policies
Youth Education and civic engagement, and
Voter Mobilization promoting participation in the political process.

From the voting booth to taking care of the poor, the children and the minorities, Justice, justice shall you pursue. 
 
Why justice twice when we are told the Torah uses words sparingly? Justice has two sides. We forget that when we
rally for a cause, there is someone on the other side. When we celebrate victory there is someone who is not rejoicing. Rabbi Pinchas HaCohen Peli (1930-1989) a tenth generation rabbi of the 20th century and Professor of Jewish Thought and Literature at the Ben-Gurion University, wrote, “It is, indeed, much more difficult to find a way between two claims, both of whom have justice on their side, than to decide a priori which of the two sides is absolutely just and must be be aided.”

The Sefat Emet, Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib of Ger, an eminent Chassidic sage and the second Gerrer Rebbe of Warsaw, Poland, 1847 -1905, wrote commentary on the Torah. In his view, justice and truth are synonymous and neither is obtainable. Therefore, the pursuit of justice is endless as is the pursuit of truth.  

The pursuit of truth. There’s a notion. The truth is  -----  we are a nation in turmoil, Americans, yes. Jews even more so. 

For nearly 25 years, women have sought the right to pray at The Wall, The Western Wall, HaKotel, wearing tallit and tefillin, and to read from the Torah as a group. As a group they are known as WOW which is the acronym for Women of the Wall. During the last week of July, when it was NOT Rosh Chodesh – Rosh Chodesh is a the holiday that celebrates the new moon, the new month in the Jewish calendar - ten women prayed in tefillin and tallitot without incident at the Kotel. Why? Because, in truth - most people are not bothered by this. They need to be incited to throw rocks and chairs and spit at men and women who want to beseech God for peace and blessings. 
 
The courts have stated that it is not WOW that is causing the disruption at the Wall but those who are protesting their presence. Yet, while prior to the ruling many of the women, both Israeli and visiting Americans have been arrested or detained, the current protesters are not approached by the Wall police. Even the whistle blowers – no, not the Edward
Snowden type, these are men blowing whistles just feet from the women praying – even they are not bothered by the Wall police who do not view whistle blowing as ‘creating a public disturbance’, A PUBLIC DISTURBANCE - the crime for
which the women in prayer had been arrested so often.  

In truth, do the protesters enhance their own kavannah (intention for prayer) through such actions while at this sacred site? In truth, how many of those who block the women’s section from the members of the WOW (Women of the Wall) would come there to pray on their own rather than come to protest as a group? Indeed, we know a large percentage are
gathered only for the purpose of disrupting the prayers of the WOW. 
 
And this is not the only difficulty in my beloved Israel. Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, a prominent leader in the haredi
world, and I quote Rabbi Iris Richman in Moment Magazine, “instructs his followers that Jews who serve the land of Israel and want Haredim to become educated participants in Israeli life, with the civil obligations of all Israeli citizens, are the greatest enemy of the Jewish people. The followers of this rabbi are praying three times per day, every weekday, that (other) Jews should be “destroyed in a moment” for supporting an Israel where all of its citizens live together in shared responsibility and unity.”  

To be clear, this is an influential rabbi speaking specifically about [Yair] Lapid [Israel’s Finance Minister, and her Education Minister Shai Piron)  as Amalek – the worst enemy of the Jews. It is from Amalek that Haman and
Hitler were to have descended and according to Torah, Amalek is deserving of death.  
 
For nearly 25 years, I have prayed in a tallit, worn tefillin and read from the Torah. I did not have to endure rocks and chairs, merely snide comments, barbed looks, questions and shunning. I went through back doors to be accepted and had to prove myself repeatedly to rank and file. However, I am no longer the unusual female davener clad in
traditional garb.

I cannot understand leaving a house of worship, any house of worship, wanting to do harm to others. I quite frankly
do not want to begin to contemplate what I might need to say to you to not only make you think it ok, but to encourage it. I cannot comprehend teaching and preaching hatred when fear is already a menacing pursuer. 
 
Rabbi Peli again, “While there are those who perceive justice to be always on their side, there are others, who in
their fervour to do justice to their opponents, tend to forget that there is justice also on their side.” Justice, justice shall you pursue. Remember to see both sides of justice. At this season, we ask God to temper justice with mercy for we know we are each, from time to time, on either side of that justice. 
 
There is a parable of a king who had cups made of delicate glass. The king said, “If I pour hot water into them they will expand and burst; if cold, they will contract and break. So he mixed the hot and cold and they remained unbroken. So, too, did God say, If I create the world with mercy alone, its sins will be great; if only with justice how will it endure? So, God created the world with both justice and mercy.”

How far does the world need to regress - to devolve? Fifty years? 200 years? Back to the bronze age, the 2nd Temple generation?

A short tale from Shlomo Carlebach as retold by Diane Wolkstein (in Mitzvah Stories) and adapted here. 
 
Shlomo Carlebach’s father, Naftali Carlebach, was the rabbi of a large synagogue in Berlin in the 1930s. This was a very intolerant time, even among the Jews. In Naftali’s synagogue, a German Jew stood by the entrance, and if any Jews came from Poland, he would tell them that they had to sit in the last two rows of the synagogue. At that time in Germany,
Polish Jews were not allowed to stand at the pulpit to give the blessings of the kohanim during the high holidays. Shlomo’s father began the custom of allowing Polish Jews to join German Jews at the pulpit at Yom Kippur to offer blessings. 

After one holiday, a German Jew who was a multi-millionaire, found himself standing next to a Polish Jew whose socks were torn and who smelled terrible. The next day he sent a letter to Shlomo’s father. The letter said:

Dear Rabbi Carlebach: 

Yesterday in synagogue, I stood next to a Jew whose socks were not only torn but he smelled so terrible that I could not pray. Either you end this new custom of allowing Polish Jews to stand as kohanim or I quit.

Signed: Max Kugelman

Rabbi Naftali Carlebach wrote back to him:

Dear Mr. Kugelman:

Thank you for your letter. I was expecting a letter from you. But the letter I had hoped you would write said:

Dear Rabbi: Yesterday in shul, my heart opened as I noticed my neighbor was was standing next to me. He must have
been so poor he could not afford to bathe or buy new socks for the holidays. I thought, ‘I have so much. How can I help this man? If his socks are torn, maybe his heart is also torn.’  Tell me,
Rabbi, what can I do?”

Signed:
Rabbi Naftali Carlebach      
 
Martin Luther King, Jr., in his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, said, “I do not believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.” He was right. It was not and is not. What you may not know is that two Jewish organizations were officially recognized as sponsors of that March: the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (today the Union for Reform Judaism) of which this congregation is a member, and the American Jewish Congress. Rabbi Richard Hirsch, Founding Director of the Union’s Religious Action Center in Washington, D.C.  was one of the organizers of the march and it was inside the Religious Action Center of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, that the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights was housed.  It was there that the civil rights act was signed.  

It was not Rabbi Hirsch, but rather Rabbi Yoachim Prinz, who serving as president of the American Jewish Congress 50
years ago, spoke on that late August day on the steps in Washington DC, that day whose anniversary we just observed.  Prinz was an immigrant, a refugee from Germany. Prinz stressed that the greatest sin of the German masses under the
Nazis, when confronted by the evils of discrimination, persecution and social injustice, was the sin of silence. Justice, justice shall you pursue.

Avinu Malkeinu, Our Father Our King,
Chaneiynu v’aneinu be gracious and answer us
Asey emanu     Do for us    
tzedak v’chesed     justice and kindness. 

And together we say, 
Amen.  

This is the beginning of a new month, a new season. A season of renewal; renewal of spirit, of soul and of mindfulness. As Elul begins, our textual studies speak of peace and hope and promise.  The promise to the Israelites of living in a new land. That promise meets the reality of providing for life’s daily needs; needs that until now have been provided by God
and have been overseen by Moses. Now the people must take living into their own hands.

Living involves more than mere existence. It means being aware of the world around us and our place within that world. It means reacting to that world and learning to act within the world to better it and ourselves.  While the rest of the year asks us to focus on tikkun olam, repairing the world, these forty days, from the beginning of Elul, the twelfth month of the Jewish calendar until Yom Kippur, offers us a time to focus on ourselves.

One practice within Judaism that helps us see how we function in the world and how we need to repair our relationship within it is called mussar. Mussar takes a variety of forms but primarily directs individuals to look at their character traits, known as middot, and deal with them, one at a time, for a period of time, and then move on to the next. After the traits are each addressed, the individual cycles back and begins again to move to another level within each trait. 
 
While the modern mussar movement was formed in the 19th century, its roots can be traced to medieval ethical literature. It enjoys Chasidic, Kabbalistic, Ashkenazi and Sephardi variations. Duties of the Heart, The Path of the Just and The Gates of Repentance (same name but different text from the reform version of the machzor) present philosophical approaches on how to be a practical, moral Jew. 
 
Today, perhaps the broadest mussar practice is one presented through the Mussar Institute established by Alan Morinis. Character traits are infinite in number however, a set of traits is generally established within the practice. Each of us chooses which of the traits we want work on to improve ourselves. These might include: humility, anger, respect, trust,
generosity, forgiveness, gratitude and – well, you fill in the blank.

How much more will the Holydays mean if we have each spent a few weeks contemplating how we can improve, how we can draw closer to the Divine in the world and the Divine in ourselves? Even a few minutes each day spent recognizing where WE can make improvements rather than what is wrong with someone or something else, can make a tremendous difference when we unite as a community to sing joyfully about the creation of humankind and seek compassionate assistance as we continue to strive to be the best we can be as individuals and as a community.