Can you feel it? The world is standing still right now. It is as if life is standing still right now. That is what Rosh Hashanah does. At the beginning of the service we are still thinking about other things…things out there…but some where in the middle…for most of us…the outside starts to fade away. As we entered this sanctuary tonight…each of us turned off our cell phones and removed ourselves from the world outside. OK most of us did that. I know a few of you are on silent ring right now…and I know who you are…but for the most part this room is entirely disconnected from the rest of the world. We are here as a community. If this was the only reason to gather here…on this night…it might be enough…to be here with our community. Just to be surrounded by people that we know and love might be enough. Just to be lost in the middle of hundreds of people who we don’t know well at all, but who are here for the same purpose might just be enough. But I know that is not the reason that this space is filled tonight. Most of us didn’t come here to be immersed in a crowd of people.

So why is this space filled?

We are here because it is Rosh Hashanah. It is in these moments that time stands still for just a few minutes each year. How many of you can remember sitting in these seats just one year ago? It doesn’t seem so long ago…yet our worlds have changed. We are not the same. Our lives are not the same.

Yet here we are again.

Think back one year. Try to remember what we hoped for in the year to come. Did we accomplish that which we committed ourselves to? Are we now the people we set out to be? Are we the best versions of ourselves that we promised we’d be true to?

Rosh Hashanah brings us back together again. Yom Kippur is easy to understand…but Rosh Hashanah is not…Psalm 81, part of our liturgy says, “Tiku bahodesh shofar, bakeseh l’yom chageinu, “Sound the shofar on the new moon, in the time appointed for our festival day.” The word bakeseh is usually translated as “in the appointed time,” but many commentators have pointed out that the word can also mean hidden. The Sfat Emet, (Rebbe Yehudah Leib Alter, a Chassidic master who died in 1905), because of this play on words, called Rosh Hashanah, “The Hidden Holiday.” For many of us this rings true. This is the New Year…but what does that really mean for us?

There is a religious purpose for our presence here tonight. We are here because we as individuals need to be here. We are here because the people in our lives and in our community need us to be here. And we are here because the world needs us to be here.

(I.) Tikkun Nafshi. Why do I need to be here? To repair myself. We are here to make ourselves whole once again. We are taught over and over that Rosh Hashanah is the New Year. We are all prone to resolutions when the New Year begins. Now is the time to move ahead…to make ourselves whole once again…to repair our souls…to reach inward and to be honest about what really matters. We cannot be better people until we really look at ourselves honestly and critically and commit to being who we really are meant to be…the best versions of ourselves.

We are here this Rosh Hashanah because we want to be better than we are now…and better than we were yesterday. We want to become what tomorrow demands of us. This is not a sad day. This is not a day of tears or a day of self flagellation. It is a day of opportunity…a day of renewal. A day of fresh chances and new beginnings.

Theologian Rabbi Arthur Greene has pointed out that we as Jews don’t pay as much attention to the cycle of the year as we once did. We don’t fill the sanctuary on Sukkot, or on Shavuot, or during many other times of the year that mark the passage of time. Yet each Shabbat we fill the sanctuary for B’nai Mitzvah. We have many weddings here…and our sanctuary fills regularly as we celebrate babies being brought into the Covenant. We may not mark the cycle of the year with the same religious acknowledgement that we once did…yet we mark the passage of our lives…our individual Jewish Lifecycles…in so many ways…possibly in ways we don’t even realize.

These High Holidays cause us to do both. Tonight we are not here only to mark an important day on the calendar…but we are marking the passage of another year in each of our lives. The Tree of our Life has another ring in its trunk tonight. We are more weathered for the wear…but are we wiser too? As Rabbi Greene teaches…this day is an annual part of our lifecycle when we are to pinch ourselves and exclaim, “Thank you for my life! I am glad to be alive!”

This is of course something we can do each day. To be sure, our daily liturgy has many options with which to give thanks. Yet for many of us…it takes special moments like Rosh Hashanah to force us to take notice. The Sfat Emet also taught that the word “life” is inscribed on our hearts when we are born…yet it gets covered over with dust and grime as we live each year. The way in which we live conspires to blot out the life inscribed deep within us. But on this day…we come before God and pray to have that word uncovered and inscribed once again, promising to live in a way that keeps our hearts clean and pure.

We are here for personal renewal. We are here to uncover our best selves and our best intentions so that we may not take our time on this earth for granted.
(II.) Tikkun mishpati…and we are not alone. We are here tonight to repair our relationships. We are here to reenergize our efforts to be present for those with whom we share our lives…with those whom we share our community…to make those relationships whole once again. To be present. Tikkun Mishpati.

Time goes by so quickly that so many of do not take the time we need to pay attention to our relationships…our personal ones and our communal ones. We all mean well. We just have other things going on. Our work days have gotten longer. It is much more difficult to disconnect. I cannot tell you how many times, in how many situations, men, women, and young people, interrupt our conversations because a text message has arrived. And the blackberry takes this to a whole new level. I used to joke that when a phone went off during a meeting or in our sanctuary that this was “very Israeli.” Now it is just American. When did our jobs become so important that we had to be tuned in all the time? When did we become so important that we could not have dinner or even a conversation without keeping the blackberry or cell phone in hand? Is it possible that Blackberry thumb…the painful condition in you thumbs from using your technology too much is an electronic message being sent from God telling us to disconnect more often?

But we sit here now with our families and the members of this sacred community. Some of us physically are not with our families…but Rosh Hashanah is a state of mind too. We are here with those whom we love whether they sit nearby or not. This is a day to work on our relationships.

Just one week ago I had the opportunity to study with a great scholar, Rabbi David Ellenson, who is the Rosh Yeshiva and President of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He quoted his wife to us, Rabbi Jackie Ellenson as saying that the most difficult thing about relationships is that they involve other people. Together with local rabbis and cantors, we studied a Rabbinic Responsum that compared and contrasted the redemption we experience during Passover and the redemption we experience during these High Holy days. It was a complicated text, but in its very essence, it seemed to teach that the redemption we experience during Passover is awarded to us. “God skips over the mountains.” Our mountains. It is as if on Passover, God redeems us as a gift. All too often we notice when we do not receive something we think we really deserve, yet we rarely realize when we have been given a gift…something which we really do not deserve. If we did a true Chesbon Nefesh – a true accounting of our souls, we might realize that we often do not always get what we deserve…but we would also realize how thankful we should be for the things we have for which we have not worked very hard. Our relationships are no different. We are constantly given get out of jail free cards. God skips over our mountains; shouldn’t we be at least as forgiving, and giving, as our text perceives God to be?

So how is Rosh Hashanah different than Passover? How does the notion of redemption change from one holiday to the next? On Rosh Hashanah we are not just granted redemption as we are on Passover…we are obligated to meet God halfway. Rosh Hashanah empowers us when Passover allows us to be slightly more passive. We must work to correct our relationships during this time and no one can do that for us. We must work to be present at home and in our community. Rosh Hashanah becomes the gift because it forces us to engage in a process…a process in which we are truly God’s partners. We can be better people. We can be better friends, parents, children, siblings. We can be better and these days of Awe give us the opportunity.

(III.) We each have individual concerns to be addressed at this time. But we have collective concerns too. Why does the world need us to be here? Tikkun Olam – repairing our world. This is not the same world it was when we came together just last year. There is more war…there is more famine…there is more hate…there are more people who are hungry and without homes. Once we become whole as individuals…and once our families and our community are strengthened…then we need to look outward and heed the prophetic call that commands us to be a light unto the nations….to make this world a better version of itself…to be God’s partners in Creation which continues to unfold each day.

Why discuss Tikkun Olam and repairing the world on Rosh Hashanah? Ellie Wiesel wrote, “On Rosh Hashanah, it means for the Jew in us to seek fulfillment both as a Jew and as a Human being. For a Jew, Judaism and humanity must go together. To be Jewish today is to recognize that every person is created in the image of God and that our purpose is to be a reminder of God…A Jew must be sensitive to the pain of all human beings. A Jew cannot remain indifferent to human suffering, whether in other countries or in our own cities and towns.”

We take our Torah seriously, but not literally. Our Torah stands for hope and it sets the standard for how we live our lives. It is that standard that becomes our religious ideal. We cannot be complacent. To be alive…really alive…we must act. If our Torah teaches us nothing else, it forces us to realize that we have the power to reach up into heaven and to grab onto God and say, “C’mon…we are here and we are ready to be your partner in making this world you gave us into a better place.” Rosh Hashanah serves not only as a wake up call to take care of ourselves and our relationships with others, but it wakes us up to the notion that our world can be better….it can be complete and whole…but it is up to us. Tikkun Olam…we can repair the world.

It is so hard to be optimistic sometimes. Just to read the newspaper each day can be upsetting to see the changes in our world since just last Tishrei. But we can do something about it. We can be God’s partner in making the world better. As our Shabbat prayer book teaches us, “God cannot repair bridges or bring water to parched fields”…but God can repair us and bring sustenance to our souls. Things are still bad in Darfur and the victims of Katrina are still suffering. So much has been happening that we hardly hear anything of the villages hit by the tsunami just two years ago. And now there are victims of natural disaster here at home in Minnesota too. Aids in Africa is still a global concern. There are people in our own city who do not have affordable housing…or food and heat. And we certainly have not forgotten about the devastation in Israel. Our world needs us. We can work to make it a better place. But we have to start. We are here tonight to be reminded that there is more to worry about than just ourselves. Judaism requires of us to give of our time. If we each set out to spend a little time each week or month to improve the conditions of other people who share this planet with us…think of how much we could accomplish. The world needs us.

It is now Rosh Hashanah. We all have difficult work ahead. But it is valuable work. If we can commit ourselves to a true Chesbon Nefesh…if we can be truly honest with ourselves over the next ten days, we will become the people that our tomorrow demands. We can indeed become the people that we are meant be. We have to be willing to take chances and to make changes. This is the time. This time is our gift. We can be better…our families and our community can grow stronger…and God willing…we can repair out world and make it better too. May we in this new year, 5767 have the strength and the vision to be God’s partner in Creation as it continues to unfold around us…and through us.

And May this be God’s Will. Amen.