As your president, I am honored to have this opportunity to give a sermon on Yom Kippur. Today I will speak of the significance of teshuvah, both personally and with respect to our congregation, and its relationship to lifelong Jewish learning.

Teshuvah, commonly translated as repentance, actually comes from the Hebrew root, SHIN-VAV-BET, to turn or return. That implies that we turn from our previous path, and go forward in a new direction, returning to our origins, to our Creator. It presupposes that we have been here before - and perhaps have lost our way, or followed false trails that lead us astray. Teshuvah also underscores the human impulse to change, to correct, to find new ways of being whenever we choose. As such, teshuvah is a very hopeful concept. It reminds us that we can meet new challenges and take charge of our lives.

Yom Kippur, with its demands of fasting, its inward focus, its stillness and apartness, is an opportunity for "taking a Well Day," for contemplation and renewal. What a luxury to set aside one day a year for serious and meaningful self-analysis, for review of our actions, goals and hopes - to plan for the future.

Known as the Sabbath of Sabbaths, Yom Kippur calls for that same suspension of time, as it were, that we inhabit on Shabbat. The difference is that today we spend all day in prayer, within the confines of our Temple, with our community. We all stand together. We often "miss the mark" - we are not sinful or evil according to our tradition - but we don't live up to the best that we can be...I don't have to be the best president or writer or wife or mother, but ONLY to be the best that I can be.

Just as we ask God for forgiveness, we ask those we may have harmed, even inadvertently, for their forgiveness. If I have hurt or offended any one of you during this past year, I humbly ask that you pardon me.

We are also called to grant pardon to those who ask it of us. Such a task demands humility. We are forced to acknowledge our own stake in that relationship and our own part in its success or failure. For just as we must do our share in creating and strengthening our relationship with God, so we must with each other.

What does it mean to have to approach another to seek forgiveness?

To let go of slights or hurts?

We are forced to look anew at our lives and what is truly important.

Why are we here? What is our purpose? Do our actions in the world matter?

How much time do we have to accomplish our purpose?

When we are gone, what will we leave as our legacy?

How do we treat each other? Do we speak and act respectfully, carefully, with kindness and compassion?

As an am kadosh, a holy people, do we see ourselves and others as created b'tzelem elohim, in the image of God? How we treat the waiter or the secretary or the day laborer, is every bit as important as the way we treat our corporate executives, our Senators, and our wealthy patrons, for all share a spark of the divine. Each makes his or her own unique contribution to the world, and is deserving of respect. John Gardner said it best: "...a society that scorns excellence in its plumbers and accepts shoddiness in its philosophers is in danger of extinction, because neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."

Our ability to turn - from thoughtless or hurtful acts - and change - defies the natural world. The linear nature of time, its irreversibility, is undone - and as our rabbis tell us, "...the repentant person willingly turns and rejoins human will with divine acceptance."

We can "go home again." Freed of restraints, we are able to seek creative solutions, standing a problem on its head. "Do not pray for the death of sinners," the 2nd c. Talmudic scholar Beruriah told her husband, Meir. "Pray for their turning from their sinful acts." Beruriah was wise enough to separate the deed from the doer, behavior from Being.

Turning and returning for me is about reconnecting to Torah as a Reform Jew....About making informed decisions: to refrain from my writing and editing work or answering E-mail on Shabbat; to wear a kippah on the bimah; to celebrate the festival holidays, to learn to read a Torah portion; to work in the community, to give tzedakah as I am able.

I have learned much over the years, in study with our rabbis, with many of you, and through my personal explorations. Study has been my anchor to Judaism, helping me to reaffirm some of what I had previously rejected.

I have struggled with the ambiguity, the empty spaces in Torah, the limits of knowing...I doubted myself, I doubted God, I sought answers and found only more questions. I searched in the texts for my stories, for the hopes and fears and voices of other women. Often I have found only shadows and whispers. Yet for me, the proof is in the questions that I feel compelled to ask. The more I learn, the more I see how much more I need to learn.

My vision for this congregation is to turn and return - to lifelong learning - to the study of Torah. How? By becoming a congregation of learners and teachers: listening to and giving lectures, participating in discussions, singing Hebrew songs, making art, and cooking foods, perhaps to learn Jewish geography. I envision multisensory and multimedia learning, happening in ways that we have not yet even begun to invent. To this end, we have organized a dynamic Adult Jewish Growth Committee, under the very able leadership of Gayle Kipp and Dr. Michael Stern. I envision us gathering on Shabbat, on the weekends, perhaps even one night a week, to partake of a virtual smorgasboard of educational opportunities - many groups, many topics, happening simultaneously. I envision our learning from each other, as well as our rabbis. From the beginner to the scholar, all will indulge in the bounty of Torah.

From Mishnah Pei-ah 1:1, in Gates of Prayer, we read: "These are the obligations without measure, whose reward, too, is without measure:

To honor father and mother;

to perform acts of love and kindness;

to attend the house of study daily;

to welcome the stranger;

to visit the sick;

to rejoice with bride and groom;

to console the bereaved;

to pray with sincerity;

to make peace when there is strife.

V'talmud torah k'neged kulam... And the study of Torah is equal to them all, because it leads to them all."

Torah is Etz chayim, a tree of life. I envision a congregation of lifelong learners who begin the cycle of Torah readings each year because the stories, although always the same, are never seen in the same light. Torah is a blueprint for right action, a guide to living well. It is filled with cautionary tales, sweeping epics and grand personages. Its stories can be exasperating and exhilarating. We can embrace and reject its tales, often reading the same story in a different way. Torah is unchanging, yet never the same. That is the exquisite paradox of Torah.

I envision an army of adult Hebrew readers among us, not transliteration readers. The intent of transliteration may be to allow people to participate easily, to be more inclusive, but it actually robs the reader of the richness and beauty of our holy language. Transliteration is the karaoke of Judaism. It is sound without substance. It discounts the intelligence of adults who surely have the ability to learn as much and as well, as our children do. Come to Shabbat morning services in the next two weeks on Sukkot and Simchat Torah - and see the men and women of our congregation - ranging in age from their 30s to their 70s - who have learned Hebrew in order to become Bar and Bat Mitzvah.

All of us are capable adult learners. In adulthood I have learned to read music, play a piano, knit a sweater, fly an airplane, sail a boat and read from the Torah scroll. None of it was easy. Some I do better than others; all require repetition for proficiency. Like playing a sport or a musical instrument, Jewish literacy requires practice. Use it or lose it. I have no doubt that each of us in this congregation has the ability to acquire Jewish literacy. We must hone our skills with frequent, if not daily, use. The facility and comfort that comes with mastery of any task is earned only through devoted and constant exercise. I hope you will join me in that effort.

Reform Judaism demands much of us. We are called upon to choose our faith and practices from knowledge, not from ignorance. Not practicing ritual by rote. Not as default Jews, in name only. Not doing something because it has always been done that way. Without the ability to change, we stagnate.

Reform Jews are called upon to make choices, based on questioning (or what Rabbi Arthur Waskow calls "God-wrestling"). We are called to "choose life that we may live." And we take to heart the words of Deuteronomy, that "..(Torah) is not beyond your reach... (neither in the heavens nor beyond the sea)...but " ...very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart to observe it." Torah is not - and has never been - the province of an elite few. It does not belong only to the rabbis - we are all heirs to a tradition revealed to every generation. Clergy and laity must join together in a sacred partnership, to learn and to do.

We are part of a dynamic faith not a static tradition, which speaks to our particular needs of time and place. Change, as a hallmark of our tradition, began with the destruction of the Temple and the end of sacrifices, and the transforming importance of communal prayer and scholarship. That is the secret of our survival: that we adapt. That each generation reinterprets, reevaluates, reincorporates what we have been given - AND WE MAKE IT OUR OWN, not for convenience, but from conviction and commitment.

This holy day, with its message of turning and returning, has great significance for Temple Beth-El ...as a vibrant congregation, blessed with outstanding members, dedicated lay leaders and past presidents, 1250 families strong, in its 128th year of existence, about to re-enter our renovated and enlarged 60,000 sq. ft. building in just a few months. Today heralds what we will "be about" in the coming months and years. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner said it best: "If synagogues were businesses, their product would be Jews. The more Jews they could manufacture ...the more successful they would be." That (to continue the metaphor) is the bottom line.

"Jews need one another and therefore congregations to do primary religious acts...which are the only way we have of growing as Jews...the three ancient kinds of primary Jewish acts (are) communal prayer, holy study and good works, or in the classical language of Pirke Avot: avodah, torah and gemilut hasadim."

That is my vision for Temple Beth-El: producing literate, committed, self-aware Jews, dwelling in "a sacred space...(where) the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, (will) dwell among us."

When we hear the shofar blown at the conclusion of this day, let us remember that sound as a call to action. That as we go forth from prayer and reconciliation, we must do our part to keep our heritage alive. That we take on the responsibilities to study and to do, renewed in our commitment to Judaism, to learn throughout our lives.

May we know the irony of teshuvah: that we may go forward, while turning back to God. That we may make the old new: chadash yameinu k'kedem, not by discarding but by renewing.

May we go forth, humbled by our fast and our human imperfections, yet fearless in our desire to grow and change.

May we go forth from this Day of Atonement, and find the joy of at-one-ment with God.

And may we seek and find abundant nourishment and sustenance for our souls - in each other, in the study of Torah and in this sacred congregation, our beloved Temple Beth-El.

AMEN.

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