Rabbi Melissa Crespy conducted our parallel services for the High Holidays. Rabbi Crespy graduated from McGill University and received an MBA degree from New York University. She studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, where she was ordained. She was an assistant Rabbi at Park Avenue Synagogue in New York and is currently a rabbinic fellow at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Below is her sermon for Rosh Hashana 5767

A beautiful passage from the prophet Jeremiah, which we read on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, tells us: ³Thus says the Lord: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted because they are no more. Thus says the Lord: Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for your work shall be rewarded, says the Lord. Your children will come back from the land of the enemy. And there is hope for your future, says the Lord. Your children shall return to their own land.²

We have been witness to this miracle of return. We have seen thousands upon thousands of Jews return to the land of their ancestors. We are fortunate to live in a time when the State of Israel is a reality - and not only a reality, but a strong and vibrant nation.

It¹s important for us - in the midst of our anguish about Israel¹s safety and political stability - not to forget the miracle of the existence of the State of Israel and its many blessings. We need to know and remind ourselves of the riches which Israel brings to us, so that we can better understand her and our relationship to each other. Let me just name a few of Israel¹s riches:

Israel gives us an enormous sense of history. Anyone who has set foot on Israeli soil cannot help but be impressed by the breadth and depth of Jewish history that Israel contains in its hills, wadis, caves and plains. Less than an hour after leaving Ben Gurion airport, you reach the beautiful, white-stoned city of Jerusalem, where you can discover the remains of the City of King David, where you can explore Hasmonean houses and where you can daven before the Herodian western retaining wall of the Temple. Less than an hour outside Jerusalem, in the hot Judean desert, you reach Qumran, where some 2000 years ago a group of separatist Jews formed a community seeking intense purity and escape from the corruption of the city. We know of their lives and their studies from the Dead Sea Scrolls - but in Israel you can visit the place where they walked, ate, slept and wrote. And just three hours to the north of Jerusalem, you can walk on the sloping hills and visit the old synagogues of Tsfat, a city once filled with law scholars and mystics, an enchanting city which inspired Rabbi Shlomo Alkebetz to write the beautiful poem L¹chah Dodi - which we love to sing on Friday evenings. I cannot overemphasize the power that history holds in Israel. It greets us everywhere we turn. This history is intensely personal because it is our history - the history of the Jewish people, the history we have been nurtured on for hundreds and hundreds of years. It is amazingly powerful. It is one of the riches which Israel gives to us.

In Israel, the rhythm of daily life is Jewish. You never have to worry about what day of the week the holidays fall on - because you always have them off. That is to say that Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, Pesah and Shavuot are legal holidays in Israel. Businesses are closed. Buses either stop or slow down. Extra buses are added on the eve of holidays so families can be together for them. On Sukkot, you see many people in the street carrying their lulav and etrog, and its seems that every other balcony has a sukkah built on it. Saturday is the official day off during the week - not Sunday - and grocery stores sell fresh challahs right off the racks on Friday in preparation for Shabbat. You feel Shabbat in the air - especially in Jerusalem - as businesses close early on Friday, and people make their last minute purchases before the sun goes down.

All of this leads to one very powerful feeling, and that is this. In Israel, being Jewish is absolutely normal. There¹s no need to explain why you celebrate Rosh Hashanah, why you have to leave early on Friday afternoon, or why you can¹t eat a cheeseburger. It¹s not just understood, it¹s celebrated. And unlike the pictures we see on television, where Israel seems to be a huge minefield, most Israelis live their lives much like we do: they get on a bus, train or in their car and go to work. They are doctors, lawyers, store owners, teachers, scientists, street cleaners, government workers, home health aides. The existence of the State of Israel, with its rhythms of Jewish life, and its economic and social life, has given Israelis (and many other Jews) a sense of normalcy, a sense of confidence in themselves that our people have not experienced in hundreds and hundreds of years. That is another gift Israel gives to us.

Hebrew is another. In Israel, Hebrew is a living language. It is used in everyday speech, in newspapers, on television, in scholarly works, in prayerbooks, on packaged foods and on the garbage cans! A language used for hundreds of years only for prayer or study has been revivified and is in everyday use. Now, more than ever, because it is the official language of Israel - Hebrew ties Jews together throughout the world, not only through prayerbooks, but in songs and poetry and everyday speech.

Finally, Israel has provided the Jewish people of the world, wherever they come from, with a haven. Riding on a bus in Israel, the faces you see are from Yemen, Germany, Morocco, Britain, Iraq, the US, Iran, Poland. We have seen this ³haven² most recently with the influx of thousands upon thousands of Jews from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia. Anyone who has any sense of Jewish history knows how terribly important this is for our people. After centuries of persecutions, pogroms, exiles, ghettos, pales of settlement, inquisitions, blood libels, forced conversions, discriminatory legislation, and immmigration restrictions, the Jews have come back home. This has changed not only those who live in Israel, but us as well. We walk so much taller, and so much prouder today as Jews because we know the State of Israel exists. We walk self-confidently because we know, unlike our ancestors before us, that we have a country of our own, and can¹t be pushed around anymore. That, too, is a gift from the land of Israel.

There are many more. And I think it is important for us to remind ourselves of these gifts and riches that Israel has given us. We must not take Israel for granted, which I think, quite frankly, has happened with the younger generations of Jews - mine included. I grew up knowing songs about Israel, and some basic information from my Hebrew school classes. But it was not until I studied Jewish history in depth, especially medieval history, that I truly appreciated how the existence of Israel changed the Jewish world and how Jews see themselves.

We know that Israel has one of the best armies in the world, and we know that it has some of the best intelligence information in the world. Yet, this summer, we watched in anguish as Israel fought a war on two fronts - Gaza and Lebanon. We watched, as Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev - soldiers in the Israeli army - were kidnapped, and we grieved for them and their families. We watched as 4000 Katyusha rockets were fired at civilians in northern Israel and missiles hit as far as Haifa, Tsfat, and Tiberius from Hezbollah in Lebanon. Most of us had no idea that Hezbollah had that capacity and it was frightening. We watched as Hamas and other Palestinian groups sent rocket after rocket into Sderot and the surrounding area in the western Negev. More than half a million Israelis left their homes and workplaces to avoid being killed by the rockets and missiles. They stayed in kibbutzim, moshavim, vacant schools, a mini-tent city, hotels, and with friends, relatives and kind strangers in the central or southern part of the country. Many could not leave northern Israel - especially the elderly, the sick and the poor. They spent a month living in hot, crowded bomb shelters, where the toilets were often backed up and the odor of sweat and urine filled the air.

115 Israeli soldiers died in this war, some of them known to our Conservative community. 30 Israeli civilians also died, and the psychological toll on the affected population has been devastating. An article in the Sept. 18 issue of the Jerusalem Report states that the Education Ministry¹s Psychological Service estimated that over 22,000 children will exhibit varying symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), ³such as hindered sleep and concentration to pronounced anxiety, severe irritability and emotional outbursts - long after ostensibly settling back into a normal routine.² (P. 19) Another organization estimates that around 6000 children who remained in the north under missile fire ³are plagued by the syndrome in its acute form: anxiety so extreme that they are terrified of leaving their homes.² (P. 19)

For some, there are no homes to go back to, or they are badly damaged and not livable. Many businesses were hit, and the small businesses, especially, are at the most risk of having to close down, even if they get timely help from the government, which is not likely. The economy of the north of Israel has been devastated.

But perhaps the scariest part of this war is spelled out by Rabbi Gordon Tucker, spiritual leader of Temple Israel of White Plains, New York. He writes: ³We have had confirmed for us in this summer¹s battles the most melancholy fact that this is not primarily a dispute over territory. The total withdrawals from Gaza and Lebanon have made that abundantly clear. It is, rather, about the fact that these brothers and sisters of ours are Jews. We don¹t want to face it, and yet we must face it, for we have learned too much in the year 5766 to deny the fact that the lives of our brothers and sisters in the Land of Israel are being made hard because they are Jews. (Sermon on Solidarity with our Israeli sibs - Sept. 2006)

In other words, if my paternal Sephardi grandparents and my maternal Ashkenazi great-grandparents had immigrated to Israel instead of to the United States, I would have been targeted along with all the other Jews in the land of Israel - even if I lived outside the West Bank. ³For² Rabbi Tucker goes on to say, ³it is a sad truth that all the important debates about borders, about settlements, about Jerusalem, about access to water and other resources - all of these debates presume something that has not yet been conceded anywhere in the Arab body politic, now 89 years after the Balfour Declaration. And that is that there will be a Jewish state in the Middle East. Even one the size of this Bimah! ²

There is a Jewish state in the Middle East, and it is a state that we can be proud of in so many ways. But our brothers and sisters there are suffering now and it is our responsibility to help them in any way we can. Let us call our family and friends in Israel, to let them know we care. Let us send letters and packages to soldiers. This might be especially meaningful for children to do. Let us visit Israel, especially now. Larry and I hope to visit in December, with our children. And above all, let us help ease the burden of our brothers and sisters in Israel by contributing generously to those whose lives are so hard right now. Let us help them rebuid their home, their towns and their cities. Let us help them to get proper nourishment. Let us help them to heal, physically and psychologically, and let us help heal their innocent children.

Let us pray for peace, and let us work to create peace, but right now, with our children are watching us, let us act decisively to help our sisters and brothers in the Land and State of Israel.