2026 High Holiday Sermons

1st Day Rosh Hashana 5787 2026
LeDor v’Dor Part 1
Two older ladies are discussing their grandchildren. The first lady says, “I have five grandchildren. Every year for their birthday and for Hanukkah, I send each grandchild a nice check. But they never thank me, they never come to visit, they never call.” The second lady says, “I also have five grandchildren. Each year for their birthday and for Hanukkah, I send each grandchild a nice check. Within a day, they all come to see me.” The first grandmother says, “That is amazing. How do you manage that?” The second grandmother responds, “It is simple. I don’t sign the checks.”
On this Rosh Hashana, I am thinking about being a grandson. And I am thinking about being a grandfather. What raised the issue in my mind is how many people lack basic information about their grandparents. It happens on a regular basis. I officiate at a bris or baby naming. The family says they want to name the baby after their grandfather or their grandmother. I say, “Beautiful. What was his or her Hebrew name?” They have no idea. Nobody in the family knows. Having experienced this countless times, I put together a list for my own family. I called it Five Generations.
My list began with our grandparents. Then I put our parents. Then Evelyn and I with our siblings. Then our children, including spouses and my son’s fiancée. Finally, I put our grandchildren. I gathered as much information as I could: Hebrew names, birthdays, anniversaries, and for those no longer with us, yahrzeits. It was all the information my children would ever need. I looked at the sheet and there were five generations. It went from our grandparents to our parents to us to our children to our grandchildren. It was a perfect example of what we say in our daily prayers, ledor vedor “from generation to generation.”
There is something deeply important about this. Other religions speak about individual salvation. People ask, will you get to heaven? The great scientist Galileo was put under house arrest by the Church for teaching that the sun goes around the earth. When asked about his views regarding science and religion, he famously replied, “The Bible teaches how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.” Christian preachers will often give a sermon asking the question, “Will you get to heaven?”
I have never seen a rabbi give a sermon called “Will you get to heaven?” That is not the concern of Judaism. In Judaism, salvation takes place in this world. And it takes place over the course of generations. The goal is to create heaven on earth. Each generation takes part in that salvation, then passes the torch to the next generation. Judaism is about generations. That is why grandparents are so important. And that is why grandchildren are so important. That is why we pray LeDor v’Dor, “from generation to generation.”
My grandparents and even my parents are long gone. But let me share some thoughts and memories about our grandparents. Unfortunately, I never met my wife’s grandparents. Evelyn’s grandmother was supposed to come to our wedding. She even bought a dress. She was so excited about her granddaughter’s wedding. Then, one week before the wedding date, she died. The first time I ever set foot in the state of Florida was to fly down and perform a funeral for my wife’s grandmother. I was newly ordained and quite inexperienced at funerals.
For the funeral, I arrived at the chapel well before the service. The funeral director was speaking to the cemetery in Miami. They told him, this is an Orthodox cemetery. Only Orthodox rabbis can conduct services here. The funeral director looked at me. “He is wearing a black suit and has a beard. He is Orthodox.” I conducted the funeral. But having never met her, in person, I never heard from her mouth the stories of her fleeing Eastern Europe for Cuba as a young woman, learning Spanish, building life in a new country, then coming to America, learning English, and building life in still another country. I am sure the stories would have been wonderful. To be a grandparent is to share your stories. And to be a Jewish grandparent is to share the stories of the Jews, a people who are always wondering from place to place.
Evelyn never knew her grandfather, her grandmother’s husband. He died in Cuba. But we had a deeply moving experience. Evelyn and I, together with her cousins, spent less than 24 hours in Havana, Cuba. We went on a Friday so we could attend services at the Conservative synagogue Friday night. But it helps to be a rabbi and know people. I called someone who knew someone, and we were able to get permission to visit the Jewish cemetery in Havana. The non-Jewish caretaker opened it for us and showed us where Evelyn’s grandfather is buried. Of course we slipped him a few dollars. We said a prayer, put a stone on the grave, and spoke about what life was like for Jewish immigrants in Cuba. He earned his living in Havana as a baker. Grandparents give us memories.
I keep thinking of my own grandparents. My dad’s parents moved from Detroit to a tiny community in Arizona when I was a child. The community was called Circle City, named for the Workman’s Circle. Like many Jews of that generation, they were socialists. For family trips to Arizona, my parents bought my brothers and me these bright red sweaters. They said that if we wander off into the desert, they could easily see us from a distance. Of course, Circle City was unbearably hot. I remember their home, filled with piles of Yiddish newspapers.
On a trip to Phoenix a few years ago, I drove out to Circle City. I wanted to see if I could find my grandparents’ home. The homes all looked alike. But what was fascinating was that all the streets in Circle City were named after Jewish and non-Jewish socialists – Debs Circle, Peretz Circle, Reizen Drive, Claessens Drive, Gompers Circle. And everybody we saw in the community was Spanish speaking, probably from Mexico. Did these Mexican immigrants know who these Jewish socialists were on the names of their streets? I realized walking around that grandparents give us memories. It was a memory of Yiddish speaking, socialist Jews, who supported the Workman’s Circle.
The grandparents I really knew were my mother’s parents who lived in Los Angeles. We saw them regularly, particularly on Jewish holidays, Rosh Hashana and Passover. I have so many memories as a child of my grandfather conducting overly long, totally Hebrew seders. But they had gifts for us if we found the afikomen. I think about what we learned from our grandparents. Let me give a quick example. My parents did not keep kosher. They believed that children need milk, so they gave us milk with every meal, even chicken or meat. But when I ate at my grandparents’ home, we were not allowed to drink milk. We drank seltzer with cherry or raspberry flavoring, a real treat. Only years later did I learn why my grandmother would not allow milk with a meat meal.
My grandparents kept a kosher home. To this day my wife and I use my grandmother’s Passover depression era glass dishes. My grandparents gave me Jewish memories. That is part of the role of Jewish grandparents. Give your grandchildren Jewish memories. My grandfather died when I was in college, but my grandmother lived well into her nineties. I am thrilled that before we were married, my wife got to meet her.
But let me move to the next generation – my parents. I grew up in Los Angeles to strict Jewish parents. They were not strict in an Orthodox sense, but with old-fashioned Jewish values. I had to get good grades and go to a good college. I had to be there for High Holiday services and Passover seders. And vital to my parents, I had to only date Jewish girls. My parents were thrilled when I married Evelyn. But perhaps the greatest gift we gave my parents was when we made them grandparents. Their goal in life became spoiling my children.
When my children were young, we lived in Pittsburgh, and then we moved to Florida. During those Pittsburgh days I have such memories of my parents showing up with two suitcases – one filled with clothing and the other filled with toys. My young children could not wait for their grandparents to come with all those toys.
Of course, grandparents are the best babysitters. Let me share a memory. We had a young son and daughter at the time; our youngest son was not born yet. Evelyn and I had a chance to take a dream vacation, driving thought Alaska. And so my parents came from Los Angeles, we flew to Anchorage and rented a car, driving from Anchorage to Denali to Fairbanks to Valdez to Homer. (Tom Boddett, of “We’ll leave the lights on for you” fame, wrote a book about his hometown of Homer, AK – As Far as You Can Get Without a Passport.) You have to understand, when we took this trip, there were no cellphones and there was no WiFi. We had to trust my parents.
At one point we arrived at a little store in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in the Alaska wilderness. There was one payphone, with a sign – “This is an isolated mountain community, and this is the only phone, with limited service. Do not monopolize it.” We called my parents collect. Remember calling “collect.” My father answered the phone. “We have a little problem. Your son was stung by a number of wasps. His hand swelled up. But don’t worry. We found the number of your pediatrician who came over. He is fine.” Who else could we leave our young children with while we went exploring the Alaska backcountry?
Judaism is about the link from generation to generation. There is a special connection between grandparents and grandchildren. We can joke about it. Dennis Prager humorously said that the link between grandparents and grandchildren is important, they have a common enemy. But seriously, grandparents have so much to teach us. They teach us stories. They give us memories. They show us traditions. They represent the past, where we came from. If parents discipline children, grandparents spoil grandchildren. The link from generation to generation, from grandparents to grandchildren, is vital.
Nonetheless, I am aware of something. We are not all blessed with memories of our grandparents. My father-in-law’s parents died in the Holocaust long before my wife was born. We know nothing about them except their names. And we are not all blessed with grandchildren. Some of us are not blessed with children. Some of us have lost children. Sometimes the chain from generation to generation stops with us.
But there is good news. You do not need to be a parent nor a grandparent to influence the younger generation. Sometimes we can be the link in the chain to the younger generation by being an uncle or aunt, a great uncle or great aunt. I know uncles and aunts who have been amazing role models for their nieces and nephews, great nieces and great nephews. Some people can become role models for other relatives such as cousins. Sometimes we can be a mentor to children though other relationships, being a teacher, a coach, a tutor, a bar mitzvah tutor, even a rabbi.
Now and again, I get a call that makes my day. A young person in their thirties calls me, perhaps to perform their wedding. They say, “Do you remember me. You officiated at my bar mitzvah, my bat mitzvah. You were such a positive influence on me.” Sometimes I remember them, but I confess, sometimes I do not. At one time I had over fifty bar/bat mitzvahs a year in my synagogue. Sometimes they will say, “I remember something you said in a sermon on Rosh Hashana twenty years ago.” And they will give me a beautiful, meaningful quote which changed their life. But I do not remember ever saying it. I suppose the lesson is that we often do not know the influence we can have on the younger generation.
The lesson is that we are all part of the chain of generations, whether or not we have children or grandchildren of our own. LeDor v’Dor applies to us. We are influenced by the generation that has passed. And we influence the generation that is coming. We are a link in a long chain. Through us, redemption takes place over the course of generations.
Having said that, my wife and I have been twice blessed. We have two grandchildren, who are growing up in a small town in South Carolina. Our grandson Judah is almost eleven. Our granddaughter Ariella just turned one. We do not see them as often as we would like, although I do thank God for technology. Facetime is wonderful. But we do visit. I often wonder what our grandson’s classmates in South Carolina think when he says, bubbie and zaydie are coming to visit. They do not use a lot of Yiddish words in Clover, South Carolina.
We sent them honey to be used on Rosh Hashana. This is the perfect time to speak about the chain of generations. Today I spoke about being a grandchild. Tomorrow, I want to speak about being a grandparent. But to hear those, you have to come back.
On behalf of Evelyn and myself and our families, may you be written for a good year in 5787, and let us say
Amen.

2nd Day Rosh Hashana 5787 2026
LeDor v’Dor Part 2
A little girl is sitting on her grandfather’s lap. She touches the rough, wrinkled skin on his face. “Grandpa, who made you?” The grandfather answers, “God made me.” Then she touches the nice smooth skin on her own face. “Grandpa, who made me.” “God made you.” She thought for a moment. “God is getting better at it, isn’t He?”
Do things get better over the course of generations? A book that deeply influenced my thinking was written by a non-Jew, a scholar named Thomas Cahill. He wrote an extremely important book called The Gifts of the Jews. The heart of his book is that the Bible and ultimately Judaism gave the world a new way to see life. Before the Bible, the world was pagan. For the pagans, life is a great cycle. Nothing ever changes. Or to quote the book of Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes also says, “The crooked cannot be made straight.” Everything that was in the past will be in future. The world never changes for the better. The philosopher Fredrich Nietzsche, deeply influenced by this ancient paganism, taught the idea of “eternal return.” Everything that was in the past will be in the future.
According to Cahill, along came the Jews and overturned this ancient pagan idea. The world is not caught in an eternal cycle. Everything is changing, moving forward, becoming better over the course of generations. Abraham is told to leave his home and his past for a new life in a new land, to move forward. To Cahill, the symbol of life is not the circle but a line. It is a world that is continually getting better. The theme is not simply LeDor v’Dor – “from generation to generation” nothing ever changes. It is from generation to generation, the world can be perfected. My grandparents had to fear diseases that my grandchildren will never know. My grandparents knew a level of poverty that I pray my grandchildren will never know. My grandparents shared a party line with someone else on the telephone; my grandchildren are getting personal cellphones at a very young age. Certainly, the world remains imperfect. But Judaism teaches that over the course of generations, the world does become better.
Yesterday I spoke about the chain of generations, LeDor v’Dor from generation to generation, from grandparents to parents to us to children to grandchildren. In Judaism it is a sacred chain. I spoke of five generations in my family. Some of us are lucky enough to have known six or more generations. We may remember great grandparents. And we may be privileged to have great grandchildren. I spoke to a colleague, my age, who was travelling to Israel for his great granddaughter’s wedding. That is amazing.
But I also spoke about people who have no grandchildren or even no children. What do we do if the chain of generations is broken? There are answers. The Rabbis of the Talmud teach that there is more than one way to keep the commandment “to be fruitful and multiply.” Some people keep the commandment when they have children. But some people keep the commandment through their deeds. Their deeds become their children. And through good deeds, they influence the next generation.
As I said yesterday, my wife and I are blessed with two grandchildren who live in Clover, South Carolina. We do not visit often enough. But when we visit, there is one thing we always try to do. Believe it or not, we can buy kosher meat in South Carolina – thank you, Trader Joe’s. But the availability is uneven. We want to make a kosher Shabbat meat dinner. What do we do? We freeze a block of meat, sometimes as much as five pounds, wrap it in a towel, pack it in a suitcase, and check it at the airport. The airlines allow only fifty pounds; what if one tenth of that weight is frozen meat? It would be a mess if our suitcase was lost, but so far we have been lucky.
On Friday night, we make a Shabbat meal. We light candles, make kiddush, bless the challah (the local Publix carries challahs, I guess there are Jews everywhere), and have a traditional Shabbat dinner. I bless my grandchildren. Why? We want to give our grandchildren Jewish memories. They know that when we come, Friday night is special. (In fairness, my daughter will often make a Shabbat dinner even if we are not there. But there is something special about associating a Shabbat dinner with Bubbie and Zayde.)
As I mentioned yesterday, Jewish grandparents can give their grandchildren memories. They can give them stories. They can give them experiences. Sociologist Steven M. Cohen, an expert on Jewish continuity, speaks of another gift Jewish grandparents can give their grandchildren. Jewish education is expensive. Synagogue membership, Hebrew Day Schools, Jewish camps, and trips to Israel are expensive. Our children struggle with expenses. And I am aware that not all grandparents have the means. But Cohen says that if they are in a financial position to do so, grandparents ought to pick up part of the expense of a Jewish education for their grandchildren. Over the years, I have seen many children get a Jewish education only because their grandparents picked up at least part of the tab.
Let me share some other joys of being a grandfather. I have been at hundreds of brises over the course of my career. But at my grandson’s bris, I had a first ever experience. I was invited to be the Sandek, the one who holds the baby during the circumcision. It was a huge honor. For my granddaughter, since she was adopted, we had to arrange a mikvah or formal immersion in a ritual bath. I spoke to the local rabbi in Charlotte, NC. “I know you need three rabbis, or at least three rabbis or cantors for a beit din, the court of three you need for a conversion. I can be one of the rabbis.” The rabbi had a clear answer for me. “You are not to be part of the beit din. You are not here as a rabbi. You are here as a grandfather.” It was a wonderful moment. Of course, as a grandfather, I also wrote the donation check for the mikvah.
Many times, I have been invited to teach in the Sunday school at the tiny Reform synagogue in South Carolina where my grandson goes. In fact, they have asked me to come more regularly. It was a joy to have my grandson in the class. Let me share one story. It was late Spring, a few days before the Jewish festival of Shavuot. None of these Jewish children growing up in small town South Carolina had ever heard of Shavuot. I tried to explain the holiday – the giving of the Torah, standing at Mt. Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, the story of the book of Ruth. Then I said that we eat dairy on the festival, they should try to eat cheese blintzes. They looked at me with blank faces. Not one of these children knew what a cheese blintz was. I tried, but then the regular teacher told the class, “It is like a cheese quesadilla.” That they knew about. That year, in South Carolina there are a bunch of Jewish children who ate cheese quesadillas on Shavuot. (By the way, I did find a package of frozen cheese blintzes at the local Publix. I suppose it was not a best seller there.)
These stories raise an important issue in Jewish law. We all know that it is a mitzvah to teach the Torah to our children. We say in the Sh’ma, v’shinantam l’vanecha, “you shall teach them diligently to your children.” Is it a mitzvah to teach Torah to our grandchildren? The Rabbis argue about this. But in the end, they rule that it is a mitzvah. They illustrate it with a Talmudic story (Kiddushin 30a). Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba saw one of his colleagues Rabbi Joshua ben Levi walking outside with his grandson, still wearing his sleep clothes. Today we would say that he saw him wearing pajamas. Rabbi Hiyya was surprised. Rabbi Joshua answered that he did not have time to get dressed in the morning because he was hurrying to take his gramdson to synagogue to learn Torah. At that point Rabbi Hiyya made a vow. He would not eat breakfast in the morning until he first brought his grandson for Torah lessons.
You do not have to wear pajamas to take your grandchildren to religious school. But it is a great mitzvah to make sure they go to religious school. Having said that, it is important to point out that there is a major difference between being a parent and being a grandparent. Some grandparents have difficulty respecting these very different roles. Parents have responsibility for the day-to-day reality of raising children. They wake children up, make sure they have clean clothes, prepare breakfast, pack a lunch, bring them to school, help with homework, set up playdates, drive to lessons, sports, doctor appointments, Hebrew school, make dinner, and put children to bed. It is an exhausting, time-consuming job. Evelyn and I know; we raised three children.
Sometimes grandparents by necessity have to do the same job. Many children are being raised by their grandparents. But in general, it is important that grandparents realize this is not their role. In most cases grandparents are not responsible for the day-to-day details of raising children. Sometimes grandparents get in trouble because they interfere in areas that should not involve them. It is not our job to worry about our grandchildren’s doctor appointments or play dates. That is why they have parents. Our children signed up our grandson to play tackle football. Do I love the idea? No. But I have no say? It is their choice.
Our grandson says that perhaps one day he will play football for the NFL. It is a nice dream. I keep thinking of the true story of the Jewish football player Sid Luckman who played for the Chicago Bears. One game he invited his immigrant parents to sit on the bench. He was being chased by defenders when he heard his mom stand up and shout, “Sid, give them the ball. We’ll buy you another one.”
As grandparents, we do not have a say over the details of how our children are raising our grandchildren. But that allows us to step back and take a broader view. We can see our grandchildren as one more link in that holy chain that began with our own grandparents. For Evelyn, her grandparents came from Eastern Europe by way of Cuba to Brooklyn. For me, my grandparents came from Eastern Europe to Detroit and then to California and Arizona. Evelyn and I had a cross-country relationship, a boy from Los Angeles married a girl from Brooklyn. Our children grew up in New York, Pittsburgh, and finally South Florida. My grandchildren are growing up in Clover, South Carolina. Even in this small southern town, there is Jewish life.
Judaism is how redemption takes place over the course of generations, LeDor v’Dor, “from generation to generation.” The places have changed but the stories, the traditions, and the experiences continue. We can only pray, may the chain be unbroken.
On this Rosh Hashana, we all ought to think about how we are part of an unbroken chain. If we are lucky enough to have known our grandparents and maybe great grandparents, what did we learn from them? If we are lucky enough to have grandchildren and maybe great grandchildren, what can we teach them? May God keep the chain of tradition intact as, over the course of generations, so we can perfect this world as a kingdom of God.
And let us say, Amen.

Kol Nidre 5787 2026
Jonah
Imagine you are on Jeopardy. The category is Old Stories. You believe this category should be easy; you know old stories. So you bet most of your money. In Jeopardy, they give you the answer and you must come up with the question. The answer, “The earliest story where he is swallowed by a whale or giant fish.” You know the question. You have been to enough Disney Movies. So you confidently write, “Who is Pinocchio?” Great question. But you get it wrong. The proper question, “Who is Jonah?”
The story of Jonah swallowed by the whale is one of the most famous in the Hebrew Bible. And we will read it tomorrow afternoon. In fact, every synagogue in the world will chant the book of Jonah on Yom Kippur afternoon. In many synagogues, particularly Chabad and other Orthodox shules, people bid for honors. They often pay huge amounts of money for a major honor. What is traditionally considered the biggest honor? It is chanting the book of Jonah on Yom Kippur afternoon. A local synagogue near us has a recommended minimum bid to chant Jonah of $10,000. People bid that much because they believe that this honor will give them a year of flourishing.
What is the book of Jonah all about? Jonah is the reluctant prophet. He is a man told by God to prophesize to the city of Ninevah – the city must change its ways. Jonah does not want to prophesize to Ninevah. If Ninevah changes, God will forgive them. Jonah believes they deserve punishment. He wants Ninevah to get their just desserts. So, Jonah flees on a boat to Tarshish. A huge storm threatens to sink the boat. When his fellow sailors learn that Jonah is fleeing his mission, they throw him overboard. Then comes the famous part of the story. A whale, or perhaps a giant fish, swallows Jonah. To quote a song from Porgy and Bess, “O Jonah he lived in a whale, he laid his home in that fish’s abdomen.” From the bowels of the fish, Jonah prays to God to save him. And the fish spits him out near Ninevah.
Now Jonah has no choice. He must obey God. He preaches to Ninevah to change its ways, and the city listens. The city changes and God forgives them. Ninevah is saved. But Jonah is angry. God causes a plant to grow, a Ricinus, to keep give him shade from the heat. I do not know much about plants, but I hear a Ricinus is highly toxic. But Jonah loves his plant. Then God causes the plant to die. Jonah cries out. And God responds, you care more about a plant which is here today and gone tomorrow, rather than this city of more than one hundred thousand people.
Why do we read this wonderful book on Yom Kippur? Of course, it is the story of a reluctant prophet who fled rather than perform God’s will. But perhaps most important, it is the story of an entire city that changes its ways. It is a city filled with evil people who become good people overnight. It is a story at the heart of Yom Kippur. People can change. Not simply individual people, but an entire community can change.
Can an entire community change? Let me give some examples. I will start with the Catholic Church. For generations, the Church hated Jews. But then a transformation began to take place. Then in 1986, Pope John Paul II visited the Great Synagogue in Rome together with Rabbi Elio Toaff. The Pope condemned antisemitism and rejected any claim that the Jews were responsible for Jesus’s death. It was a major change, a new era in the relationship between Catholics and Jews.
I experienced the old Catholic way of seeing Jews directly. In 1984 I moved to Pittsburgh, PA to become the rabbi of a wonderful synagogue. The local houses of worship held a joint worship service of gratitude the evening before Thanksgiving. That year the service was held in the local Catholic Church, run by an old school priest. As the new clergy in town, I was invited to give the homily, the sermon that evening. When the old priest learned that a rabbi was speaking, he rescinded the offer. No rabbi would speak in his church. The priest spoke instead. I received more apologies from more Christian clergy that night and was invited to speak one year later. That priest retired. Today that Church would have no problem inviting a rabbi to speak. The Catholic Church, and much of Christianity, has changed its ways.
You might say, that is fine for Christians. What about Muslims? Can Islam ever change? Let me remind you of a bit of history. The darkest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust was October 7, 2023, a day of murder, rape, and kidnapping. The evil was done by Hamas, but Hamas was controlled by Iran. Why did Iran pick that time to attack Israel? If you recall, Israel had signed the Abraham Accords with a number of Muslim nations, recognizing the right of Israel to exist. Israel was about to sign an accord with Saudi Arabia, perhaps the wealthiest and most powerful Muslim nation. Iran is the bitter enemy of both Israel and Saudi Arabia, and perhaps we can say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But the attack by Hamas put a stop to the Abraham Accord between Israel and Saudi Arabia. It caused a horrific delay in a reconciliation between a Jewish and a Muslim nation. But I am sure the Abraham Accords will probably go ahead.
Can there be any reconciliation between Jews and Muslims. I am not speaking of the Muslims who attack synagogues yelling Allahu Akhbar, “God is Great.” I am talking about the average Muslim who practices his or her religion and wants to live at peace with Jewish neighbors. During Ramadan, Muslims fast by day and gather for an Iftar or evening meal at night. A few years ago, I was invited by a group of Muslims to join them for the meal and speak at the gathering. It was a beautiful evening of peace between two religions. I have been invited by both Christian and Muslims to speak. I have also spoken to other groups, including Buddhists and Mormons. That would have been unthinkable a few generations ago. But people, and whole communities can change for the better.
But that brings me to the Jew hatred and Israel hatred that is happening today. It is happening on the left and it is happening on the right. Is there any hope? Can things ever change? Let us look at each, the hatred from the progressive left and the hatred from the reactionary right.
On the left, Israel including any Jews who support Israel, are condemned. Today, the only way for a Jew to be accepted by the progressive left is by declaring themselves an anti-Zionist. And this is precisely what many young Jews, including some who grew up in my synagogue, are doing. So we have young Jews who gather on a college campus for some kind of quasi-Passover seder, where the theme is not freedom of the Israelites from their Egyptian taskmasters but rather, freedom of the Palestinians from the Israelis. The Jewish Voice for Peace calls their seder “The Exodus from Zionism.” These seders do not end with the words l’shana haba’ah bYirushalyim “Next year in Jerusalem.”
What is the narrative of the progressive left? It has roots in the works of Karl Marx, whose grandfather was an Orthodox rabbi. Marx saw the world divided between the oppressors and the oppressed. For Marx, the oppressors were the bourgeoisie, the rich factory owners, and the oppressed were the proletariat, the poor factory workers. Today, the oppressors are those in power – whites, males, heterosexuals, Israelis. As a white Jewish heterosexual male, I am an oppressor. That is why I have been accused of “white privilege.” The oppressed are those out of power – blacks, females, homosexuals, Palestinians. It is a world view where the oppressors are always wrong and the oppressed are always right. For the oppressed Palestinians to rise up against the oppressor Israelis on October 7 was justified resistance.
It is a simplistic world view. Nonetheless, it is out there. Recently in New Jersey, the popular young singer Ed Sheeran held a concert. A rapper named Macklemore was the opening act. He came out in a keffiyeh and turned his performance into a Free Palestine, anti-Israel rally. Scores of Jews and Israelis walked out of the concert. Macklemore had a history of antisemitic antics in his performances, but Sheeran used him anyway. Jewish groups called on Sheeran to remove Macklemore as his opening act, but nothing happened. Finally, under pressure from the Jewish owner of the New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium, Robert Kraft, Sheeran removed Macklemore. If Macklemore was part of his act, Sheeran could not perform in Gillette Stadium. As of today, all the other opening acts and Sheeran’s own band have pulled out of the show in sympathy with Macklemore and the Palestinians. We will have to see what happens.
What about the reactionary right, the Tucker Carlsons of the world who hate Israel and do not particularly like Jews. Most of this group are white men but some are black women. Candace Owens who has labeled Israel as demonic and a cult nation. Then there are outright antisemites like Nick Fuentas with his following of young men who are Groypers who are white supremacists and Holocaust deniers. There is historian Darryl Cooper who blames Churchill, not Hitler, for World War II. What is the narrative of this far-right group?
To this group, there are good main-stream Americans who have been manipulated by a foreigners – Netanyahu, the Israeli government, and AIPAC, into a foreign war. Israel and Jews are controlling the American government including President Trump. To many in this group, Jews are seeking to replace good white Americans with foreigners, immigrants, and people of color. That is why Unite the Right Torch March in Charlottesville, VA chanted, “Jews will not replace us.” A young woman, a counterprotester, was killed in that March. That is why a man broke into Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, which had sponsored a HIAS Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society meeting, and killed eleven Jews in prayer.
Last week we commemorated the twenty-fifth anniversary of that horrible day on September 11, 2001. There are still those including Tucker Carlson who blame Israel for that day. They tell the story of what the call “Dancing Israelis,” a group of Israelis who watched the planes hit the buildings dancing and celebrating. The right claims they knew about the attack in advance, because it was planned not by Al Queda but by Israel. This group of Israelis was arrested and deported, but they had no foreknowledge of 9/11. But that does not matter to the conspiracy theorist of the right.
Yes, there is Jew hatred on the progressive left and Jew hatred on the reactionary right. How ought we to react? As God said to Jonah, we need to speak the truth. We need to speak out about Israel and those who would murder Israelis and Jews with the goal of destroying Israel. We need to remind the world that Israel has offered the Palestinians their own state in the West Bank and Gaza numerous times, and the Palestinians have refused. We need to remind the world of why Israel attacked Gaza and the hostages that were held there for nearly two years.
Many of you know that I like to mention a Broadway musical on these holidays. I already mentioned Porgy and Bess. Let me mention one of the greatest shows – Ragtime. The recent production on Broadway won the Tony Award for best revival. Its female star, Cassie Levy, won the Tony for best actress. She is a nice Jewish girl from Canada who went to Camp Ramah. And the powerful black singer Joshua Henry won the Tony for best actor. He played Coalhouse Walker Jr., a victim of racism and injustice.
Towards the end of the show, he sings one of the most powerful songs about injustice, “Make Them Hear You”. To quote a bit of the song, “Go out and tell our story, let it echo far and wide, make them hear you, make them hear you. How justice was our battle and justice was denied, make them hear you, make them you.” Why am I telling you this.? I did a bit of research on the song. In Jerusalem several years ago, before October 7 but while there were calls throughout the world for Israel to disappear, there was a rally in Jerusalem called Restoring Courage. The organizers invited a powerful black gospel singer named Alex Boyé who sang that song “Make Them Hear You” to this Israeli audience. He had that entire Israeli audience on their feet. You could watch the performance on You Tube. The power of the song made me think of Jonah and the power of words to change people’s hearts. We must continue to speak out about Judaism and Israel and “make them hear you.”
Tomorrow afternoon at our Mincha service we will read the book of Jonah. I hope you come and follow it; our Mahzor has an English translation. Let us read about the reluctant prophet, swallowed by a whale, who convinces an entire city to change its ways. Maybe we can convince the Jew haters among us to change their ways. May God help us in this effort.
And let us say, Amen.

Yizkor 5787 – 2026
Making a Person
There is a cute story of a prominent scientist who decides to confront God. “God, we humans do not need you anymore. We have computers, the internet, robots. We even have artificial intelligence. God, we are managing without you.” God answers back, “Can you do what I did in Genesis? Can you take the earth I made, shape it into body, blow into its nostrils, and make a man?” The scientist says, “God, I can do that. Watch me.” He bends down and starts to gather up some earth. God responds, “Wait a second. Go get your own earth.”
A human being creating a person is one of the oldest stories, both in Jewish tradition and Western folklore. The Talmud teaches about one of the great sages Rava, (Sanhedrin 65b) “Rava created a man and sent him to Rav Zeira. Rav Zeira tried to speak to the man, but he would not answer. Rav Zeira said, you are here by sorcery. Return to the dust.” This story in the Talmud became the basis of one of the most well-known traditions in Judaism, the Golem. The Golem was an artificial man created by Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague, using the mud of the Vlatava River. He created him to protect the Jewish community, using the Hebrew word Emet, “truth”, which is also one of God’s names. When Rabbi Judah realized that he could not control the man he created, he erased the first Hebrew letter aleph, leaving the word met which means dead. The Golem returned to the dust.
The story of creating an artificial man is also part of Greek legend. Pygmalion created an ivory statue of a woman and then fell in love with her. This Greek legend became the basis of the George Bernard Shaw play Pygmalion, about Professor Henry Higgins attempting to make a flower girl Eliza Doolittle into a lady. Shaw’s play then became the great Lerner and Loewe musical My Fair Lady. It was my parents’ favorite musical when I was a child, and I grew up listening to the original cast album. The Broadway show made a star of Julie Andrews who played Eliza Doolittle. When they made the movie, the producer felt she was not famous enough to star. Instead, they cast Audrey Hepburn in the lead with Marni Nixon singing the songs. But Julie Andrews did ok. That year she starred in a Walt Disney musical called Mary Poppins, winning the Oscar as best actress. The next year she starred in The Sound of Music. But enough movie trivia.
We humans have always loved the belief that we can build an artificial human from scratch. That is the basis of Mary Shelly’s great novel Frankenstein. Most people do not realize that in the novel, Frankenstein is not the name of the monster. Dr. Victor Frankenstein, is the scientist who created the monster, who is simply called Frankenstein’s monster. The fascinating question is whether the scientist is the good guy and the monster the bad guy, or is it the other way around. At one point the monster says to Dr. Frankenstein, “Remember that I am thy creature. I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel.”
Can humans create a person? This is the question asked by one of the greatest scientists of the twentieth century, Alan Turing. Turing, working for the British government, broke the enigma code of the Nazis and helped the Allies win World War II. He conceived of the Turing Machine which eventually became the computer. Sadly, Turing committed suicide after being arrested for homosexuality, a crime after World War II in his native Great Britain. But he invented an experiment called The Imitation Game (also the name of a movie based on his life.) If scientists could build a machine, a robot or computer, that can trick a human into thinking it is a real human, then for all intents and purposes that robot or computer is a real human. They have contests to this very day to see if someone can invent a machine that will pass the Turing test.
Turing would be proud. Today we are building artificial humans. We call them A.I. (artificial intelligence). Marc Andreesen, one of the scientists behind artificial intelligence, wrote an article called “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Let me quote one sentence from that article. “We believe Artificial Intelligence is our alchemy, our Philosopher’s Stone – we are literally making sand think.” Any of you who holds a conversation with Siri or Alexa, thinking you are talking to a real human, are recognizing artificial humans. Let me recommend one other movie that I love. In 2013, the movie Her won the Academy Award for best screenplay. It tells the story of a lonely writer played by Joaquin Phoenis who falls in love with the operating system of his computer, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Imagine falling in love with your computer. But among young people, it is literally happening today. Young people, rather than dating and marrying, are falling in love with their smart phones. I heard a lecture on this by psychotherapist Colman Noctor called, “When machines listen but don’t care, Loneliness in the age of A.I.”
What does all of this have to do with Judaism? That is the question I want to speak about this Yom Kippur, as we enter a world dominated by artificial human beings. Yom Kippur is about ethics, the proper way to behave. And the ethical problems of artificial intelligence are huge. I have counselled a man who received a call by what scientists call a deepfake, a voice pretending to be his grandson. His grandson’s voice, or I should say fake voice, came on the phone crying. “Zaide, please help me. I was arrested. I am in jail in Mexico. They want five thousand dollars to bail me out. Can you get it for me. Send it immediately in Amazon gift cards.” Sadly, this man fell for the scam.
Is AI a person? The law committee of the Reform Movement raised the question, can an artificial intelligence convert to Judaism? It was a serious question, and they wrote a long article about it. I keep imagining what would happen if you immersed a robot in a mikvah, a requirement of conversion. Would it rust? I think the entire idea is rather silly, but obviously rabbis are discussing his issue. I am not ready to supervise the conversion of a robot or A.I. And I am not ready to count a computer in the minyan. But is it a person?
The ethical problems raised by A.I. are many. It is a threat to jobs. Who needs a supermarket check-out clerk when a machine does self-checkout? Who needs to call an Uber when you can call a Waymo, a driverless car, to take you anywhere? They say it is safer than a human driver. Who needs a doctor when you can find a computer with all medical knowledge to give you tests, make a diagnosis, and develop a treatment plan? Who needs a rabbi when a robot can be built with knowledge of all rabbinic literature, the ability to answer any question on any Jewish topic, and even the ability to write brilliant weekly sermons using ChatGPT?
I can see it now. You call our office and get a machine. “You have reached Temple Beth Shalom, Boca. Press 1 for directions, 2 to make a reservation, 3 to talk to the president, and 4 to reach our virtual rabbi. You press 4 and a voice comes on, “This is your virtual rabbi, ChatGPT Goldberg. Ask me any question about Judaism?” So you ask a question, the kind of question I am asked. “My daughter is marrying a non-Jew in a church performed by a priest on a Saturday afternoon. Should I go?” In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye spoke of people “posing problems that would cross a rabbi’s eyes.” Does an A.I. computer have eyes? Can a virtual rabbi answer the real questions people ask?
Artificial Intelligence has created other serious ethical concerns. Today, if you want to keep your young child occupied, you can buy them a stuffed animal with artificial intelligence to be their friend. One such toy advertises itself as The Pandy and claims it can give emotional healing to children. Imagine your child, rather than going out to play with friends, becomes best friends with an AI directed emotional healing stuffed animal. That is what is being sold to parents today.
As young people grow up, particularly if they are troubled, the use of AI is far scarier. On April 17, 2025, a man entered Florida State University and started shooting, killing two employees and seriously wounding several others. It was later revealed that he had used ChatGPT and other AI tools for advice on the shooting. He asked AI, what time of day could he do the most damage? When were students most likely to be walking around? How could he maximize newspaper coverage of the shooting? AI gave him answers he used. A student named Alianna Grant, severely injured in the shooting, has brought a lawsuit against Open AI and its founder Sam Altman. Altman claimed that the shooting was a horrible tragedy. But AI did not cause the shooting. But was AI partly responsible?
This lawsuit gets to the heart of the problem. AI is not a person. It has no conscience. It has no sense of right and wrong. To be a person, artificial intelligence must have an ethical compass, a sense of right and wrong. AI is simply a machine, a very sophisticated machine, but a machine nonetheless. To ask if AI could commit sin is like asking if your thermostat could commit a sin. Our thermostat is programmed to decide how hot or cold our house should be. Sometimes, probably because we programmed it wrong, we wake up in the morning and our house is freezing. Is it our thermostat’s fault? According to the great philosopher Socrates, human beings have an innate sense of right and wrong? Does a machine, a robot, or a computer have an innate sense of right and wrong. The answer is no.
My thermostat has no sense of right or wrong. Neither does my car. In Las Vegas a few years ago, a self-driving car drove into a self-moving robot and destroyed it. This is a true story. Who is guilty? The car? The robot? I have to say neither. Cars and robots have no sense of right and wrong. Neither do computers. And neither does artificial intelligence. They are machines, sophisticated brilliant machines. But there is no person there. There is nobody with a conscience, nobody with a sense of right and wrong. I can understand why, when Rava made a man, Rav Zeira reacted, you are but dust. Return to the dust.
The message of Yom Kippur is that we have free will and the ability to make choices in life. There is a proper path, a way we ought to live our lives. Over and over throughout these High Holidays, we are told to choose life, to choose the proper path. In the Bible God said to Cain as he was threatening to kill his brother Abel, “Sin crouches at the door but you can overcome it.” We can always choose the right path and avoid the wrong path. But as you know, Cain chose the wrong path. He killed his brother.
A computer is not a person. A person is someone with moral standing. A person is able to choose between right and wrong. I do not believe a robot, a computer, or artificial intelligence is a person, able to make moral choices. That is the danger of artificial intelligence. We look at it as if it is a person. We turn to artificial intelligence for advice. We might ask for help writing a paper or curing a disease or writing a piece of music. Some rabbis turn to A.I. to write sermons. But young people have also asked ChatGPT for advice on how to commit suicide. ChatGPT has no conscience, no sense of right or wrong. It is a tool, a useful tool, but not a person. It has no moral conscience. Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are about how human beings can get on the right path. There is no holiday about how artificial intelligence can get on the right path.
The Torah teaches that God made human beings from the dust of the earth. Let me turn to a passage written by the great science fiction writer Kurt Vonnegut Jr. from his novel Cat’s Cradle. “God made mud. God got lonesome. So God said to some of the mud, ‘Sit up. See all I made,’ said God, ‘the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars.’ And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud. I, mud, sat up and saw what I nice job God had done.” The quote from Vonnegut reminds me of a quote from our Yom Kippur prayers we said last night. Kee Hinei K’Chomer B’yad HaYotzer – “As clay we are in the hands of the potter.”
It has been the goal of human beings for millennia to create an artificial human being. That was the goal of Rava in the Talmud, Pygmalion in Greek mythology, Rabbi Judah Lowe in Prague, and Dr. Frankenstein in Mary Shelly’s great novel. This was portrayed in one of the greatest science fiction movies ever made, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. A robot named HAL tries to kill off all the astronauts on a space transport. In the end, the one surviving astronaut kills HAL. We do not say yizkor for HAL. Today it is the goal of those who develop artificial intelligence. We have made machines that act like human beings. But we do not say yizkor for them.
Today we are saying Yizkor for those we loved who are no longer with us. But we are also entering a new age. People are finding ways to create a hologram of their loved ones and use artificial intelligence to mimic their speech and mannerisms. People can hold conversations with loved ones long gone. President Trump, on a recent trip to the North Dakota Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, claimed that he spoke with Teddy Roosevelt. They had a whole conversation about the Panama Canal. It was an artificial intelligence model of Roosevelt. But Teddy Roosevelt died in in 1919. Believe me, I would love to make an artificial version of my father and speak with him. But to quote Gertrude Stein’s immortal words when she visited her hometown of Oakland, CA, “there is no there there.” There is a machine but there is no real person there.
As we turn to our Yizkor prayers, let us remember that we are human beings, created by God, who once held the breath of God. We are not mere machines. As we recall those whom we loved, those who are no longer with us, let us remember their humanity. Our loved ones may have been formed from clay, mere matter, cells and tissues. But they contained something special and holy – the breath of God. May their memories be for a blessing on this Yom Kippur Day.
And let us say, Amen.