All Israel Stood at Sinai

September 14-15, 2012 / 28 Elul 5772

Shabbat Netzavim-Vayelech

Torah Portion:  Deuteronomy 29:9-30:30 / Haftarah Portion: Isaiah 61:10-63:9

“All Israel Stood at Sinai”

Dear Friends,

How do you define the Jewish people?  Who are we?  Where are we?  When are we?

An answer to these questions came to me last Sunday afternoon when Youth Director Carole Mostow, Education Director Emily Ascher and I met with eighteen of our Shir Hadash teenagers for a special outdoors Selichot program.  Selichot is the day when special prayers are offered asking God for forgiveness in anticipation of the start of the High Holidays.  So there we were with these amazing Shir Hadash teens, in a field behind the Zion Lutheran Church in Deerfield.  We studied and discussed a Jewish text, prayed, sang and ate a great lunch around a roaring campfire.

I looked upon these eighteen youths and saw so many more than the eighteen there that day.  I imagined seeing their ancestors and descendants - parents and grandparents and generations before.  I imagined seeing their children and all who would come after them.  Sitting around the campfire, preparing for Rosh Hashana, I sensed that this was a unique moment in the chain of Jewish history – as one generation passes Jewish wisdom on to the next – keeping the connection alive and unbroken.  In a mystical sense, at that moment all of the generations were present with these wonderful young adults.

That’s what it means when in this week’s Torah portion, when God is establishing a covenant with the Children of Israel at Mount Sinai.  God says, “I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Eternal our God and with those who are not with us here this day.”  Traditional commentators suggest that at Sinai, each and every Jewish soul was present, whether of someone alive then, of someone who had lived, or of someone who was yet to be born.  All Israel stood together at Sinai.  I was there and so were you.

Around the campfire on Sunday, the generations came together.  Next Sunday evening, when we gather for the start of the High Holidays, once again the generations will come together, past present and future.  Feel the presence of your ancestors and descendants standing with you as we join in our people’s ancient and modern celebration of Jewish worship, study, heritage, tradition, and community – The High Holidays.

Dawn joins me in wishing you and your loved ones a healthy, happy and sweet New Year.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Eitan Weiner-Kaplow