1

Rosh HaShanah 5775

God, give me the courage to change the things that

I can, the serenity to accept the things that we

cannot change, and the wisdom to know the

difference?

Well, so much for this beautiful bumper sticker. I

wish I could take it to the core of my lifestyle.

Especially this part “the serenity to accept the

things that we cannot change”

Serenity, patience, to accept those things.

2

Here we were on a Sunday afternoon, August 10 -

just a few weeks ago, Mario and I were driving

South in my electric car, ready to perform the

mitzvah of blessing a new home. The activities of

the day were tight; back-to-back (as per usual on

Sundays), our schedules are filled with many

responsibilities. We love to perform life cycles

ceremonies. Each Bris, baby naming, Bar mitzvah,

weddings, hannukkat habayit (the inauguration of

a new home), and being next to those who mourn,

just to be there, enriches our lives because each

one of these moments are unique, and we feel

blessed to immerse ourselves completely in this

transcendental moments of people’s lives.

3

The ceremony for the inauguration of the home

was scheduled for 5:00 PM. We left home with

enough time just in case we hit the traffic of a

baseball game. We headed on 85 S.

Everything occurs according to the plan until I

saw the electronic sign that indicated “I20, 5 miles

ahead, 6-8 minutes.”

We were right on time and I was a happy camper.

As soon as we reached the curve where 85 and 75

S merge, voila! A parking lot! The entire highway

was converted into a parking lot, and we were not

moving. It was 4:20 PM. By 4:30, people started

getting out of their cars, by 4:45, I started getting

nervous that we were not going to make it to the

4

ceremony (that would be happening just 7 miles

away). We were still in the same spot still. By 4:50

PM, people were taking selfies… remember the

electric car? Remember the Nissan Leaf electric

car? Well, since the air conditioner consumes the

battery we turned it off and it was hot. We

lowered the windows and started chatting with

our car’s neighbors. The tension easied a little bit

because there was NOTHING we could do to

change this situation. “God grant me the patience

to accept the things we cannot change…”

The reason for the delay? The parking lot was

generated by a woman who had high-jacked a

police car, ran on 75 S, and crashed into 4 other

5

cars, just a few miles in front of us, just a few

minutes before we needed to pass through that

area. So, if you are asking why we did not use

WAZE, the GPS that tells you traffic status

(another great creation of the Israelis), well, it

happened so quickly that the accident had not

even been reported yet.

Mario kept reminding me…THERE ARE THINGS

YOU CAN NOT CHANGE. He needed to repeat it

several times since I’m very impatient - especially

when I have a commitment to fulfill. I like to be on

time and respect other people’s time. So what

happened with the ceremony, right? Well, since

it’s hard for me to accept a NO for an answer, we

6

decided to call and do the ceremony via “Face

Time,” those kinds of modern miracles!

The ceremony was done. Everybody was happy

and by 7:00 PM, 3 hours after we had started this

journey, we were able to turn around and come

back home.

How do we accept thing we cannot change?

How can we think of a way of looking through

different lenses about the things we cannot

change. Look for other options when the doors

seem to shut in front of us.

Let’s look at it from the positive side.

7

We Jews, could be masters of looking at things

from a different lens, from a positive angle when

prospects look gloomy. You can call it “idealistic

distortion” or “prophetic fantasy.” The truth of the

matter is that we Jews do not give up easily, we

fight for what is right, we claim for justice and

truth, even when we have been beaten hard.

Our cry for survival unleashes a need for survival

and has kept us alive and well. Unfortunately

throughout history, hatred and bigotry has been

based on ignorance. Ignorance breeds fear, fear

breeds hate, and hate breeds violence.

8

From the many prayers that we evoke on these

Yamim Noraim, High Holidays, there is one that

used to disturb me a lot. It’s call “Al Heyt.” For the

Sin or for the Transgression we have committed

before You. I never understood why should I

express transgressions that I have never

committed (wrong transactions, business

wrongdoing, cheating, insincere confession,

desecrating God’s name) I do not identify with

them, but I do with many of the others (being

stubborn, foolish talk, wasting energy) Why

should I say the ones that I do not feel identified

with?

9

Until I realized that this is part of our collective

responsibility, our being, and that our behavior

effects others and theirs effects us. In the

collective, each one of us plays a role.

The overwhelming effects of news make us feel

that we live in an asphyxiating parking lot,

trapped by a toxic environment.

Going back to my personal experience:

a. I left on time

b. I was prepared for the ceremony.

c. I had charged my car’s battery to 100%

What can we do? How can we help?

How do we cope with anxiety and desperation?

10

Look at the world; it has been a difficult year:

March 8 – Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a Boeing

777 airliner en route to Beijing from Kuala

Lumpur, disappears over the Gulf of Thailand with

239 people on board.

March 21 – Russia formally annexes

Crimea after President Vladimir Putin signed a bill

finalizing the annexation process.

Also in March, an epidemic of Ebola virus

disease was occuring in West Africa. The outbreak

began in Guinea in December 2013, but was not

publicly revealed until March 2014, after which it

11

spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria, with a

toll of thousands of victims.

April 14 – An estimated 276 girls and women

are abducted and held hostage from a school

in Nigeria. I have not forgotten these girls,

however apparently the news did.

May 5

The World Health Organization identified the

spread of poliomyelitis in at least 10 countries

as a major worldwide health emergency.

Boko Haram militants killed approximately 300

people in a night attack on Gamboru Ngala.

12

June 5–ongoing – A Sunni militant group

called the Islamic State in Iraq and the

Levant (also known as the ISIS or ISIL) began

an offensive through northern Iraq, aiming to

capture the Iraqi capital city

of Baghdad and overthrow

the Shiite government led by Prime

Minister Nouri al-Maliki

July 8–Operation Protective Edge, an offensive

launched on the Palestinian Gaza Strip by

the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), began,

starting with numerous missile strikes,

following growing tensions

between Israel and Hamas after

13

the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli

teenagers and one Arab boy from East

Jerusalem in June. Leaving thousands of

victims of Hamas terrorist organizations, both

sides of the border.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (Boeing 777) crashes

in Ukraine, after being shot down by a missile. 298

people die, including 15 crewmembers.

Iran keeps acquiring nuclear power and who

knows what’s going on in North Korea.

Ferguson Missouri broke news of riots and

violence claiming for justice for the death of

14

Michael Brown, innocent teenager victim of

racism.

The death toll in Syria under Assad’s regime

escalated through 160,000 since its uprising with

millions of refugees dispersed in many countries,

even in Israeli hospitals, of whom have sheltered

them and give them a safe heaven.

I could go on and on.

But once again despite these atrocities, the eyes of

the world were focused on the Jews around the

world. Why? Why were they looking for “a

scapegoat?” Time and again.

The spring of anti-Semitism has gone beyond

proportions, those ghosts of “death to the Jews,”

15

“back to the gas chambers,” the murder of tourists

in Bulgaria and Brussels, the shop windows

shattered and painted with swastikas.

Who are our new friends besides the United States

of America and Canada? The largest pro-Israel

demonstration this summer happened, not in

New York or Toronto, but in a city without Jews

– Calcutta – where thousands of Hindus,

Buddhists and Sikhs affirmed Israel’s right to

self-defense. This summer in China, social media

was reportedly overwhelmingly pro-Israel.

Who else? Germany and Japan! What??? Germany

and Japan. If my zeide could come back from the

Olam HaBa, he would think that I was completely

16

meshugue…right… Germany with Chancelor

Angela Merkel and her cabinet signing a

declaration to stop anti-Semitism and the

Japanese people in front of the Israeli embassy in

Tokyo, waving Israeli flags and singing Am Israel

Chai.

“God, give me the courage to change the things

that we can, the serenity to accept the things that

we cannot change”.

Since the Jewish people have never constituted a

large proportion of this planet, yet have given

humanity so much, I’m still wondering where is

the hate coming from? I have learned that there

are things we cannot change so today, on this

17

symbolic anniversary of the creation of the world,

I composed a different type of “AL Heyt”(for the

transgressions we have committed before You)

This is a sarcastic Al Heyt dedicated to the

world, not to God.

AL Heyt she chatanu lefaneichem for giving the

world Gabriel Lippman, Nobel Prize Winner for

Phyiscs in 1908 who invented color photography

AL Heyt she chatanu lefaneichem, for Albert

Einstein with his revolutionary theory of

relativity.

AL Heyt she chatanu lefaneichem for Jonas Salk,

who invented the first vaccine to prevent polio.

18

AL Heyt she chatanu lefaneichem for Emile

Berliner who invented the gramophone.

AL Heyt she chatanu lefaneichem for Louis B.

Mayer who came up with the idea of the Oscar

Academy Award.

AL Heyt she chatanu lefaneichem for Harry Houdini

the founder of modern magic.

AL Heyt she chatanu lefaneichem for Steven

Spielberg, genius in cinematography.

AL Heyt she chatanu lefaneichem, Sigmund Freud

the father of psychoanalysis.

AL Heyt she chatanu lefaneichem for Mark

Zuckerberg the architect of facebook, allowing you

19

to enjoy your grandchildren’s achievements (and

post them all over )

AL Heyt she chatanu lefaneichem for Elie Wiesel

who brings light out of darkness.

AL Heyt she chatanu lefaneichem for Nat

Rothschild and Moses Montefiori who helped

Britain to become Great.

AL Heyt she chatanu lefaneichem for Louis

Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, Felix Frankfurter,

Ruth Baden Ginsburg, Elena Kagan & Stephen

Breyer pursuers of justice in the US Court.

AL Heyt she chatanu lefaneichem for 28 Nobel

prizes winner in chemistry, 22 in economics, 13

in literature, 52 in physiology and medicine, 9

20

in peace and 46 in physics. What a

disproportion! And if that is not “dayeinu”, Al

Heyt she hatanu lefanechem for the necessity to

constantly trying to justify ourselves and

validate our survival.

Dostoevsky said it right “The primary cause of

Jewish existence is not the instinct for survival

alone, but a driving and motivating idea,

something universal and profound and it is

possible that mankind is not capable of

understanding this cause”

In each one of us, resides the responsibility to

teach about how much we can construct instead of

destruct. At the end of the day, we are all humans

21

in the eyes of God and we should reflect our

humanity in the eyes of the Other.

So, no more justifications, no more apologies. We

are no better than anyone else, there is no

superior race - it doesn’t exist. We all have the

responsibility to better the world.

According to our tradition of Rosh HaShana, this

doesn’t just pertain to the nation of Israel. It is the

“Day of Judgment of mankind.” Kol Bayei Olam

Yavirun lefanecha kibnei marom. “All Mankind

will pass before You like members of the flock”

and You will judge…

Avinu Malkeinu….

22

Avinu (our father) represents God’s

compassion. Malkeinu (our king) signifies God’s

stern, judgmental face. Avinu Malkeinu asks that

God’s judgment be tempered by God’s mercy.

The theme of moving God from judgment to

compassion is widespread throughout the Days of

Awe, and is also a request that applies to us.

On 1961, when man started exploring the space

Chekhov said “A white man can orbit the Earth but

a black one cannot enter a regular restroom.”

53 years later we are still so preoccupied with

finding out about the details of the planet Mars,

but we are oblivious to the cries of our neighbors.

23

Just as we wish to know God’s mercy, so should

we show mercy to each other and ourselves.

5775…who would have thought that after 45

years of humans reaching the moon, that we

would be so devoted to looking at space that we

would forget to look at the Divine spark of our

Human souls.

This year, I propose that we look in the eyes of

another and find the Divine spark, each one of us.

Choose right over wrong. Who knows, maybe that

one small step for man, could be a giant leap for

Mankind.

L’Shannah Tovah tikateivu b’techateimu!!

24