september 2016

​Rabbi’s Message
Dear friends, One of my favorite stories goes back to the late 1700’s when the first Lubavitcher Rebbe was imprisoned on a false charge. His jailer wanted discuss the Bible with the scholarly Rabbi and asked him why it was that G-d asked Adam “Where are you?”, when Adam hid in the garden after eating the forbidden apple. “Didn’t G-d know where Adam was?” asked the jailer. The Rebbe then turned to the jailer and said “And you? You are 50 years old and where are you?” The jailer shuddered, his whole life flashed before his eyes. From then on, he was a changed person. He stopped being a jailer and his life took an entirely different direction. This year, the High Holidays fall later than usual on the secular calendar which gives us a lot more time to prepare for the Holidays. Traditionally the month of Elul is one for spiritual preparation. We are asked to examine our deeds and see where we have fallen short and where we need to make changes. We must ask ourselves the question of “where are you?” Where are we on life’s journey? What opportunities do we still have for building the life we desire? Are we at the phase where our focus is building a family and career and looking forward to a long and fruitful future? Are we further along on life’s journey when our focus is on the legacy we leave behind or perhaps repairing the mistakes we have made? The second question we ought to be asking ourselves is “who are we?” What kind of person are we really? What are our faults and our strengths Do we like who we have become? Are we who we wanted to become when we began life’s journey as adults? What changes do we want to make so that our real selves will more resemble our idealized selves? What practical steps should we take to accomplish those changes? Beginning with the month of Elul, we are asked to work on ourselves to try to move towards being who we can and would like to be In around two months, we will be electing a new President. Many of us are focused on politics. This is, however, the time when we should be asking the same questions about our nation that we ask about ourselves as individuals. Where are we and who are we? How do we move towards making our nation healthier, stronger, kinder and more just? I would like to end with another little story. A Rabbi was walking through a Shtetl late one night and saw a light on in the shoemaker’s shop. He went in and saw the shoemaker repairing shoes by the light of a candle. He asked the shoemaker why he was working so late night and the shoemaker answered “as long as the candle burns I can still do some repairing. The Rabbi then responded “As long as the candle of life still burns we can all do some repairing” Let me be the first to wish you a Shanah Tovah a sweet new year,
Rabbi Gerald Sussman