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Synagogue Sermon

August 30, 1975

Selichot Lecture: Teshuvah and Selichah (1975)

Elul & Selichot
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The Ellul Mood (1954)

As we of Kodimoh welcome the month of Ellul on this very important Shabbat, I am inclined to recall how Jews of old once experienced the same event. The solemnity and sacredness that was ushered in with this penitential season, this forty-day period of Teshuvah, was more than just an idea or a principle. It was something which enveloped one’s whole existence. There was an indefinable warmth about it. There was the thrill of expectancy. There was a fear of the unknown. There was a clean feeling about it all that permeated even little Yeshiva boys who had not sinned enough to repent. It was a happy solemnity, a gay seriousness, almost a sort of adventure into the sacred days that were to follow. Perhaps all this can be summed up by calling it the “Ellul Mood.” For that is just what it was – a mood. It was an invaluable, cleansing, holy and thoroughly Jewish mood, and one which we should and must recapture this morning. We must get into the Ellul Mood. If we are to recreate this Mood and recapture some of its great spirit for ourselves, we must attempt to analyze it, to break it down into its components so that we can build it up again. What, then, are the components of the Ellul Mood? Let us analyze it down to three basic elements. First and foremost, the Ellul Mood consists of a determination to seek out G-d – not to just find Him by accident, as it were, but to look for Him conscientiously. Waldo Frank, in a recent issue of The Nation (June 19, 1954) voices the fear that America is becoming a “people that holds on,” whereas in the past we have been a “people that sought,” with writers of maturity who ennobled this search. It is that distinction which we become aware of, in a Jewish sense, at this time of the year. It is not enough to hold on. We must search for greater achievements. All year long we speak and preach and argue “Jewish survival.” We put our minds together figuring out ways and means of surviving as Jews. Some think a Sunday School will help Judaism s…
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An Alternate Route to Sanctity (1953)

This evening, with the prayers for Slichos, forgiveness, we anticipate and prepare for the High Holy Days which are our Jewish New Year. The first day of the year, with us Jews as with no other people, is an occasion for Kedushah, or Sanctity. The reason for this sanctity is two-fold. For not only is the coming Rosh Hashanah the first Day of the year, and therefore the Day of Judgement, but it is also the first day of the first month of the year. And Rosh Chodesh, the new moon, was always preceded by the sanctification by the Jewish courts. So that on this Slichos night, in preparation for the first Rosh Chodesh of the New Year, it behooves us to speak of the institution of קידוש החודש, the sanctification of the New Moon, the holiness of the Jewish time-cycle, the preparation for sanctity. For all our festivals, all the ceremonies and sacrifices and devotions, depended and do now depend on the beginning of the month as determined by the Molad Ha’lvanah, or the first appearance of any part of the new moon. Many years ago, before the preparation of the calendar by astronomic calculation, which was able to foretell every Molad almost unto eternity, the Jewish court announced the new moon and declared the Rosh Chodesh “al pi ha’reiah,” by “sight.” That means that witnesses would testify in court that they had seen the appearance of the new moon with their own eyes. It was the era of intimate knowledge of G-d’s world, when people would be witnesses to the birth of a month, and Beis Din – the g-dfather of the new moon. Kid a-p reiah, sanctification as a result of sight, of first-hand, intimate observation.After the power of the courts was weakened, after exile struck at the roots of our people, after the beginnings of the advanced science of astronomy, a new method of KH was introduced – “Kid a-p cheshbon”; sanctification, not through observation, but by calculation. It was, as it is even today, a fool-proof method, intellectually conceived by using the tools of mathemat…
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The One Thing I Really Want (1975)

Psalm 27, which we read twice daily during this season, is full of military metaphors. The two sentences that are most famous are, אחת שאלתי… These two verses have always been regarded as a kind of pious digression. However, this does not seem likely to me. David was a holy man, not a man of mere superficial pieties. What David had in mind, I believe, was something somewhat different. He expresses all along his confidence and faith in God despite fear of what the enemy may bring upon him. These two verses, I suggest, are not so much a part of his faith, as an account of his woes! What he is saying is that despite his victories and triumphs, his successes and prosperities, what he really wants is something quite different: The one thing I really want, that which I desire, is – to dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my life...If I had to date this psalm, then, in addition to the historical and biographical evidence, I would find psychological proof that this was written in David’s middle years.Most young men usually are unaware of anything but their careers. The blandishment of great success and fame and wealth, and the immediate challenge of the initial promotions that come in any career, overwhelm all else, and a young man usually fails to ponder about and consider the dimensions of life that transcend career and success but that which really gives it permanent and enduring meaning. Perhaps that is the way it should be. At any rate, the blandishments of temporal success banish any thought of eternity.Most old men too do not think about or act upon this urge of the eternal. They are caught up in quite a different lie: not by the illusion of forthcoming successes, but by the falsehood of past failures. They are convinced that they are beyond redemption, that they have spent their lives too much in achieving their present positions, they bear the scars of many battles for fame and success and wealth, scars of failures as well. They believe that a turn to re…
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