Rabbi Dr. Daryl Temkin explained to the congregants that The Shema is really a call to ourselves to listen. One should ask oneself -- is what I am saying of value? Is it interesting? Would I, if I were the listener, want to hear what is being said?
Listen, Oh Israel, listen to your words first. Hear the elements flowing through your veins and arteries, like water from springs and rivers to the great sea. Listen: Who are you? What is it that defines and drives you? You repeat the blessing "Bless are Thou, G-d, our Lord, King of the Universe, who made us alive, and sustained us and brought us to this time and place," but do you pay attention -- do you hear?
"Israel," says Dr. Temkin, is an analogy to our dreams: a dream of a nation, a dream of setting an example, of living a life worth living, a dream "For Next Year in Jerusalem." Dreams that have sustained us through the millennia and continue to drive our lives despite all obstacles. These are dreams ever in our prayers, in our celebrations and in Israel's national anthem -- THE HOPE.
Let us not be confused--it is not "the hope" of President Hussein Obama, duly elected leader of the American People. Hatikva is the aspiration of a people to live. A people who cannot explain what drives others to hate them so the world's greatest evil turned on them and plotted their extermination. It was the hope of a few against the Nazi war machine in the Warsaw Ghetto. It was the hope and aspiration to have a country by those in Israel under British Mandate. The hope was sung some 62 years ago on a day that changed yearning to reality, and that hope continues to guide us even today, at the dawn of the third millennium.
Listen to your dreams. Can you hear them? Our G-d is ONE, there is no other. Our G-d is our guide and our protector. Our G-d is the light that is within each and every one of us -- a light that comes into being even when we are in our mother's womb and stays until we end our journey and our light escapes the mortal bonds to return to the Creator.
On this Day of Atonement, we need look no further than ourselves to find both the guilty party and the strength to make amends, to continue. May we also find a way to deal with those elements from within our midst that collaborate with our enemies--without understanding the harm they do their people.
Alas, the end is not for us to decide. Our actions are meaningless when the Decision Maker is none other than the One who Decides, who assigns life and death, by His wisdom and knowledge. The end, even if near, will forever see the Nation of Israel prevail. The Hebrew people have always been and will be protected by the army of the Devine and cannot be decimated -- not by the will of mere men.
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