Many years ago, shortly after the services of Yom Kippur Morning, the woman went up to me in the synagogue pit. I had given the sermath that was pressured in the story of the day, and it wasn’t popular. He told me, without question, “I came here for the rain. And everything did it made me angry and upset.”
The exchange is always with me. It raised a year progressing query at this time. What is the purpose of religion? Was it meant to comfort us? Giving to Uncertainty Station? In order to act like Antidote in daily life companies?
The sacred Jews arrive every year with a clear answer. No. Religion, propose, is not intended to reduce our discomfort but rather, deepening.
Holidays begin the night that is still in September 22 and Rosh Trash, the Jewish New Year, meaning literary of the year. “Rosh Homanah celebrates the birthday of the world and reminds us that we are partnering with God at the work of the creation.
Then 10 days after the day comes Yom Kippur, the date of Atonement. That day, we are traditionally used for burial. We are fasting and rejecting life-giving jobs, praying by unsatisfying what some of us will live and some will die the following year. We spend the day facing our faults, reviving our death, and we ask forgiveness. This is not a theme of the comfort way.
Holy days to say for comfort. These days are pressuring us to feel in danger, into our troubled souls, and face the experience of our death. It is not too excessive to say that these days, it brings out the most difficult truth that a broken land repairs begins with us.
Our world is really broken. We live among the magnificent politics, and we are living in a happy weather. We testify to the Semites increase, hate, and apartheid. We see growing inequalities. We are experiencing loneliness and separation. Open television and everything you hear in anger, resentment, and accuracy, tight voice broadcasts aim to add points to score.
Rabbi Brian Leiken is New Rabbi for the church congregation in Austin. (Provided by Aaron Perchonok)
Of course, it is reasonable that we look forward to our worship houses, places where our anxiety is stopped as long as we are temporarily stopped. Yes, we need sacred places that allow us to rest from the foot, to flee from the unpleasant world. That is the sacred part of what the Sinagors and churches and Mosques offer.
That can’t be the whole story. Because any religion prioritizes to escape by participating in failure of its deep call. Faith is not meant to interrupt from the truth but to open our view of it. Its purpose is to grow our sense in pain, injustice, in our transgressions and move us to the increase.
The woman who talked to me too was that Yom Kippur in the morning was faithful to what she wanted. He asked me comfort, and he did not find it in my sist. I still think of his words today.
As I am preparing this year to lead the high sacred services in the congregation who have become Israel here in Austin, I think of many who enter the synagogue seeking comfort. I think of many people who want to breathe from the mass of the world that sounds too heavy.
I understand that longing. In many ways, I left each other.
But I know this: Our world will not heal you. It needs us.
Rabbi, Abraham Joschua Heschel – The Nazi European escaped from the side of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. SELMA, and you raised her voice in Veetnam’s Word – taught that religion is not moral effects. Its objective, explained, raising a deep feeling of behavior, a person rejected peace in the face of injustice. Heschel put it this way: “Religion is not feelings. The religion is sensitive. It is answered in earth’s poverty and in pain.” (GOD IN HOLY AND RELIGION, IN 1963)
As we enter this season of high holy days, may we treat that compassion and that that obligation is.
Wishing everyone Tama, a happy new year.
Brian Leiken is a high rabbier in the Austin Beth Israel. Find information about the services of the Jewish Holy Day of Baby Bethisrael.
