Dear KJ Family:

 

Reflecting on my remarks at yesterday's KJ/Ramaz Prayer Assembly in the Main Synagogue, I exhorted the packed audience of students, faculty and community members (and hundreds of online viewers connected via Livestream) to:

 

 

As we prepare for Shabbat Parashat Noach, the story of one righteous man's commitment to a dream in the face of rejection by a cruel and unreceptive world, our thoughts turn to beleaguered Israel, our people's dream.  Like Noah's storm-tossed ark, the Jewish Homeland is a safe haven in the storm of Arab hatred for world Jewry (see here for a sermon by a Muslim cleric demonstrating how to stab Jews).

 

Noah's saga also underscores his commitment to family who joined him in the ark, and at this difficult time we, too, are reaching out to people whom we know in Israel to pull them close with a thoughtful email or phone call just to say "Shabbat shalom - I am thinking of you."  If you have thought twice because you feel self-conscious, see here to read why such expressions of concern are indeed appreciated.

 

Post-flood, Noah demonstrates a commitment to new beginnings, and an openness to finding new paradigms - not all of them successful - for solving problems.  As my friend and colleague, Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie points out here, we, too, are in desperate need for new approaches.  May God inspire our leaders to find successful long-term solutions.  

As a way of creating hope, faith, and confidence in the face of this "new" terror, I encourage everyone to read the latest message from Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks to Jews in Israel and around the world, entitled "A Single Person With a Single Heart."

Shabbat Shalom,

 

Haskel Lookstein