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Thursday, August 28, 2014

Returning after returning after returning - a meditation for the 2nd day of Elul 5774



Time it was 
And what a time it was, it was 
A time of innocence 
A time of confidences

Long ago it must be 
I have a photograph 
Preserve your memories 
They're all that's left you.

This summer, I returned.  I returned to Prague, I walked the ancient ghettos streets where once my people dwelled.  I wandered through the chaos of the stones of ancient cemeteries, I sat in synagogues in Krakow where my ancestors prayed, I was silenced by the voices in my head as I walked through Auschwitz and Birkenau, remembering, dwarfed by the trees in the cemetery that is all that remains of my people in the ghetto of Warsaw.

This summer, I returned.  I returned home once again to Yerushalayim, City of Peace, a place of comfort and inspiration, where anger and vengeance now prevailed, where rockets flew overhead, where missiles returned in retaliation.

This summer, I returned.  An airport nearly paralyzed, flights cancelled, and then my feet touched down once again at home.   A home here in a town where I returned, it seemed to a time long ago, where racial tensions raged and anger flared, and fear swelled and hope diminished. I returned, to return, to return and then to return.

Time it was....and what a time it was, it was....a time of innocence....a time of confidences....to return again and again and again.

It is Elul....a time for returning. A time for reflection. A time for resolution. A time for action.  A time of hope.

Returning is never easy.  Things are never the same, we are never the same, and yet we return, again and again and again.  

As this month of Elul begins, we return.  We reflect.  We pray.  We hope.  We return. And then, we do it all again.  We read the words again, we pray the prayers again, we sing the songs again, we hope the hopes, dream the dreams, we return, again and again and again.

Maybe this time it will matter, this time it will change, this time we will change, this time we will make a difference....maybe this will be the year, the moment, when peace will prevail, when violence will stop, when we return to our innocence, to our confidence, to our hope, to our shalom.

Rabbi Jim Bennett
2 Elul 5774


















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