Every Rosh Hashanah, we return to our most familiar rituals. Apples in honey. A new piece of clothing to wear to shul. Round challah dotted with raisins for extra sweetness. Tashlich at our favorite stretch of water. Dates, pomegranates, and other symbolic foods eaten to express hope for a good and blessed new year.

Each tradition is beautiful and rightfully revered, steeped in memory and history.

Rosh Hashanah, however, asks far more of us than memory and history. We’re called to undertake teshuvah, a process of sincere self-reflection and renewal, and a commitment to grow and change in the year ahead.

Teshuvah and renewal do not mean "rinse and repeat." If we emerge from these High Holidays the same people who entered them — if we wrap ourselves only in what is familiar and comfortable, if this year is simply a retread of the past and we fail to change — then we will have missed the point entirely.

And that mindset should guide other parts of our Jewish lives as well.

The Dance of Teshuva, a recently published High Holiday reader based on the teachings of Rabbi David Ebner, z”l, explores the danger of religious habit. "Even sincere religious behavior can become what Rabbi Ebner so evocatively describes as ‘the dance of memory’ rather than ‘the dance of the soul…’ Judaism can become something we remember ourselves experiencing rather than something we are experiencing now.”

In other words — and with apologies to Tevye — tradition alone is not enough.

And if we are to take honest account of where we are on the eve of 5787, never in our lifetimes has this personal and communal reckoning been more urgent.

We are experiencing levels of antisemitism that, just a few years ago, would have seemed unimaginable. Attacks against Jews that would once have sparked universal outrage now barely make the news. There are even those who now excuse these attacks by claiming that support for Israel justifies them. Armed guards and the NYPD will be out in force outside our synagogues, and while we are immensely grateful for their protection, we fervently wish it were not necessary.

Israel, meanwhile, finds itself ever-more isolated on the world stage — even as it continues the massive work of recovery and rebuilding.

And yet, and yet, too often we turn away from one another if we do not see eye to eye on what we each deem an irrefutable truth. One disagreement, one vote, one statement or lack of a statement, one nod of agreement with the “wrong” person — and suddenly someone is outside the tent.

Of course, there are red lines. And one of them is clear: Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic homeland. But disagreements — even vehement ones — about the right way forward here or in Israel should be open to robust, ongoing debate within our community. It is hubris to believe that there are enough of us, or enough allies, to blithely turn people away.

We also know that today, Erev Rosh Hashanah, marks 25 years since 9/11, the most catastrophic tragedy our city has ever known. Those of us who lived through it recall viscerally the anguish and fear, and also the extraordinary unity that rose up out of the ashes. In our all-encompassing grief, a city of 8 million people was able to see beyond our differences and hold one another close.

The Tribute in Light and other memorials are moving and necessary. But if all they do is help us remember what happened, then they are not enough. Like our own High Holiday rituals, remembrance has to change us. Our city has proven that we are capable of incredible humanity, sacrifice, and a willingness to care for one another. May we not wait for another tragedy to rediscover the people we know we can be.

And finally, back to 5787…

May this be a year of real teshuvah — so that we return to more than we were.

May we refuse to allow hatred to diminish us in any way.

May we wrestle honestly with hard questions while holding fast to one another, even (especially) across difference.

And may we build a Jewish future that is rooted in the past, informed by the present, and reaches for the heavens.

Wishing all of us a year of health, happiness, peace — and the courage for serious self-reflection and renewal. 

Shabbat shalom and shanah tovah