A Land of Milk and Honey - High Holy Days Sermons 5786 (Tashpa"v)

A series of three sermons for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur by Rabbanit Tamar - on Milk and Honey (or "Honey and Milk").

On bees and beehives, and the power of community, and the virtue of the inverse and complementary liquids of nourishment and healing for trembling days of hope, worry, and prayer for all that is precious and for our beloved land.

The Honey Sermon | The Bee Sermon | The Milk Sermon

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Rosh Hashanah Eve Sermon 5786 - The Honey Sermon

Please note: English subtitles are available for this video.

 A Good and Sweet New Year

Shana Tova, may you be inscribed and sealed for a good year, and all the people of Israel and all of Israeli society and all of the Jews wherever they may be and all of humanity, may we be inscribed and inscribe ourselves with Hashem's help for a good year, for a good life in the book of life, for life and peace.

I want to start by giving thanks that we are here. Each year it is emotional anew to say "Shehechianu" and to know that we are here. It is a privilege. It is not taken for granted. It is a blessing and a mission. So thank you for the "Shehechianu." And thank God that we are here, and with this time we will do  good for all Amen.  I   also want to thank everyone who worked so hard to enable us to be here. To those who helped with chairs, to those who helped with prayers, to those who helped with the Kiddush tomorrow, to everyone who helped. Everything is felt. And the connection between matter and spirit is the connection that motivates us and blesses us always.

So I hope it's okay to begin and say Chag Sameach, happy holiday, and a sweet new year.  Because someone told me this year that he was giving up on the "sweet." He told me that truly,  it would be enough  for it to just be a good year. And it is so true. We are all going through so much from all directions, and all  we pray and work  for: for saving the hostages, for the safe return home of our brave soldiers, for comfort for the bereaved families, for the recovery of the wounded in body and spirit, for the return of the evacuated to their homes, for Jews from all  around the world who are experiencing a huge wave of  anti-Semitism,  for  food and compassion  for all those who suffer. For little children in Israel, in Gaza, in Syria, in Lebanon, in every country, everywhere.  In these historic, fateful days, all of us  are called  to pray for a good year for all, Amen. 

 Yet on this fateful, historic Rosh Hashana,  as did generations before us,  who dreamed that we would reach the Land of Israel, the State of Israel,  we too are looking for a path here in the beloved, hurting land,  that requests healing and hope.  And it is on this year that I want to talk about Honey, about a sweet new year.  Firstly, because Alia Nissa, a very cute little girl in the community, grabbed me on Friday night and said to me, "Remember,  a sweet New Year!," . And,  because this year in the midst of an ongoing crisis of  courage and sorrow, and many meetings with leaders from all over the country and society,  for the first time in my life I met a beekeeper from the Galilee. His name is Ehud Halevi, and he came to Jerusalem to  give me honey.  He brought   the very first honey from the Land of Israel that his grandmother started growing here 100 years ago,  from the beloved fields of this land.  And and all year,  this honey accompanied me and sat on my desk, and I felt such  gratitude that in the midst of everything,  he continues to walk the path and  produce honey in his fields.

 Honey seems like candy. It is sweet, and disconnected  in such a times. What does  it have to do with anything?  And yet, it is exactly  now that we need honey in the Land of Israel.  Honey is no  candy. It is an ancient precious liquid that has a shelf life of thousands of years, that is made of toil and very hard work, that is produced from the field, and drops and flowers and growth, even in the most difficult moments for man and the earth. It is the only food in nature that is produced when it contains all the substances necessary for life. Everything a body needs to live - carbohydrates, water, vitamins, minerals, a substance that does not spoil, of thousands of years, but mainly a substance that saves lives and heals wounds.  Honey is the opposite of candy, it is not a luxury, it is the basic foundation of food and nourishment.

 And it is an ancient symbol of salvation and healing in all cultures.  In ancient Egypt, it was believed that the tears of the sun god Ra turned into honey, and that they were divine heavenly tears that heal any pain. In papyri from Egypt from more than 3500 years ago, honey is mentioned hundreds of times. In one of the papyri, 900 prescriptions for healing medicines were found, and in half of them honey is the main ingredient for saving lives, for treating wounds, for liver, kidney, stomach diseases and especially for repairing fractures. An Egyptian poem on a papyrus in Egypt states that the origin of honey is in the sky.  In India, honey is one of the five sacred nectars that symbolize spiritual purity, and there is an ancient Indian belief that honey comes from the moon, so in the Hindu language the word moon means the giver of honey.  In Greek mythology, honey is the food of the gods, the ambrosia that gave them eternal life. As Arnix the main caretaker of Zeus was fed honey as a child in a cave and Zeus the father of the gods was raised on honey. That is why the blind Greek poet Homer gave Zeus the nickname "Asanas" - which means king of bees. Artemis the goddess of the moon was always depicted as a bee. Eros the god of love was described as a honey thief and the protector of bees.  And the philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras insisted on the medical properties of honey, and Hippocrates, the father of medicine, recognized honey as having medical value for saving human life and healing fractures. He himself was a vegan and fed on honey and lived to the ripe old age of 107. And the legend says that a beehive was placed on his grave, a beehive to heal children, the sick and save lives. Honey is not a candy.  Honey has been seen throughout cultures and generations and peoples as a gift from heaven, for the possibility of salvation, for the possibility of healing, for the possibility of a turning point to recovery between death and life.

 In Jewish tradition as well.  Only that in our Jewish tradition the power of honey is also from below, from man and the earth.  In one of the most trembling moments in the Bible, when the sons of Jacob go down to Egypt and Judah takes Benjamin and swears, "I will act as his pledge / at my hand you may seek him!", Jacob asks his sons to take honey. Honey is an oath to save lives. "Take some of choice products of the land" says Jacob, "some balm and some honey"... the honey is the man's oath to save to be saved and to return home to the house he dreams of.  It is not for nothing that the manna in the desert is described as a wafer in honey. And sages explain that in order to heal a nation of broken slaves that came out of Egypt, it was necessary for everyone in the nation to take responsibility for their own will, for their own nutrition, to live, to hope to act, to be freed, to heal. And so the sages describe in the Midrash that each and every one according to their strength would taste of the honey of their own will and ability and be saved.  King Solomon teaches "like a honeycomb, sweet to the palate and a cure for the body"— that honey is a symbol of the choice of the person and the people in medicine. The healing of the body and the soul in life, in hope.  And our sages teach that this is so in the soul as well. They describe one who is overcome by a ravenous hunger, and they mean despair, should eat honey.  Rabbi Avraham Saba, author of the 'Tzror Hamor', explains that honey is an antidote to any trouble because it grows from below, from trouble and sorrow. In fact, he describes that it grows from a reality of  anguish , and grows from the field, from the flowers, from the wings, the possibility of sweetening all judgments, for recovery, for salvation. It is essentially an alchemy of a covenant between the  God and a person, a nation and a society. A covenant woven in labor and faith from heaven and dew and earth and field and flowers and wings.

Therefore,  the psalm chosen especially for Rosh Hashanah is psalm 81, which ends with the words "I sated you with honey from the rock." And the Tiferet Shlomo, the Rebbe of Radomsk, teaches the power of honey is to come out of the rock and the hardship, which turns judgments into sweetness and mercy. 

 Honey is creation and hope and choosing the ability to repair here on the face of the earth, the ability to nourish us and everyone in recovery. It is a hope that is not disconnected, rather one that is connected deeply, that comes out of sorrow and a rock (or hard place) "and I sated you with honey from the rock." It forces us to take an oath not to give up, to nourish us with faith and for us to be faith, in a toiling of faith. As the Ramchal teaches in The Article of  Hope, that the beginning of creation is in hope:  One who hopes, even if he enters hell, shall exit it. For all created beings were created imperfectly, and grasses stood at the opening of the ground imperfectly, and did not come out, rather everything waits for hope to grow from the ground.

 Honey is a symbol of hope, of recovery,  growing like hope from the ground. A non-Messianic symbol, a symbol of those who return to the beloved land to toil in the fields, to toil in the company of those who believe that despite all the sorrow and hardship, "I sated you with honey from the rock." We will nourish family and community with the nectar of life and healing and recovery and hope. We will nourish ourselves by gentle work, humility of dew and river and field and toil and flowers and wings.

That's why Ezra and Nechemiah taught the people on Rosh Hashanah to "eat... food and drink sweet drinks." And Rabbi Neutronai Gaon in the 9th century said honey, not sweets, honey specifically. And adding to that the custom of French Jews to eat young apples and grapes that are bitter, the Maharil in the 15th century determined that over everything new and everything sour that comes in history we must pour honey. Over all new things. In order to say and believe that we have the power to heal, to work and to save.

 The words "Sweet  Year" are a choice. Choosing to say and act saving and healing. They are not a wish, they are a prayer.  An oath that we will be rescue and healing, that we will learn the remedies of healing, that we will learn patience, toil, revival, growth, flowers, wings, hope, faith. May we learn a wonder that comes together slowly, flower by flower, field by field for healing, in acts of moral beauty that make a person and a nation an inspiration. When a bee takes one small drop of nectar and teaches great rescue.

This jar of honey that looks like simple honey to us, this jar of honey is a liquid of faith that flows in us all. It is a liquid of healing that flows in all of us, and this jar of honey tonight, in these historic and fateful moments that we were chosen to be in, to live in, poses a question to us: What is the substance that flows in us? What is the honey that we are? From what field and flowers are we gathered ? What makes us grow wings? What is the healing that flows in us? While the entire world is worried and trembling, we need the remembrance of the inspiration of honey, the work of honey, the blessing of honey, the healing that it is and the healing that we can be here always, always,  for all, on the face of the earth.

 For we  are  the  field. And when we dip an apple in honey, we are dipping ourselves in the field. We are asking  to be flowers, and  broken wings  that find a way to grow,  and repair themselves. We give thanks for life and we wish to make the "Shehechianu" blessing, that we will give life not only to ourselves, but to  everyone and everything around us, like honey, that we make healing and recovery and growth and sweetness, that a good and sweet new year be renewed upon  all.

May  this be a year of redemption and hope.  May we be written and write ourselves and our people, the beloved people of Israel, the Israeli society with all its factions,  together with all the peoples, all of man and womankind, the whole world,  for life and peace and joy.

Happy and sweet new year. Amen.

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Rosh Hashanah Morning Sermon 5786 - The Bee Sermon

Please note: English subtitles are available for this video.

You, He, and I: The 

Covenant of the Shofar and the Hive

Here, in This Place

Here, in the city of Jerusalem,  the Torah teaches that an angel said to our forefather Abraham in a fatal trembling moment, "Do not raise your hand against the boy."  Since then, this  holy city  represents forever the sacred Jewish fundamental idea that even in the midst of a trembling historic time,  we must do everything to save  life, and  guard all life.  As our forefather  Abraham heard an angel saying, "Do not raise your hand against the boy”,  so must we hear too forever that voice and save all life.

 In this historic time, between fate and salvation, between  binding and  blowing of the shofar,  all the difference is found in  each and everyone of us in this room,  is found in this city,  in this country. within us, in whom flows the  honey of saving, of solidarity,  of faith in life and friendship,  in healing and hope.

So I would like to begin by saying "Shana Tova Umetuka" -  may all be blessed with a year of life,  a year of honey of saving and solidarity. May we be inscribed and sealed for   life, and may we bring life to the land of life and to the  whole world,  Amen.

You, Him, Her, I, We

It is said about the Baal Shem Tov that before the shofar was blown, the Baal Shem Tov did not deliver sermons. Rather, he repeated three simple words over and over again. There are all kinds of versions of what the Baal Shem Tov said,  but the most beautiful version in my eyes, is that  he said: "You, He and I," "I, You and Him," "You, She, Me, Us”,  over and over again, and  then, Tekiah, Shvarim, T'ruah,  came the blasts of the Shofar.

In this  fateful, historic,  trembling year, a year that is in need of rescue, healing, salvation, for everything we  praying for:  For the rescue of our hostage brothers with the help of God; For the safe return of all our soldiers to their families, please G-d; For the comfort of all the bereaved families; For the healing of the wounded in body and soul; For the return of the evacuees to their homes; For  all our brothers and sisters from all Jewish communities  wherever they  are around the world who are experiencing a huge wave of anti-Semitism, and at the same time are being torn from within; And  for so many suffering  children who are in need of food, compassion, and hope  all over our beloved Israel  and children in Gaza and Syria and Lebanon, for there is not a single Jew in the world, in all of history, who does not have mercy for all.

In these fateful days, we are all trembling and torn from without and within. It feels like there is nowhere to run. But  we are here,  with ancient  faith and courage,  calling to each other: You, Him, Her, I, We.

Honey: The Alchemy of the Hive

Last night, on the eve of Rosh Hashana, we talked about honey.  And of a beekeeper from the Galilee,  Ehud Halevi. Of honey that flows in us.  Honey  that flows in our soul. Honey is the alchemy of human labor. Of the labor of hope. It is a symbol of recovery.

His grandmother, Bussya Yankelevich, here in the fields of the Land of Israel 100 years ago, began  making that honey for the people of Israel, and  for the whole region,  and world. Because honey was healing for her. When she got her first beehive, at the most difficult moment in her life, she remembered that this land is honey, and she simply got a beehive and began to collect honey.

 As he writes about her.  How she received a beehive, and slowly observed the beehive grow in front of her eyes: Thousands of workers moving around, tending, feeding, cleaning, housing, sheltering, not frenzied, not lazy, simply working, working side by side. Order and cleanliness and life and buzzing and field and wings and flowers and the constant body-warmth between the cells. This is how she observed the best 'chavruta' in the world for hope.

 And indeed, on a daily basis and in the most difficult moments, the bees draw closer to each other to retain the warmth of the hive. It is the most important thing to them. Bees warm each other and the hive up, even when it's minus 20 degrees outside! When outside is Antarctica, minus 20 degrees,  minus 20 degrees also as an allegory, a metaphor,  the center of the hive is always 35 degrees. There is a constant light, and a constant heat, and a 'ner tamid', an eternal candle of protection of life, always set at 35 degrees.  The bees constantly take turns, so that everyone gets warm, and form a ball of bees, where each bee contributes to the heat and receives heat, and there is no bee that stays permanently on the sidelines, and there is not a single bee that freezes in the cold. They take turns, they take care of each other, clean each other, and take care of the sick, and feed all the children, and share with each other where the most beautiful field with the best flowers  are,  and all grow wings, so they can all reach it, and they even do a special dance of solidarity, of friendship, of hope, that tells where to fly, and where the field is, and where the horizon is.

Because they know that warmth and honey,  that nectar of life that flows in us, in our fractures, in the prayers that we pray together,  is always a  collective act that can only be done together.

A hive sounds very removed from us. Bees sound very removed. What does this have to do with us? But in a few minutes we will become a beehive, we will become bees, we will become such a community.

The Shofar: The Narrow Opening

Rabbi Chaim Vital tells in the name of the Holy Ari  that the word "shofar" comes from the word "shfoferet" (tube).  That we are invited  to enter into a tube of faith, not as an invitation to private action, but rather as a joint entry into a tube to hear us as we are, and to buzz wordlessly in supplication for life.

The Admor from Sadlikov tells of a dream that he dreamt on Rosh Hashana,  that he and his father   and the shofar-blower and the  community  stand within a shofar, to ask for great mercy and healing in a time of great trouble. And the Zohar emphasizes  that the shofar is "Closed from all sides" as in the moment of childbirth,  as if the shofar is Mei Shafir amniotic fluid, and there is one opening in it. And  so, we  are called to sit together in this narrow opening, together with everyone we love, together with life as  it truly is.

To sit stripped, without words, in one sound of supplication, of prayer for life.

Because the entire Torah reading on Rosh Hashanah is an invitation to sit stripped of everything and in supplication: the way that Hagar sits stripped of everything, and cries and begs; the way Abraham stripped of everything stands with his son and begs to hear the words "Do not raise your hand"! Like Hannah who cries, "only her lips move and her voice could not be heard." Like Rachel who refuses to be comforted and weeps, and begs for her sons. Like an angel asking "what troubles you"? And remains with them and with us in the void of words of the reality of life. The entirety of the Torah reading on Rosh Hashanah leaves us stripped of words. At the most fateful moment, it says that our fathers and mothers were exposed, were vulnerable, were in a broken place, like the shofar itself—the shofar is a fracture, is a breach of life, that seeks from within the broken places of life. Like a prayer.

And this is serving  God, Rabbi Nachman teaches. This is the service of Hashem. Not to tell ourselves stories that everything is fine, when there is too much that is not . Not to say that we have found everything,  when there is too much that we have lost. Not to say that we know,  when there is too much that we are asking and begging to know. The shofar, tells  when we are lost, because sometimes one is lost,  and the Shofar is a vessel of faith, and  a vessel of birthing of life.

Shofar is to sit in the amniotic fluid of life and of history, to sit together, the entire community, vulnerable, and stripped, exposed, Me, You and Him, Him, You and Me, as we are, in the bravery that we are, in the brokenness that we are, in the supplication that we are, to beg for one thing - to breathe, to live. The shofar is  holding on to breath and life in us  and in all. 

Tikkun Olam: A Heroic Interpretation

This is a completely different interpretation, humble, unpretentious, and bold and heroic to the words "Tikkun Olam," . 'Tikkun Olam' not in  known sense of 'to fix  the world’.  But rather, 'Tikun Olam' meaning to be inside a nest (the Hebrew word for nest, Ken, is similar to the word ‘tikun’, to fix), inside a beehive, inside a community, inside a people, inside a society, inside a world, and to love it and live for it, and to find the strength to believe in it, and to fix it and heal it, like bees, and to make honey in minus 20 degrees, and to have a 'ner tamid', a constant candle, and constant light, and constant life, to warm each other up, and clean each other, and be with each other and hold all the children, all the elders, all the heroes, all the soldiers, and to know that we are sitting with our holy fathers and mothers, with our grandmothers and grandfathers, with the Torah, with prayer in Holy Jerusalem, the city of salvation and mercy, and we have the  responsibility today to be 'tikkun olam', a nest of compassion, from which we can harvest honey of salvation, rescue, healing and hope and recovery for ourselves and  for the entire world.

I think about such moments that I've had in my life. For example, one moment when my father, after my brother Nadav fell in war, my father led us on Rosh Hashana night to sing the song "Shehechiyanu." It's a song  we sing in our family in many voices,  and after Nadav fell,  we felt dead,  and we were sobbing,  and didn't feel "Shehechiyanu."   yet  my father insisted,  and we held hands in that family nest, and  sang with my mother, and with my father, and with my sisters and with our beloved family Yossi and the girls, we sang "Shehechiyanu," that we are alive,  and together,  we chose life.

Or for example, our dear beloved Chedva and Shmulik from Kiryat Shmona, who brought a stone to our home, from the ruins of Kiryat Shmona, on one of the Shabbat nights, and they wrote the word 'stone' on it. 'Even', 'stone' they explained, is an acronym in Hebrew, for Fathers and Mothers, Daughters and Sons, Granddaughters and Grandsons.  For after all this,  they said, we  will all be  in Kiryat Shmona!  fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, granddaughters and grandsons,  and they will all yet sit in  their house in Kiryat Shmona,  in security and peace and tranquility.

And for example, now: You, Him, Her and Us and I, we are all here in fateful days, we have come, we have come as we are to this nest, to sit in a tube, in amniotic fluid, to sit stripped of everything, to sit wounded and broken, and to sit believing in life, to sit together, because it cannot be done alone, only together.

We are all bees at minus 20 degrees and we are all trying and striving and worthy just as we are, trembling and heroes and broken and begging, to sit upright in this nest called the Land of Israel, called the State of Israel, which we dreamt of returning to.  We came back here to beg that we breathe and live and believe and recover and be healed.  As the 'Sfat Emet' teaches, that  the essence of faith and the Torah, and holiness, is simply to preserve life, to preserve the breath. "And the Breath of G-d hovered above the surface of the water" and that is why we beg, beg today and   silence everything in this full room, just to hear one breath and understand what is the sanctity of the life of one person, one country, many peoples, an entire world.  Amid the decrease of life in these days, and amid the fate of these days,  we are here to allow the warmth of solidarity, faith and salvation, friendship and healing to flow between us. 

 The Baal Shem Tov teaches  'You, Me and Him', that the shofar is an instrument of faith, it is a person calling for help,  and God believes in us, and He is with us here in the room now, and the Holy One, blessed be He, tells us 'You, Him and I, "I, You and Him"', and acknowledges the fractures and gaps and tremors and hopes, and leaves us a small, pure and clean opening of the honey of faith, in us and in life. The shofar is service of God to those who weep for the trauma, and to those who reach out to heal together and live. Our Sages teach us to go even to those who could not make it to synagogue so that we don't leave anyone behind, to say to ourselves and to say to everyone "You, Me and Him," to get closer with the injuries, with the fractures, with all the gaps, with the bravery and the hope and the fields and the lives, until we all know all of us in the dear beloved land, of all the parts of the Israeli society that we are, with all the treasures of faith in us, with all the peoples and countries that are meant to be, all of creation and all created beings - until we know  and understand: that here is the field, and here are the flowers, and here is the nectar, and here is life, and everything, all of it, stems from the preservation and the saving of one holy breath.

Therefore, just before the sound of the shofar, right before we silence the room, and we request to peel back everything and hear one sound of one breath, I want to make one last voice heard, and this voice is the voice of Eli Sharabi in his book 'Hostage'.

The Voice of the Hostage

 Eli Sharabi writes in his book that  in one of his most difficult moments,  as he was standing with Eliya Cohen and Or Levy and Alon Ohel,  who declared that they are  most desperate,  stripped of everything,   trembling from everything,  is what  he said to them that day, and  what he tells us today:

"I take a breath and speak to Eliya, to Alon, to Eli. I speak to everyone.  Do you actually think that there is anyone who forgot about us?!   I promise you that our families are standing now at intersections, in synagogues, and shouting our names. I promise you that no one has forgotten our faces! I am telling you, remember and know that there are people, there is a nation, who go to bed with us at night and wake up with us in the morning, and the only thing they are interested in is us, our breath, our lives, and all that they are busy with is how to get us out of here and save us… I stop and look at them quietly. "Don't break," I tell them quietly. "It will take as long as it takes, we will get out of here."

 Don’t break. Whatever it takes, we will get out of here. We will save and be saved, and preserve breath and make honey and fields and wings and a nest and 'tikun olam' of medicine and recovery  for all.

"Ktiva vechatima tova" (May you be inscribed and sealed for the good).

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A Land of Milk and Honey: Yom Kippur Sermon  5786

Please note: English subtitles are available for this video.

Introduction: The Kaporet, the covering and the Second Chance

 Shana Tova Umetuka,  may we be sealed for Life. First of all,  thank you to everyone who came and gathered so that we may seal  all with God's help for   life and  peace. Because that's all we ask and pray and work and take action towards: For the rescue of our hostage brothers and sister, for the return in peace of all the brave soldiers, heroes of Israel, for the comfort of the  very many beloved bereaved families, for the recovery of body and soul for the wounded, for the safe return of the evacuees to their homes, for solidarity to all communities of  our people around the world wherever  we are, for compassion and food for all those who suffer,  children in all of our beloved Israel,  children in Gaza, in Syria, in Lebanon in every country and place. May we and everyone merit please God to be sealed for a year of return and mercy and recovery and hope.  Thank you to everyone who worked hard and with sensitivity so that we would be here  together in  such trembling days.

"Kippur" in Hebrew means a covering. This is what Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch teaches, that in actuality Yom Kippur serves as a covering, an enveloping. Kippur from the same root as "Kaporet" the covering of the holy ark, which encovered the ark. Like a hand of mercy (hand and kaporet share the same root in Hebrew). A covering so that we may enter as we are, and  be enveloped as we search  within us gently for an opening for a second chance. According to tradition, Moshe got a second chance on  this day of Yom Kippur to  receive the second tablets,  while his hands were still trembling from the memory of the first, broken tablets. The Torah tells us this so that we know that beneath the Kaporet, the covering of  this holy ark  behind me, the Holy Torah is broken and whole,   as the people then were too broken and whole, that behind the Kaporet, the covering, faith is an inner world that is both broken and whole which enables a second chance to grow  with courage.

And I look at us  tonight, all of us, in this land, in  this nation, and in this  region, on this a Yom Kippur. I wish that a great Kaporet, covering would come to cover all of us, the entire country, all the nations, the entire world, because we are sitting here - broken and whole, the shards of broken tablets along with the tablets, in fateful days. Everyone here in this land and this space has touched trauma. Everything hurts, everything is gaping, and it is Autumn, and the days are getting shorter, and it reminds us of  October 7th then.

Asking for Permission to Heal Together

And there's a chance that it is difficult to see a chance.  That it is difficult to be  here with many people, with triggers in the prayers and in the words, so I think it's important to begin this Yom Kippur by asking for permission. Permission to say how difficult it is for us, permission to say that we can't do it alone, permission to say that we will try together. Permission to create a covering, a blanket, that is enveloping, and gentle and soft,  and to search together for an opening for a second chance. Permission like the holy Torah which accompanies from the states of both brokenness and wholeness, which prepares itself to be rolled up again on the holiday of Shmini Atzeret to begin again a second time, and a third and a fourth and eternally. Permission for there to be place for us all, as we are, where if someone has to leave, breathe, preserve themselves,  there  is a a quiet room in the library,   and we all can use it and be there for ourselves,  for each other, and search for a way, in honesty, in depth, in humility, in love, in faith, in what is possible,  under the gentle Kaporet, the gentle covering  that we are.

Milk: The Mother's Signal of Life

I want to tell about one of the most precious things to me this year, and I wish from the bottom of my heart for there to be no more need for it. Every night at nine p.m., Idit, the mother of our brother Alon Ohel, who is still being held hostage  by Hamas terrorists in Gaza,  - may we with God's help  save him  and merit to see his return  together with all our brothers and sister - at the end of every day in the heart of the night, Idit sends life signals to  her son Alon.  She leads a meditation herself,  where she invites everyone with her on zoom to send Alon and all the hostages and the soldiers,  all bereaved and the entire region,  strength and life. Every night she  sends Alon life.  A mother of faith, of gentle movement that weaves a thin layer of life, who nurses her son from afar, with the milk of life.

And every  such night, I remember the Rebbe from Dinov,  who taught what milk is. Chalav, the Hebrew word for Milk, is an acronym. The letters L-Ch-V (in reverse order) are Lehagid (to tell), Baboker (in the morning), Chasdechah (your kindness).  Milk, he teaches, is an act of life within darkness, until comes morning.  As if the Shekinah, Gods presence, nourishes us  at night like a mother, and  opens within us a milky way here on earth,  until morning comes.

On the night of Rosh Hashanah we spoke about honey as a symbol of salvation, healing. On the morning of Rosh Hashanah we spoke about bees and fields and wings and 'tikkun olam' from the root of the word "nest," a beehive, which grows warmth and life between us. And on this fateful  historic Yom Kippur night I would like to add the milk, the kindness of a mother who nourishes life in the heart of night until morning.

A Land  of Milk and Honey: A Divine Vision

So this historic Yom Kippur,  under the Kaporet, the covering, of the broken and whole that we are, I ask for permission to give meaning to the fateful words "A land flowing with milk and honey." 

 These words  appear for the first time in the depths of the night in Egypt. And so it is said: "I have marked well the plight of My people in Egypt ...I am mindful of their sufferings... I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land... to a land flowing with milk and honey." These are the  very first words that the Holy One, blessed be He, says to Moses at the hour of night, in the midst of darkness and slavery in Egypt.

And in another moment, of another night, this is later, on Yom Kippur, at Mount Sinai, when Moses ascends Mount Sinai to receive the second tablets in hands that are still shaking from the broken first ones, the Holy One, blessed be He, tells him: "Set out from here, you and the people... to a land flowing with milk and honey." 

 And the entire chapter of forbidden relations ends with the words: "for I will give it to you... a land flowing with milk and honey... You shall be holy to me..." And according to the Midrash these cardinal words are also the last words of Moshe in the world. He leaves the world saying: "When I bring them into the land flowing with milk and honey, ... then this poem shall confront them as a witness," which means that the Torah is a song of milk and honey.

 When many of us grew, we learned that many commentators state that "the land flowing with milk and honey" is physical abundance. But in all generations  another tradition has been kept: that  a land of milk and honey  is a blessing for the spiritual and moral  strength and resilience that will grow in the Land of Israel during  a time of night  and challenge.

 The Rishon Le'tzion taught that the Land of Israel is compared to a nursing mother  who will nurse in the midst of night and challenge.  The Maharal explains that milk is cold and honey is hot, and they are opposites, and this is a blessing that the opposites among us will find peace in this land.  Rav Kook the father taught that a blessing of choosing life and peace will come out of this land in the darkest of times.  The Sfat Emet taught, "that is flowing with milk and honey" - the final letters of those Hebrew words spell Shabbat, that  this land will be like a blessing of Shabbat,  of life and peace, for the entire world.

Milk is the first sign of life that we receive, the first inspiration from heart to heart. Honey is a healing force, which covers wounds and repairs fractures. Milk and honey together represent a  whole sequence of  birth of life and choosing life  over and over again for us and for others and  choosing a second chance  and a third and fourth from the first moment to the last. This is why the Torah is compared to honey and milk. The Torah is a second chance, a commandment to build a nation and a land whose mother tongue and whose language of faith are the  constant never ending striving for life and peace  even in the midst of brokenness and night,  until dawn comes. 

 Because the Torah knows darkness all too well. Sodom. Egypt. The Torah knows that in an instant, the world can go dark. But her mission is to illuminate and be a lantern, an eternal light within the night, to be a mother nurturing her sons and daughters with milk and honey, and building a holy land, which must be the opposite of Egypt and Sodom. Of coarseness and barbarism. Vulgarity and violence. Indifference and cruelty. A land that demands courage, kindness, decency and gentleness, family, nationalism, humanity and compassion, justice and law, nobility and generosity. A land of upright people and stature, of faith in defending life. A land refusing death, destruction and mourning.

A serial vomiter of those who lack the courage to stop injustice and suffering. A land of milk and honey of the courage to always, again and again, choose life. To always imagine life. To always nourish life. To always have compassion for life.

 A land of milk and honey is a land of domestic peace, that demands we unite among ourselves, cold and hot, milk and honey, that we become a family. A land of milk demands parental leadership that connects us to life with care and consensus. A land of honey is a land of mutual responsibility, rescue, healing and recovery, a land of love of Israel and human dignity, fraternity and peace among all voices, through humility and repair. A land that demands mutual responsibility for all communities of Israel. And demands that we always welcome all people from within  the faith of Israel. A land flowing with milk and honey is a land of pioneering faith, that despite and in the face of war and terror, demands that we be and become - for the region and the world - an inspiration of peace, with Jerusalem Zion at its center, city of faith and peace. Of which it is said: “Great shall be the glory of this latter house… and in this place I will give peace” (Haggai 2).

For a land flowing with milk and honey will establish a national home for Jews and enable a national home for our neighbors, and thus grant faith and vision for the entire world. A land flowing with milk and honey is a land that will always go out to save lives and protect the divine image, and will also know how to stop war and be a symbol of hope. A land that from that same moral courage will nourish all children and protect all who suffer and know that it itself is their hope and salvation. A holy land and atonement that embraces a people and society and world. A land of faith that nourishes for generations, in all darkness - honey and milk. 

The Song of Milk and Honey

 Beloved and most precious community, in this fateful time, fateful for Judaism – for Jewish faith and morality - and for the Zionist enterprise, fateful for the State of Israel and for the entire world, the words “a land of milk and honey” have meaning and mission and service. The world is changing and will not return to be exactly what we knew. We will be required to make great decisions, and this is an opportunity to live more, to believe more, to do and choose more. The choice of our way of life here in the beloved land will be the greatest decision, and it will take whatever it takes and demand everything that has always been demanded of Jews and pioneers in all generations, only this time - in the Land of Israel, in the State of Israel. To believe. To stay. To work. To cry. To dwell. To build. To heal. To live. And to water life again and again with honey and milk and to revive. For from the depths of the night in Egypt, and from the brokenness of the night of Mount Sinai, the Holy Torah speaks to us here and sings, a melody of milk and honey and inspiration, that it is always possible, with trembling hands – like Moses on Yom Kippur - to receive the second tablets and a path and covenant of the sanctity of life. And to sing in the night, a melody of faith in life and peace. A melody of a mother, every night at nine at night, singing to all her children, signs of life. A song of milk and honey for a people and a world.

 So I want to end with a song,  a melody. From a Hasidic branch that loved the Land of Israel most. And dreamed so much that we would return here. From there came my great-grandfather, Wolf Lipschutz of Amshinov. A Hasidic movement that was tremendous - Vorka, Alexander, Amshinov - that grew from two best friends who were complete opposites. Milk and honey. One was cold, a man of truth, the Rebbe of Kotzk. The other was warm, a man of peace, Rabbi Yitzchak of Vorka. Kotzk was stern in matters between man and God, Vorka was welcoming in matters between man and his fellow. In Vorka on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur they covered and wrapped everyone, left no one alone, even the horses, they cared for everyone, Jews and non-Jews, and the Rebbe told on Yom Kippur of failures and brokenness because all Torah is broken and whole. And after the Rebbe of Vorka passed away, the Rebbe of Kotzk dreamed and behold Rabbi Yitzchak his friend stands in the Garden of Eden, stands on a great river of tears in the depths of the night, and sings life, sending to his people a melody of life and peace, and so he stands to this day. And sings to us. And the melody remains with us. And asks to be played in the heart of the night, like a mother, like milk and honey, and a gentle atonement of faith.

 Soon it will be nine at night. And we have work to do. Just as we are. Broken and whole before the atonement cover. To nourish us with honey and milk. To nourish with a mother’s milk and the honey of faith the entire land. To ask permission to carry us through the night to the shore of life. To ask permission for a second chance and healing. And we have a chance. Between night and morning. To seal all for life and peace.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

May all be sealed in the book of life and peace, Amen.