Rabbi Sherman - Honorable Mensch-ion

The Neilah service is recited once a year. It’s full name, Neilat She’arim, means the closing of the gates, as Rav describes in the Talmud, the time when the heavenly gates are closing.

The season has arrived. After all the preparation to get to this moment, we have no choice but to be ready for the High Holy Day season of 5785. There is no fathomable way we could look back to last Rosh Hashana and imagine what we the Jewish people have experienced since then. Nothing like it in our lifetime. And yet, when we gather in the synagogue on Wednesday evening, we will add words to our prayers that we only insert during this time. Zachreinu L'chayim, remember us for life. Each of us have the hope to be inscribed in the book of life. Yet, as we read in the Torah this Shabbat, haniglot lanu vhanistaro l’adonai, the things that are revealed to in the world are for us, and the things that we do not see are for God. Not one of us can predict the days, months, or years ahead, but we do have the power to shape how our lives will one day be remembered.

Rabbi Shmuel Salanter would often be bombarded with questions of Jewish law and other matters concerning personal problems. His family became frustrated and told him that he must set aside special hours for receiving the public in order that he would have time for himself to rest.

Once again, we have commemorated 9/11. 23 years. While each commemoration is unique, this year is it hard to imagine marking this day in the midst of a post-October 7th year.

Last night, 1,000 people gathered in front of Beverly Hills City Hall for a powerful vigil to both bring memory to the six hostages murdered by Hamas, in the shiva period for those precious families, and a reminder that we must continue to use our voices and our actions to ensure the remaining hostages come home.

There is a debate as to what we receive from performing a mitzvah. We learn that the reward of a mitzvah is the ability to perform another mitzvah. And yet, we learn in Pirkei Avot, “The reward for a mitzvah is the mitzvah itself.”

Our taste buds change over time. Be it different delicacies that exist where you live and where you move throughout your life, your social circles of where you eat, or the will to try new things, we change what we eat and what we like.

During the Yizkor service that we recite four times a year, on each pilgrimage festival along with Yom Kippur, the cantor chants the words from Isaiah, “Grass withers, flowers fade, when God’s breath blows on them, indeed, people are but grass.”

As we begin the last book of the Torah, Deuteronomy, Moses begins recounting the journeys of the Jewish people. In the first verse, he mentions specific locations along the way. Rashi notices it is at these places in which the Israelites rebelled against God.

The three weeks before Tisha B’Av are known as ben hamtzarim, translated literally as, “Between the narrow straits.” The letters of metzarim are the same letters as mitzrayim, Egypt, which represents our deepest troubles in our history: generations enslaved.