Rosh Hashana Day

Rabbi Geoffrey Botnick
2008

A Sunday school teacher decided to have her young class memorize
One of the most quoted passages in the Bible: Psalm 23. She gave the youngsters  a month to learn the chapter.

You remember how it starts:  The Lord is my shepherd.  I shall not want. Little Rick was excited about the task, but he just couldn’t remember the Psalm. After much practice, he could barely get past the first line. On the day that the kids were scheduled
to recite Psalm 23 in front of the congregation, Rickey was very nervous.

When it was his turn, he stepped up to the microphone and said proudly, “The Lord is my Shepherd,…and that’s all I
need to know.”  That was all a kid felt that he needed as a message.  Technically, it can certainly be all that is necessary to recall—that the Lord is My shepherd.   What does one need to know?  
Years ago I gave a sermon on Kol Nidre titled  What the world needs now is Mentschlichkeit.   Some of you may remember the name. It touched upon the ways we are coarse and unkind to one another.  And how we fail to respect the boundaries of others.  
The original song was “what the world needs now is love, sweet love” by Burt Bacharach. 
Years later, not because the world need was so  different, but because I had a newer thought, I spoke on    What the world needs now is ………….. Reverence.
Reverence for people dear to us, reverence  for the inexpressible awe- inspiring aspects of life, reverence for life, for the dignity due the next person, for mitzvot and for brachot.
This year I have counted a number of needs the world has.   We still need the mentschlichkeit; we still need lessons in reverence.   Many problems in our world are really pressing.  There is Darfur, there is the scary situation that Israel faces from Iran, and from terrorists and terror states; there is poverty, there are  weather crises, the threat of war from different world powers.      This year I have to take into consideration the congregation in front of me:   I have a slightly different thought for you to digest, to consider and to apply to yourself: 

Therefore, I owe you a different approach.     So what the world needs now is …. YOU, Yes, I mean it.  The world needs you, really needs you.   I want you to hear that and experience being needed– by our world, and by other aspects of your life.  

We will examine this from a number of views.  What your family needs, what your community needs, what your synagogue needs, what your world needs, what God needs,  
We all have to hear the thought of What the world needs now is…   You.    Even despite  illness.   In spite of having to conserve on your expenses, the world needs you. 

Me you ask?    This sermon is to tell you that you are needed and that you are adequate enough to be needed by this world.
The Berditschever Rabbi was seeking a Shofar-Blower.  Many applied for the post, and he asked each one his mystic thoughts during the Shofar-blowing.  No one’s answer pleased him.  Finally one man said:
 
“Rabbi, I am unlearned, and I know no mystic thoughts, but I have four daughters to marry, and I have no money for their dowries.  therefore when I blow the Shofar, I think: ‘O Lord of the Universe; I have done my duty in obeying Thy command; do Thou also Thy duty and send me worthy mates for my daughters.'”
The Berditschever Rabbi appointed him to blow the Shofar.  If he thought that he was inadequate for the responsibility, the rabbi chose him and declared him fully adequate. 
In fact, you are adequate enough to make the entire  world better.  If Rosh Hashanah is known as Hayom Harat Olam, that this is the day of birth of the world, then this is the day of birth for many of us in our potential, in our being needed, in our means to add to our world and in ways that we haven’t learned yet.  Even with your flaws, you’re adequate enough.  Ah…. With your uniqueness, the world needs you.    
How do we become aware of our uniqueness?   Some circumstances offer an insight into ourselves, our unique selves, our improving selves.   Take tA Sunday school teacher decided to have her young class memorize
One of the most quoted passages in the Bible: Psalm 23. She gave the youngsters  a month to learn the chapter.

You remember how it starts:  The Lord is my shepherd.  I shall not want.  Little Rick was excited about the task, but he just couldn’t remember the Psalm. After much practice, he could barely get past the first line. On the day that the kids were scheduled to recite Psalm 23 in front of the congregation, Rickey was very nervous.

When it was his turn, he stepped up to the microphone and said proudly, “The Lord is my Shepherd,…and that’s all I need to know.”  
That was all a kid felt that he needed as a message.  Technically, it can certainly be all that is necessary to recall—that the Lord is My shepherd.   What does one need to know?  
Years ago I gave a sermon on Kol Nidre titled  What the world needs now is Mentschlichkeit.   Some of you may remember the name.
It touched upon the ways we are coarse and unkind to one another.  And how we fail to respect the boundaries of others.  

The original song was “what the world needs now is love, sweet love” by Burt Bacharach. 
Years later, not because the world need was so  different, but because I had a newer thought, I spoke on    What the world needs now is ………….. Reverence.
Reverence for people dear to us, reverence  for the inexpressible awe- inspiring aspects of life, reverence for life, for the dignity due the next person, for mitzvot and for brachot.
This year I have counted a number of needs the world has.   We still need the mentschlichkeit; we still need lessons in reverence.   Many problems in our world are really pressing.  There is Darfur, there is the scary situation that Israel faces from Iran, and from terrorists and terror states; there is poverty, there are weather crises, the threat of war from different world powers.
This year I have to take into consideration the congregation in front of me:   I have a slightly different thought for you to digest, to consider and to apply to yourself: 

Therefore, I owe you a different approach.     So what the world needs now is …. YOU, Yes, I mean it.  The world needs you, really needs you.   I want you to hear that and experience being needed– by our world, and by other aspects of your life.  

We will examine this from a number of views.  What your family needs, what your community needs, what your synagogue needs, what your world needs, what God needs,  
We all have to hear the thought of What the world needs now is…   You.    Even despite  illness.   In spite of having to conserve on your expenses, the world needs you. 

Me you ask?    This sermon is to tell you that you are needed and that you are  adequate enough to be needed by this world.   *****
The Berditschever Rabbi was seeking a Shofar-Blower.  Many applied for the post, and he asked each one his mystic thoughts during the Shofar-blowing.  No one’s answer pleased him.  Finally one man said:
 
“Rabbi, I am unlearned, and I know no mystic thoughts, but I have four daughters to marry, and I have no money for their dowries.  therefore when I blow the Shofar, I think: ‘O Lord of the Universe; I have done my duty in obeying Thy command; do Thou also Thy duty and send me worthy mates for my daughters.'”
The Berditschever Rabbi appointed him to blow the Shofar.  If he thought that he was inadequate for the responsibility, the rabbi chose him and declared him fully adequate. 
In fact, you are adequate enough to make the entire  world better.  If Rosh Hashanah is known as Hayom Harat Olam, that this is the day of birth of the world, then this is the day of birth for many of us in our potential, in our being needed, in our means to add to our world and in ways that we haven’t learned yet.  Even with your flaws, you’re adequate enough.  Ah…. With your uniqueness, the world needs you.    
 How do we become aware of our uniqueness?   Some circumstances offer an insight into ourselves, our unique selves, our improving selves.   Take the example of Avi, who was interviewed by Rabbi Abraham Twerski, a counselor on dependency to drugs and alcohol.
 The Talmud tells us that “Those who rule over themselves can be objective in an accounting of life’s choices.”  Only ”those who rule over themselves,” who are not enslaved by their physical desires, can be objective and make an accurate accounting of the life’s  positive and negative choices.  They can appreciate the differences between  a Short lived high     and  long term high.
For Avi it used to be a life focused on getting a momentary thrill for which he had to  pay dearly in the long run.  Addiction to drugs had taken every vestige of self-rule from His pursuit of the ”high” of drugs led him to a career of crime. His convictions for burglary resulted in eight imprisonments for a total of sixteen of his thirty-four years. This was certainly a long term loss for a momentary ”high,” but Avi had no self-rule. He lived under the tyranny of drug addiction.
After Avi underwent a successful rehabilitation, he once found an envelope with a very large sum of money. This was ostensibly ownerless money, which the finder has a right to keep. It just so happened that Avi knew to whom it belonged, and he returned it. What a turnaround, from burglarizing homes to returning lost money to its owner! Avi had attained self-rule.
Twerski  commented on this episode.   I learned about this incident and congratulated Avi on his great progress. Avi said, ”In the days when I used drugs, I would get a high that lasted for perhaps 20 minutes. When it wore off, I felt worse than ever. The incident when I returned the money happened six months ago. Whenever I think of it, I still get a good feeling.”
When he was enslaved by his addiction, Avi could not calculate the long term cost he would have to pay for a fleeting pleasure. As one who ruled over himself, Avi was able to make an accounting, to calculate the loss of money, which he could have kept, as opposed to the good feeling of doing a mitzvah, which persisted for six months and would be with him forever.
How are we to become rulers.  We should become rulers over ourselves. Only then can we make an honest calculation, gaining the most out of life and avoiding severe losses.   In this calculation, we become adequate enough. 
Our synagogue years  ago instituted Alcoholics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous  .  We have also introduced the Sy Levine Response Team for guiding people and families to the community resources in dealing with drug and alcohol dependency –to help people see themselves as adequate enough to take on responsibilities and to  assume life’s daily tasks and their share in relationships again. 
I said, “ What the world needs now is …….. You.”
As I said We will examine this urging,   from a number of views.  What your family needs, what your community needs, what your synagogue needs, what your world needs, what God needs,  

How can your family need you? Some of you here are facing very difficult even bleak circumstances ahead of you.  It can be severely depressing.   You may be wondering, right now, if you have a purpose in living.   Yes, you do.  You have infinite value.  It may not be readily clear to you.   People can be there for you if you can identify what you need from them.   There are medical and mental health professionals to help you address the moments of difficult depressing thoughts or images that flash in front of you. Please listen carefully.    Life will never be better for your loved ones if you think that life could be better for them and you—if  you were gone.   What the world needs now is .. .you and alive.  

How does your family need you?    In your marriage, in your loyalty,  To be mature, to recognize that you need a little less often  to be right, you need  to be responsive to family stresses,  Your family needs you to be   sharing, your family needs you to be  owning responsibilities, to help others grow on their own, to be praising more  than criticizing, to be courageous in the face of challenge, to be encouraging –to listen well, to take their concerns seriously without judging,   Your family needs you  for love , for inner strength, for values, —-for valuing them.  

Your community needs you.  How?  How can our  community need you?   To volunteer, to invest in your contribution to society, to donate, to wish others to succeed, to be happy for others,    to go to Israel.  Look at how many ways you can find fulfillment in being there for other people.  Some of our members have a regular appointed time to do mitvah work—kosher meals on wheels, calling home bound members, Temple Torah kitchen assignments for making up Kiddush platters, mentors,  greeters, you can dream up wonderful  alternatives.  Age is not an obstacle, I promise you.  

Our Environmental issues are pressing.  We are asked to conserve on fuel, and recycle paper and metals and plastics.   Our friendliness, too,  is an asset to the environment.  It enhances the environment of the synagogue, of the day care center,  of  the medical centers, during  your visits to the hospitals, 

How can your synagogue need you?  To grow, to learn new synagogue skills, to learn how to put on tallit and tephillin,  to be open to possibilities, to be open to meeting and welcoming new people, to help plan and pave the way for the  future.  I am so grateful that some of our members have shown such wonderful generosity—many without  fanfare or reminding people of  their gifts.   
Teaching in our adult ed program—enrolling in adult ed classes.
Your rabbi needs you.  I need you.  I need you to support me and my vision.   I seek to be there for you.  I need you to be there for me.   I need your support for me to lead this congregation. 
If we blame others less, we add to the quality of our world.   We expect others to be as understanding as we are.  If we make allowances for others not acting as fast as we do, if we grant some other people, people more senior than we are,  to do things gradually, our world is that much lighter in tone.   Can we learn to laugh more with someone than at someone?   This political climate has the means for major disagreements and people acting in an overbearing way.   Can you imagine that the day after elections the fierce collisions people have had are consigned to the past?     Can you invite another to chuckle at your own mistakes?  Maybe even a spouse?  Can he or she recognize your ability to apologize? 
 We might appreciate a richer set of relationships.   We have the means to add lasting aspects to the connections we have with others.   It takes energy. It takes patience, and even a readiness to confront your own tendencies: be they to control, to need validation, to criticize others’ attempts to maintain their own dignity.  

Since none of us is 100% blameless, the arguments we have should be for going deeper into our relationships;  Some arguments avoid those.   Winning is no longer the point.  Can you allow another’s viewpoint to sit alongside your own?   I see your darker side:  Rabbi, I have to be right —about traditions, about how observance needs to be less binding.    WAIT !
You and your Jewish world are ready to approach the holy
Getting to holy…God is close to the broken hearted.   God is also close to those who create bridges to God.  
Last February many thought that a promising basketball star was crazy.  Do you remember Bassie Orzechovitz?  In a competition near Orlando Bassie, a senior at Weinbaum Yeshiva High School in Boca Raton, who had tied for first place in 3 point basketball shots, chose not to participate in the finals that would have held been an hour before Shabbat was out.   The point was she couldn’t see herself in her relationship with God and the Jewish tradition shave off an hour of Shabbat to get to the competition before Shabbat was out.  She pulled herself out of the championship.   Can you admire that ?   Even better, can’t you wish for such a Shabbat relationship with God.  As if she had a  dancing relationship with God?  She sought to be in a dance with God. 

You know what also happened? While she didn’t play, she had an attack of appendicitis as Shabbat was coming to a close.   Go figure if she had played—she’d have been carried out on a stretcher.   Did her action safeguard her life or perhaps let her safeguard her relationship with God and Shabbat and gave her a way to teach us?  I love this instance and we can learn from her.  From an eighteen year old girl who could have been  a first place winner.  Bassie was instead a person who chose a way to connect with God and Shabbat and the Jewish people.   

Can I invite us to the challenge of asking what Judaism is really about for you?   Does it have lasting depth? Can this year’s Rosh Hashanah be a time when your question is
Who am  I when I hear the thought :   What the world needs now is you?    How do I respond to that call?    

It is fair that what you come to Rosh Hashanah to hear is that you are needed, greatly needed.   That is a good thing to hear.  

How can God need you?   One : God needs you alive.  To be fully alive and aware of your potential for little mitzvot one at a time.  Feeling worthy to be commanded, ready to take on at least one new mitzvah
Feeling entitled to know of God’s concern toward you
Ready to see yourself in a dance with God.  

Parts of life are like dancing before God.  Performing  a dance, a ritual, with a prescribed set of steps and allowing for some variations.  When the dance before God shifts, it can be even dancing  alongside God.  God dances?   
If God could dance, could you dance with God?   Could you be a dance partner with God?   Could you ask God to dance?   How would you proclaim God as a dance partner?  
Could you invite God to see your inner holiness?   Are there some actions of  yours that you would want God to see as holy? Studying Perek Yomi, Bible chapters, Host learning in your home: I need volunteers to open a home to discussion topic evenings with me. 
Can your connections to Judaism ever be allowed to be almost above all else?    Can the thin holy voice of God softly broadcast in your ears?      
Can you somehow add blessing to the world?  Tell your family that you need them.  

Holidays are a time when instead of individuals, we can face God together, to face His expectations of our better selves … of our meaningful actions,  

There are good and happy reasons for someone to say God needs me.  
 I recall times that I overheard  a person try to console  himself or a child after the death of a loved one, and offered this  statement :  God needed him God needed her in heaven– as a comforting statement, God instead needs us on earth to make the best use of our time, to partner with God here on earth.  God doesn’t want you to speak for Him and explain that the death of someone is because  He wanted the person at HIS  side.  Please help people imagine that God is saddened when one close to us has died.   It was not by God’s hand.  
What makes you unique in God’s eyes?  Really unique? Really able to be special in God’s eyes? Not to downgrade yourself .  Instead, lift yourself up to God’s expectations.  

The story is told of a king who needed a dependable cavalry.  A person supplied the king with horses and said “they don’t perform as in a circus in synchronized form. They don’t strut with gracefulness as if they are in a dance.  They don’t jump through hoops of fire or count out the numbers with their hooves.  But they do ride  very dependably and for as long as the rider needs to ride the distance.   They will be a worthy contribution to the king’s military readiness.  The king will be very satisfied with their performance ”The horses and their horsemen were a perfect match for what the king needed.    

God Himself needs to be God. 
God is named in the Torah Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh;  I will be what I will be.   Can we have room in ourselves for I will be?  

Hear the thin almost silent voice of God.   It asked  just what we should be asking ourselves, Where are you in your process of becoming?   Can  you hear God say to you that what the world needs now is …… You.  

At this time of the year, we listen to the sound of the Shofar.  It calls to you and says that you are needed, that the world needs you.   What its call can say is :  This is your wake up call to be alive, as it reminds you that you are needed.  We have come to synagogue to hear that calling to be alive and to be needed.   Listen for that shofar call and vital message.   
You are recognizing that the world needs you. Yes, It needs love.  It needs peace.    It still needs mentschlichkeit; it still needs reverence.  If the world needs you,   Your family needs you, your community needs you.  Your synagogue needs you.  God needs you.  

As you listen for the thin almost silent voice of God, it tells you
The Lord is your shepherd.  

It further does tell you perhaps all you need to know.     What the world needs now is ……… you.    You are adequate enough.   You can add holiness to God’s world.  You can dance alongside God or perhaps with God.      amen  
he example of Avi, who was interviewed by Rabbi Abraham Twerski, a counselor on dependency to drugs and alcohol.
 The Talmud tells us that “Those who rule over themselves can be objective in an accounting of life’s choices.”  Only ”those who rule over themselves,” who are not enslaved by their physical desires, can be objective and make an accurate accounting of the life’s  positive and negative choices.  They can appreciate the differences between  a Short lived high     and  long term high.
  For Avi it used to be a life focused on getting a momentary thrill for which he had to  pay dearly in the long run.  Addiction to drugs had taken every vestige of self-rule from His pursuit of the ”high” of drugs led him to a career of crime. His convictions for burglary resulted in eight imprisonments for a total of sixteen of his thirty-four years. This was certainly a long term loss for a momentary ”high,” but Avi had no self-rule. He lived under the tyranny of drug addiction.
After Avi underwent a successful rehabilitation, he once found an envelope with a very large sum of money. This was ostensibly ownerless money, which the finder has a right to keep. It just so happened that Avi knew to whom it belonged, and he returned it. What a turnaround, from burglarizing homes to returning lost money to its owner! Avi had attained self-rule.
Twerski  commented on this episode.   I learned about this incident and congratulated Avi on his great progress. Avi said, ”In the days when I used drugs, I would get a high that lasted for perhaps 20 minutes. When it wore off, I felt worse than ever. The incident when I returned the money happened six months ago. Whenever I think of it, I still get a good feeling.”
When he was enslaved by his addiction, Avi could not calculate the long term cost he would have to pay for a fleeting pleasure. As one who ruled over himself, Avi was able to make an accounting, to calculate the loss of money, which he could have kept, as opposed to the good feeling of doing a mitzvah, which persisted for six months and would be with him forever.
How are we to become rulers.  We should become rulers over ourselves. Only then can we make an honest calculation, gaining the most out of life and avoiding severe losses.   In this calculation, we become adequate enough. 
Our synagogue years  ago instituted Alcoholics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous  .  We have also introduced the Sy Levine Response Team for guiding people and families to the community resources in dealing with drug and alcohol dependency –to help people see themselves as adequate enough to take on responsibilities and to  assume life’s daily tasks and their share in relationships again. 
I said, “ What the world needs now is …….. You.”
As I said We will examine this urging,   from a number of views.  What your family needs, what your community needs, what your synagogue needs, what your world needs, what God needs,  

How can your family need you? Some of you here are facing very difficult even bleak circumstances ahead of you.  It can be severely depressing.   You may be wondering, right now, if you have a purpose in living.   Yes, you do.  You have infinite value.  It may not be readily clear to you.   People can be there for you if you can identify what you need from them.   There are medical and mental health professionals to help you address the moments of difficult depressing thoughts or images that flash in front of you. Please listen carefully.    Life will never be better for your loved ones if you think that life could be better for them and you—if  you were gone.   What the world needs now is .. .you and alive.  

How does your family need you?    In your marriage, in your loyalty,  To be mature, to recognize that you need a little less often  to be right, you need  to be responsive to family stresses,  Your family needs you to be   sharing, your family needs you to be  owning responsibilities, to help others grow on their own, to be praising more  than criticizing, to be courageous in the face of challenge, to be encouraging –to listen well, to take their concerns seriously without judging,   Your family needs you  for love , for inner strength, for values, —-for valuing them.  

Your community needs you.  How?  How can our  community need you?   To volunteer, to invest in your contribution to society, to donate, to wish others to succeed, to be happy for others,    to go to Israel.  Look at how many ways you can find fulfillment in being there for other people.  Some of our members have a regular appointed time to do mitvah work—kosher meals on wheels, calling home bound members, Temple Torah kitchen assignments for making up Kiddush platters, mentors,  greeters, you can dream up wonderful  alternatives.  Age is not an obstacle, I promise you.  

Our Environmental issues are pressing.  We are asked to conserve on fuel, and recycle paper and metals and plastics.   Our friendliness, too,  is an asset to the environment.  It enhances the environment of the synagogue, of the day care center,  of  the medical centers, during  your visits to the hospitals, 

How can your synagogue need you?  To grow, to learn new synagogue skills, to learn how to put on tallit and tephillin,  to be open to possibilities, to be open to meeting and welcoming new people, to help plan and pave the way for the  future.  I am so grateful that some of our members have shown such wonderful generosity—many without  fanfare or reminding people of  their gifts.   
Teaching in our adult ed program—enrolling in adult ed classes.
Your rabbi needs you.  I need you.  I need you to support me and my vision.   I seek to be there for you.  I need you to be there for me.   I need your support for me to lead this congregation. 
If we blame others less, we add to the quality of our world.   We expect others to be as understanding as we are.  If we make allowances for others not acting as fast as we do, if we grant some other people, people more senior than we are,  to do things gradually, our world is that much lighter in tone.   Can we learn to laugh more with someone than at someone?   This political climate has the means for major disagreements and people acting in an overbearing way.   Can you imagine that the day after elections the fierce collisions people have had are consigned to the past?     Can you invite another to chuckle at your own mistakes?  Maybe even a spouse?  Can he or she recognize your ability to apologize? 
 We might appreciate a richer set of relationships.   We have the means to add lasting aspects to the connections we have with others.   It takes energy. It takes patience, and even a readiness to confront your own tendencies: be they to control, to need validation, to criticize others’ attempts to maintain their own dignity.  

Since none of us is 100% blameless, the arguments we have should be for going deeper into our relationships;  Some arguments avoid those.   Winning is no longer the point.  Can you allow another’s viewpoint to sit alongside your own?   I see your darker side:  Rabbi, I have to be right —about traditions, about how observance needs to be less binding.    WAIT !
You and your Jewish world are ready to approach the holy
Getting to holy…God is close to the broken hearted.   God is also close to those who create bridges to God.  
 Last February many thought that a promising basketball star was crazy.  Do you remember Bassie Orzechovitz?  In a competition near Orlando Bassie, a senior at Weinbaum Yeshiva High School in Boca Raton, who had tied for first place in 3 point basketball shots, chose not to participate in the finals that would have held been an hour before Shabbat was out.   The point was she couldn’t see herself in her relationship with God and the Jewish tradition shave off an hour of Shabbat to get to the competition before Shabbat was out.  She pulled herself out of the championship.   Can you admire that ?   Even better, can’t you wish for such a Shabbat relationship with God.  As if she had a  dancing relationship with God?  She sought to be in a dance with God. 

You know what also happened? While she didn’t play, she had an attack of appendicitis as Shabbat was coming to a close.   Go figure if she had played—she’d have been carried out on a stretcher.   Did her action safeguard her life or perhaps let her safeguard her relationship with God and Shabbat and gave her a way to teach us?  I love this instance and we can learn from her.  From an eighteen year old girl who could have been  a first place winner.  Bassie was instead a person who chose a way to connect with God and Shabbat and the Jewish people.   

Can I invite us to the challenge of asking what Judaism is really about for you?   Does it have lasting depth?    Can this year’s Rosh Hashanah be a time when your question is
Who am  I when I hear the thought :   What the world needs now is you?    How do I respond to that call?    

It is fair that what you come to Rosh Hashanah to hear is that you are needed, greatly needed.   That is a good thing to hear.  

How can God need you?   One : God needs you alive.  To be fully alive and aware of your potential for little mitzvot one at a time.  Feeling worthy to be commanded, ready to take on at least one new mitzvah
Feeling entitled to know of God’s concern toward you
 Ready to see yourself in a dance with God.  

Parts of life are like dancing before God.  Performing  a dance, a ritual, with a prescribed set of steps and allowing for some variations.  When the dance before God shifts, it can be even dancing  alongside God.  God dances?   
If God could dance, could you dance with God?   Could you be a dance partner with God?   Could you ask God to dance?   How would you proclaim God as a dance partner?  
Could you invite God to see your inner holiness?   Are there some actions of  yours that you would want God to see as holy? Studying Perek Yomi, Bible chapters, Host learning in your home: I need volunteers to open a home to discussion topic evenings with me. 
 Can your connections to Judaism ever be allowed to be almost above all else?    Can the thin holy voice of God softly broadcast in your ears?      
 Can you somehow add blessing to the world?  Tell your family that you need them.  

Holidays are a time when instead of individuals, we can face God together, to face His expectations of our better selves … of our meaningful actions,  

There are good and happy reasons for someone to say God needs me.  
I recall times that I overheard  a person try to console  himself or a child after the death of a loved one, and offered this  statement :  God needed him God needed her in heaven– as a comforting statement, God instead needs us on earth to make the best use of our time, to partner with God here on earth.  God doesn’t want you to speak for Him and explain that the death of someone is because  He wanted the person at HIS  side.  Please help people imagine that God is saddened when one close to us has died.   It was not by God’s hand.  
 What makes you unique in God’s eyes?  Really unique? Really able to be special in God’s eyes? Not to downgrade yourself .  Instead, lift yourself up to God’s expectations.  

The story is told of a king who needed a dependable cavalry.  A person supplied the king with horses and said “they don’t perform as in a circus in synchronized form. They don’t strut with gracefulness as if they are in a dance.  They don’t jump through hoops of fire or count out the numbers with their hooves.  But they do ride  very dependably and for as long as the rider needs to ride the distance.   They will be a worthy contribution to the king’s military readiness.  The king will be very satisfied with their performance ”The horses and their horsemen were a perfect match for what the king needed.    

God Himself needs to be God. 
God is named in the Torah Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh;  I will be what I will be.   Can we have room in ourselves for I will be?  

Hear the thin almost silent voice of God.   It asked  just what we should be asking ourselves, Where are you in your process of becoming?   Can  you hear God say to you that what the world needs now is …… You.  

At this time of the year, we listen to the sound of the Shofar.  It calls to you and says that you are needed, that the world needs you.   What its call can say is :  This is your wake up call to be alive, as it reminds you that you are needed.  We have come to synagogue to hear that calling to be alive and to be needed.   Listen for that shofar call and vital message.   
   You are recognizing that the world needs you. Yes, It needs love.  It needs peace.    It still needs mentschlichkeit; it still needs reverence.  If the world needs you,   Your family needs you, your community needs you.  Your synagogue needs you.  God needs you.  

As you listen for the thin almost silent voice of God, it tells you
The Lord is your shepherd.  

It further does tell you perhaps all you need to know.     What the world needs now is ……… you.    You are adequate enough.   You can add holiness to God’s world.  You can dance alongside God or perhaps with God. Amen