October 14, 2024
Rabbi Ferdinand Isserman said, “Prayer cannot mend a broken bridge, rebuild a ruined city, or bring water to parched fields. Prayer can mend a broken heart, lift up a discouraged soul, and strengthen a weakened will.” 
As we reflect on 5784 and turn our focus to the New Year, we have to wonder how to measure this year. Our Jewish community has without doubt been suffering: the attack on October 7th, 2023 left us with a sense of sorrow, insecurity, and deep hurt.
Antisemitic rhetoric and events have wounded and outraged us, and in this election year, it could be easy for our community to find ourselves even more divided.
This week, as we commemorated the tragic events of October 7th with our students and families, we chose to measure this year by the love that we are showing to one another, by honoring the soldiers defending Israel, by acknowledging the helpers and the heroes without capes who supported the community when it was needed the most.
We choose hope over despair and action over idleness.
This week, during these Days of Awe (the ten days separating Rosh Hashanah from Yom Kippur), we gathered together twice.
The first time was to honor those we lost on October 7th, those who were kidnapped and have yet to return home, the soldiers in the line of danger to defend Israel, and all those whose lives are impacted by the war raging in all corners of Israel, and a second time we gathered to cast Tashlich, letting go of all that weighs heavily in our hearts and memories in the cleansing water of our nearby pond.
We turn to 5785 with hope, and together we pray because “people who pray for courage, for strength to bear the unbearable, for grace to remember what they have left instead of what they have lost, very often find their prayers answered.
They discover that they have more strength, more courage than they ever knew themselves to have.” (Rabbi Harold Kushner). 
This year, may we all find the strength and courage we need and may we all find support in one another.
Gmar Chatimah Tovah,
Morah Val