Month: October 2025

October 8

Rabbi Ben Herman , ,

Many of us saw the movie October 8 last month at the center about the pro-Palestinian radicalization on college campuses. I learned about it firsthand having served on the Hillel Board of Directors the past 2 years and from speaking with students. The lack of safety that Jewish students on campus have felt, amplified since the October 7th massacre, has become clear. Interestingly the film was entitled October 8, for the day after October 7 when the celebration and justification for the most Jews murdered on any day since the Holocaust began. Many have called themselves “October 8 Jews” that October 7 woke them up to the realities of antisemitism. Brett Stephens coined the term, as he wrote one month after the horrific attack “On Oct. 8, Jews woke up to discover who our friends are not…What can Oct. 8 Jews do? We can stop being embarrassed, equivocal or defensive about Zionism, which is, after all, one of the world’s most successful movements of national liberation. We can call out anti-Zionism for what it is: a rebranded version of antisemitism, based on the same set of libels and conspiracy theories. We can exit the institutions that have disserved us: ‘Defund the academy’ is a much better slogan than ‘Defund the police.’”[1] One year after that horrific attack, Stephens wrote about October 8 Jews, “Those who woke up a day after our greatest tragedy since the Holocaust to see how little empathy there was for us in many of the spaces and communities and institutions we thought we comfortably inhabited. It was an awakening that often came with a deeper set of realizations.”[2]

Interestingly the film had a different name, H8TE, with an 8 serving in the position of the “A.” It was another sign that the emphasis is on those who hate us having shown their true colors after October 7th while also indicating what should be our response the day after. On October 8, when there were still Hamas terrorists in communities in Israel, there was a rally, or should I say celebration, in Times Square. In addition, on that date Harvard said, “We hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible” and did not mention Hamas. Shai Davidai, on Columbia closing its gates for the first time since the Vietnam War, “I wasn’t seeing  a debate; I was seeing hatred.”Students had to think if it was sake to walk outside and risked their magen david being taken off of them. This coordinated campaign to accuse Israel of genocide was seen in so many ways: the encampments, each with the same tents and supplies; the blocking of students being able to go to their classroom and their being castigated as “baby killers”; pictures of hostages being torn down and Israeli flags being burned.

Despite this powerful story, Wendy Sachs had a a lot of trouble getting the film into theatres. Eventually Eventually she got it into AMC theatres for one week, although AMC did not publicize it. Wendy Sachs, the filmmaker, said “I sent it to NBC News Studios, I sent it to CNN, I sent it around, and everyone said no…I couldn’t get an agent or any representation, which is pretty extraordinary given all the incredible people involved in the film…ironically all of the agents are Jewish. Everyone saw rough cuts of the film and said ‘I like you. It’s a great film. Good for you for making this. But sorry I can’t touch this…there is a radioactivity in Hollywood to this kind of film.’”[3]

This year we have seen many Jewish celebrities, from John Stewart to Mandy Patinkin, publicly castigate Israel. We saw actors Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo and Ayo Edebiri publicly boycott Israel. It appears to be the “in” thing to do. With all the world’s problems, the desire is to boycott Israel. Hearing Mandy Patinkin, who was my mom’s hero, say “How could it be done to your ancestors and you turn around and do it to someone else?”[4] has become bulletin board material for those who accuse Israel of genocide. Debra Messing and Michael Rapaport have tried to bring attention to the importance of bringing the hostages home but unfortunately there are more on the other side. As Douglas Murray pointed out, the “Bring Back Our Girls” from Boko Haram was far more successful than the bring back the hostages campaign has been. As Ritchie Torres points out, “social media enables the virus of antisemitism to spread to an extent that it never could before.”. Only 20 percent of people under 25 support Israel. On Tik Tok ratio of anti-Israel to pro-Israel is 1 to 54. Antisemitic incidents at near historic levels according to ADl-154 percent increase in 1 year.

What I want to focus on is, another year after October 7, what is the impact of this event on our lives today? How do we live our lives in a post October 7 world? For some of us it means that we need to be active, proud Jews. The list of people exploring conversion to Judaism as well as those who wanted to belong to or attend synagogue grew immensely after October 7. People want a place where they feel they are not alone but with other members of the tribe.

Similar feelings can emerge was we prepare to say Yizkor-that we are vulnerable and alone so we come here to synagogue to join with our community. We also have the dedication of memorial plaques, ensuring that our beloveds have permanent remembrances and signs of their presence here on earth.

 I want us to think about our loved ones who experienced antisemitism. How did they show their Jewish pride in the face of adversities? What did they do demonstrate their Judaism? How can we follow in there example as proud, October 8 Jews? It will not change the hatred and those who want to destroy us but it will change us to be mindful of how Judaism impacts our lives. As we remember them, may we concurrently have pride in who we are and may it impact us on a daily basis.

[1] Stephens, Bret (2023-11-07). “For America’s Jews, Every Day Must Be Oct. 8”. New York Times

[2] Stephens, Bret (2024-10-04). “The Year American Jews Woke Up”. New York Times

[3] Dan Senor, “Why Did Hollywood Ghost a Movie on Antisemitism?” Call Me Back, March 12, 2025.

[4] Mandy Patinkin, New York Times interview, July 25, 2025.

Becoming Eternal

Rabbi Ben Herman , , , , ,

When you turned 1 and I 86

What marvel that we both exist

In same world now

Though we live apart

Know each moment

You are in my heart.

So much I learned

You still must learn

Now we share life

While life’s days turn.

To try to walk

Your present goal

While your very being

Delights my soul.

Sweet precious girl

So dear to me

Now I will love you

Eternally.[1]

          My grandmother wrote this love note to my daughter Ariela two weeks before the end of her life. She refused to use the “d” word-perhaps not what you are thinking by it. The d word is death. Instead, she always said “became eternal.” In my younger years I found this to be strange and counterproductive, as it felt like Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ first stage of grief, denial of death. Part of this has to do with why we grieve. As Kathryn Schultz writes in her book Lost and Found: A Memoir, “part of what makes grief so seductive is it seems to offer us what life no longer can: an ongoing, emotionally potent connection to the dead. And so it is to feel that once the bleak gift is gone, the person we love will somehow be gone, too.[2] As I’ve grown in my knowledge, I’ve found great wisdom in what Judaism can teach about an eternal connection with our loved ones-that they are never truly gone from us.

          In our liturgy, eternality is reserved for God. Every morning we read the Song of the Sea which asserts ה ימלך לעולם ועד-Gd shall live forever and ever,[3] as well as Ashrei which states ואברכה שמך לעולם ועד, and I will praise Your (God’s) name forever and ever.[4] God’s qualities also have an eternal impact, as we read on Shabbat and holidays כי לעולם חסדו, God’s lovingkindness is forever.[5] As we are in the image of God, the prophets believed that certain qualities will live forever, Isaiah asserting ועמך כלם צדיקים לעולם ירשו ארץ, “your entire nation is righteous, and they will inherit the land forever.”[6]

          The Zohar, a medieval mystical book, teaches that the soul is an eternal and immortal aspect of the self that has a divine origin and, through successive incarnations, undergoes experiences that evolve and purify it. Rabbi Isaac Luria, a 16th century Kabbalist, taught ““The soul returns to this world to complete what was left unfinished, to repair and elevate.” We often think of reincarnation as an idea of eastern religions; it is in Judaism as well. The Zohar speaks of 5 different levels of the soul: Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Chaya, and Yechida. Each layer represents a different level of the soul’s development and connection to the divine. It further teaches that “at the time of a man’s death, he is allowed to see his relatives and companions from the other world.”[7]  In a message that resonates with today, Yom Kippur, the day on which we rehearse our own death, we learn, “On the day when a person’s time arrives to depart from the world…three messengers stand over her and take an account of her life and all that she has done in the world and she admits all with her mouth and signs the account with her hand…she should be judged in the next world for all her actions, former and latter, old and new, not one of them is forgotten.”[8]

          This can give us comfort in the idea that part of us will live on. At the same time it might give us the heebie-jeebies: my soul can be reincarnated into someone else? Furthermore, the Zohar teaches that there were 600,000 Israelite souls, all found at                                               Sinai-how does that work when there are close to 16 million Jews, let alone other righteous people of all faiths? Some of us might prefer the words of Gershon Scholem, a professor of Jewish mysticism: “The language of the Zohar must be understood symbolically; its stories and words are vessels for deeper spiritual truths.”[9]

          How might those who prefer the rational understand eternality-or is it simply when you die, that’s it? The medieval Jewish philosopher, Rabbi Levi Ben Gershon, also known as Gersonides, wrote a beautiful teaching about this in his book Milchamot HaShem:

          Man is immortal in so far as he attains the intellectual perfection that is open to him. This means that man becomes immortal only if and to the extent that he acquires knowledge of what he can in principle know e.g. mathematics and natural sciences. This knowledge survives his bodily death and constitutes his immortality.[10]

          Why is this important? The Yizkor prayers we will recite beginותדעהו  ה מה אדם “God, what is humanity that you are mindful of us?” On Yom Kippur, we reflect on what is the meaning of our lives? After all, we are one moment closer to death now than we were before. By holding onto the eternality of people, we recognize that the spirit of our loved ones continue within us. One way in which this occurs is when we remember words that they have said. As in the words of an early 20th century rabbi:

We know that everything that has once been brought into existence cannot be put out of existence. The word I now speak is spoken forever; it can never be recalled. The soul once propelled into the universe cannot be put out of it; it can never be destroyed. What becomes of it after death I know not.”[11]

When something has been created, it cannot be retracted. Similarly, once someone has lived on this earth, their presence endures even after their physical departure. Just as an imprint cannot be erased, neither can a person’s impact in the world. As stated by Rabbi Bernard S. Raskas in his sermon “A Jewish View of Immortality”:

          What is this immortality in which I believe?

          I believe that a person lives on in his or her family…

I believe there is a form of immortality in the institutions we build and the causes we espouse…

I believe in the immortality of friendship and helpfulness…

I believe in the immortality of existence…

I find immortality in people.”[12]

This sentiment is found in contemporary times as well. Take Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh was murdered by Hamas last year. At the Christians United for Israel Annual Summit, Rachel said, “I know love never dies. It is eternal.”[13] Our bonds to one another are immortal-they transcend this physical life. When we remember experiences we shared with those no longer physically present, we feel their spirit shining forth even today.

          As we recite Yizkor, we remember those who came before knowing that their spark continues on inside of us. Rather than bemoan what was, we have pride in what is. We are comforted by the words of Rabbi Jacob Weinstein:

          We, the living, can determine the kind of immortality our beloved shall have…We can act as their personal representatives to the living. Where they lifted the burden or worry from a fellow man, we can give encouragement and help; where they brought cheer and care and loyalty, we can be instead.”[14]  

It is my prayer that the nobility in in our predecessors’ lives and the high ideals they cherished endure in our thoughts and live on in our deeds. May we, carrying on their work, help to redeem God’s promise that life shall prevail.[15] In so doing, we will follow the Torah commandment to choose life, making choices and decisions that emulate the greatest values of our people.

          I will conclude with another of my grandmothers’ poems, from eight years after the passing of her mother.

Eight years after,

Marvel I

How those years brought us closer.

This experience called dying,

Which on surface seemed to sever,

Only brought us fonder, nearer-

Every moment of eight yearspans

Only wove us more together.

Eight years after-

Yearspans after-

Eight years after,

Marvel I

Of the legacy you left me,

Giving me not only moments,

Opportunity of moments,

But the precious worth of moments

And the meaning of life’s moments.

Eight years after-

Eight years after-

Eight years after,

Grateful I

For the heritage you left me-

In your teaching about lifetime,

In the reaching of your lifetime

Never, never, have you left me,

Never-never did you die![16]

[1] Lucille Frenkel, February Love Note about Our Shared Birthday Month

[2] Kathryn Schultz, Lost and Found: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 2022), pg. 66.

[3] Exodus 15:18

[4] Psalms 145:1

[5] Psalms 136:1

[6] Isaiah 60:21

[7] Zohar I, 219a, in Simcha Paull Raphael, Jewish Views of the Afterlife (Northvale, NJ: Aronson, 2000), pg. 290.

[8] Zohar I, 79a, in Raphael, pg. 291.

[9] Gershon Scholem, Zohar: The Book of Splendor (NY: Shocken Books, 1963), pg. 21.

[10] Raphael,  pg. 261.

[11] J. Leonard Levy, Prophetic Voice (Pittsburgh, PA: Rodeph Shalom Congregation, 1970), pg. 86.

[12] Bernard S. Raskas, “A Jewish View of Immortality,” The American Rabbi, 19/1 (August 1986), pg. 57-59.

[13] Rachel Goldberg-Polin, Cufi Summit, 7/2/25

[14] Rabbi Simon Greenberg, A Treasury of Comfort, pg. 225.

[15] Gates of Prayer, pg. 626.

[16] Lucille Frenkel, “The Immortality for My Mother Rose B. Forman” In A Jewish Adventure (Milwaukee, Wi: The Eternity Press, 1983), pg. 125.

Kol Nidre’s Hold on Us

Rabbi Ben Herman , , ,

Every year I feel something special when the Torot are taken out of the ark, processed around the congregation, and the music of Kol Nidre is chanted by the Hazzan. It’s almost a hypnotic, trance-like state that sets the tone for the 25 hours that follow. The majestic nature of the music, which we all just felt, is what I want to devote a few minutes to this evening.

Kol Nidre is such a powerful prayer. A unique thing is that the rabbis wanted to get rid of Kol Nidre because it talks about annulling vows which the Bible forbids-as stated: “When you fulfill a vow you must obey it without delay…you must be careful to perform any promise that has crossed your lips.”[1] The people and the hazzanim rebelled, and won, because we are held by the mesmerizing music that is part of this prayer.

What is Kol Nidre’s hold on us? Why do we cling to it each and every year? Rabbi Alan Lew writes in his book This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared that “when we recite Kol Nidre, God calls out to the soul, in a voice the soul recognizes instantly because it is the soul’s own cry…your soul is hearing its name called out, and its name is pain, grief, shame, humiliation, loss, failure death-or at least that is its first name. That is the name the first few notes of the Kol Nidre call out.”[2] That is very jarring by itself. Are we really here to feel pain and humiliation? Is the purpose of saying Ashamnu and Al Heyt to embarrass us? I would argue not-that we need to take the emotion we feel with Kol Nidre and channel it into the future. Rabbi Stanley Rabinowitz has a suggestion as to how to do so-it may seem dated with mentioning a rangefinder camera but its lesson is eternal.

“The mystic hold which Kol Nidre has over us may be the result of our awareness that under the pressures of life, there will be times when our deeds may not be consistent with our principles and when our achievements may not square with the promises inherent in us.

Kol Nidre prompts us to try harder to bring integrity into our decisions. The intent of Kol Nidre may be compared to that of a rangefinder on a camera. Looking through a rangefinder, the photographer will see a split image-a forehead over here and a chin over there. By turning the focus ring, they bring the split image into alignment. Kol Nidre serves as a mechanism of focus…

In the channels of living, each person projects dreams, hopes and aspirations. We make promises; we express resolves. There are promises inherent in our family relationships, in the position we occupy in the marketplace and in the community. But somehow life blurs the promise and fogs the resolve. The promises inherent in us fade away, sometimes because of something we have done, and sometimes because of something done to us. In either case, it is all too easy to reach a point where we capitulate to a sense of failure and say, ‘I’m sorry. I can’t make it. It is not worth it; it can’t be done.” Life is out of focus.

Too much of life is out of focus. There is a distance between what we are and what we could be, a gap between where we are and where we wanted to be. Kol Nidre comes to help us bridge that gap.”[3]

What is most important is how we take Kol Nidre with us into today and the days ahead. In these 25 hours of God’s undivided attention, we have great opportunity. We are told in the Torah to circumcise our hearts.[4] The medieval commentator Rashi says this means that we should have an open and loving heart. Yom Kippur is a day when we are meant to soften our hearts. The beauty of Kol Nidre’s music helps us begin to do so. This will continue tomorrow as we remember our loved ones at Yizkor as well as at Neilah when we get to offer our personal prayer before the open ark. Yom Kippur is a day to look at who we can become in our fullest essence, to say “yes I can” as we move forward. It might even lead to the exultation felt by the High Priest in Temple times who was described as מגמתו כצאת השמש כגבורת תואר, one whose face shown like the strength of the sun.[5]

During these 25 hours, take time to let the music of the prayers wash over you and the power of our being together in community up until the final Shofar blast. Meditate a little, laugh little, cry a little even dance a little if it moves you. Yom Kippur is a powerful day, one at which we are at one with our creator. It is my hope and prayer that we feel this today.

[1] Deuteronomy 23:22

[2] Rabbi Alan Lew, This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared (United States: Little, Brown, 2003), pg. 178.

[3] Rabbi Stanley Rabinowitz, “Kol Nidre: Bridging the Gap of a Split Image”

[4] Deuteronomy 10:16

[5] Yom Kippur Avodah Service