Prioritizing Shalom - Rabbi David's Rosh Hashana Morning Talk 5786

View the Speech on our YouTube Channel

         You’re probably familiar with the following instruction, which is given on every flight: "In the event of an emergency, please put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others." Most of us understand what that means when we're on a plane. We recognize that it’s an instruction that's not selfish but practical, because if you lose consciousness from lack of oxygen, you won’t be able to help anyone else. But while we accept this logic in an airplane cabin, it can be harder to accept it in our everyday lives. As Jewish people who are taught that it's our responsibility to pursue justice, care for the vulnerable, and to repair the world and make it a better place, our first instinct is often to help other people before tending to ourselves. Even at our most challenging moments, many of us, almost by default, find ourselves doing things to care for our families, to fulfill our work responsibilities, and to give our time and our energy to friends and community and the greater world around us. For many of us, this is always our first instinct - even when we're struggling to breathe (metaphorically, if not literally).

         When we shift into this default mode of helping and taking care of others, I think we forget that in addition to prioritizing tikkun olam, the repair of the world, Judaism also deeply values pikuach nefesh - the maintenance and preservation of life. Pikuach nefesh teaches that acting to maintain our health and well-being is considered to be more important than all but three of the Torah's 613 commandments. Pikuach nefesh is not just about physical safety - it’s also about spiritual well-being, emotional survival, and the protection of your soul. Judaism understands that we cannot be repairers of the world, or builders of a better world, if we ourselves are falling apart.

         In today’s world, that message feels more important than ever. Every time we turn on a screen or scroll through our phones, we are hit with urgent headlines, heartbreaking images, and often, more outrage than we can possibly absorb. As we receive these updates, we want to help, and we want to act. However, if we are constantly running on empty - emotionally, spiritually, and physically - then we risk burning out. And in that state, we can’t care for others. We can’t show up for our families, we can’t serve our communities or help care for strangers, and we can’t fulfill our purpose as Jews and as human beings. It just doesn't work.

         It's at these moments when we really need to put the metaphorical oxygen masks on, but in a world of constant tumult, it can be very difficult to identify just what our oxygen masks are. And when life feels overwhelming because of global events, personal loss, everyday chaos, or combinations of any of those and more, it can be all the more difficult to figure out how to care for ourselves in a way that is sustaining and meaningful.

         On this first day of the new Jewish year, I want to suggest a uniquely Jewish oxygen mask that I've been thinking about a lot about lately. I invite you to take a minute to think about the important Jewish value of pikiuach nefesh - of making space for your own breath, for your own healing, for caring for your own soul. As we spend today and the next nine days thinking about who we want to be and how we want to behave in the coming year, I want to suggest that the most helpful oxygen mask that Jewish tradition provides us with is the pursuit and prioritization of shalom - wholeness and peace.

         If you have attended a service I've led more than a couple of times, you've probably heard me at some point explain what the word shalom really means. Literally, the word shalom means peace - but it's a different kind of peace than we usually think about when we hear that word. In 21st century American English, the word peace usually refers to quiet and stillness, or the ending of, or absence of, strife and hostility. That’s actually not the kind peace that shalom truly refers to. Shalom is the peace that you experience from feeling whole and feeling complete. Here’s my favorite way to explain this: when we still lived in Philadelphia when my children were a lot younger, they went to daycare at the place where my wife worked. On most weekdays, they would come and go with her. Sometimes I would get home before the three of them did, and since this was in the 'sad' days before we also had a dog, I would be home alone at those moments. Our house would be empty, quiet, and still. Many people would describe those moments as peaceful - especially compared to the moments when a six year-old and one-and-a-half year-old would come running into the house filled with energy and activity. However, these moments of quiet and stillness were not moments of shalom. My life was, and still is, only truly complete when the four of us - now plus our beloved Labradoodle, Cocoa - are all together. No matter the level of noise or activity, shalom for Amy and I is when our entire family is with each other. Shalom is not the peace of quiet and stillness, but the peace that you experience when you feel whole and complete.

         As many of you know, my father died in August. He had been sick off and on for the last few years, so his passing was not a shock, but it was a heartbreak. It was a moment that has changed me in ways I'm still discovering, and I that know I will continue to discover for years to come. After he died, I found it difficult to be a mourner, to be the person who needed comfort and guidance and assistance, after the many times that I have been those things for other people over the years in my role as a rabbi. I have a lot of experience knowing how to be there for mourners, but I found that when it came time to be in that position myself, all of that experience was of little help to me. I had a lot to learn.

         One of the things I've learned is that grief is not just sadness. It’s also disorientation. It’s the sense that something foundational has shifted, and that after someone you love has died, you are no longer the same person you were before. You're altered at the most basic level, you're torn apart, and you quickly realize that what it used to mean for you to experience shalom, for you to feel whole, has fundamentally and permanently changed.

         Many of you know that one of the first rituals that Jewish people engage in as part of the mourning process is called kriyah in Hebrew - which literally means “tearing.” When mourners gather together before a funeral service,

it's Jewish tradition for the mourners to tear something that they're wearing. In ancient times, people would tear their clothing. Today people have a different relationship to their clothing, so most of us pin a black ribbon to our shirts and we tear that. We wear it throughout the week of Shiva, and some people continue to wear it for the entire first 30 days after their loved one's funeral. For months after my maternal grandfather died in 1989, my mother said that she felt like she should be walking around wearing a sign that said “my father just died.” In Jewish communities, that is one of the things that wearing that ribbon does. It's a way of telling other people that you're in pain and incomplete, because you're in mourning.

         There’s also a deeper meaning to wearing the kriyah ribbon. The torn ribbon reminds us that something essential has been removed from our life. It's a way to to show outwardly what is happening within: that something in us has been torn apart. It reminds us that losing a loved one makes us feel incomplete, and it redefines the basic foundation of our existence. It reminds us that we now need to search for a new definition of shalom, for a new definition of wholeness and peace in our life, because the old one literally cannot exist anymore. In my work as a rabbi over the years, I've seen that after the death of a loved one, the surviving family members gradually begin to forge a new sense of what shalom is for them now. It's not easy, and it usually takes a great deal of time and grief and pain and sadness, but eventually, it happens. We learn to experience shalom with our lives the way they are now, with the people who are still here, because we have to. We can't live without shalom, and we of course can't bring back the person who is gone.

         This highlights one of the most important aspects of the nature of shalom - like so much of what's important in life, shalom is not static or fixed. What shalom is for each of us is pretty much always changing, and it rarely stays the same for long. The shalom you experience at one stage of life is not the same as what you experience at another. When we are children, wholeness may come from the embrace of a parent. As we grow, it may come from friendships, love, or purpose. But, things change. Our families change, our communities change, the world changes. And with each change, we are invited - sometimes we are forced - to ask ourselves anew: What makes me whole now?

         As I've pondered this enormous change in my life over the last five weeks, it's occurred to me that maybe this quest for wholeness, this search for shalom, is something that we should all be doing, all the time. It's occurred to me that searching for and prioritizing shalom in our lives might well be the most effective oxygen mask that Judaism offers, and it also might be the oxygen mask that so many of us need right now. If you think of the presence of shalom in your life as something you can regularly evaluate, and as something you can decide whether or not to prioritize, then some important questions about shalom might be the key to actually living according to pikuach nefesh, to making sure that you're caring for yourself enough that you can take care of others.

         So, on this Rosh Hashanah morning, I invite you to ask yourself some real questions: What makes you feel whole? What completes you? Do you prioritize these things? Or do you let responsibilities, pressures, and distractions push them aside? What does shalom look like for you? And, what can you do to ensure that those things are a presence in your life?

         As you consider those questions, here’s something else to keep in mind: what makes you feel whole is not always what makes you feel good. There’s a difference between pleasure and peace, between comfort and completeness. That extra helping of cake might bring pleasure - but not necessarily peace. Winning an argument might feel satisfying in the moment - but it might also damage a relationship, and leave everyone feeling less whole. So here's a hard but honest question to add to the questions we're asking ourselves as we begin this year: Do I want to be right, or do I want to be whole? Do I want to “win,” or do I want to help to create more harmony and wholeness in the world? 

         I should note that shalom's importance in Judaism is unquestioned - shalom is one of the highest values we have. Over and over again, our prayers ask for it: some of our most notable prayers include Oseh Shalom, Shalom Rav, Sim Shalom, and Hashkiveinu (when we ask God for a sukkah of shalom). Shalom is actually the ideal that we pray for frequently than any other. Texts about shalom abound throughout our sacred literature. In the Mishnah (Bamidbar Rabbah 11:7), the Sages taught that “no vessel can contain blessing -  except shalom.” In a well-known Midrash (Yayikra Rabbah 9), Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai said: "Great is shalom, as all blessings are included in it." In the classic Mussar text Kav HaYashar (Chapter 15), we are reminded that shalom brings repair to the world, not just through diplomacy or problem-solving, but through the deeper wholeness it creates in our personal and communal lives. According to this text, that's why the priestly blessing ends with the words "and God will grant you shalom." Even the way Hebrew speakers communicate with each other expresses the importance of shalom. When we greet each other in Hebrew, we don’t literally say, “How are you?” - instead, depending on the gender of the person we're speaking to, we say "Mah shlomcha" or "Mah shlomeich?" which literally means “How is your shalom?” Imagine what kind of society it would be if we regularly asked one another that question, and if we truly cared about the answer.

         As Jews, we are called to act. We are called to respond to circumstances including hunger and poverty, injustice and discrimination, antisemitism, and the needs of the earth. But we know that if we do this work without tending to our own shalom, we burn out. We run dry. We cannot sustain the work of tikkun olam without first grounding ourselves in shalom. Just like the oxygen mask on the airplane, we must breathe first so that we can help others breathe. Our first spiritual responsibility is to cultivate wholeness — and then to bring that wholeness into the world through action. Lived experience shows us that we act best when we act from a place of wholeness, not depletion, so that when we do act, when we move from inner shalom into outward repair, we can achieve powerful results.

         Our congregation has found some beautiful, practical ways to live out this value of shalom in the wider world. At the High Holidays every year, we fill bags with food for FISH, a local partner in addressing food insecurity. This might seem like a small act, but for the families who receive that food, it restores a measure of wholeness where scarcity and anxiety have torn holes. Our new Kayamoot Committee - sustainability in Hebrew - is another expression of shalom. By working to reduce our congregation’s carbon footprint - we've recently switched to smart thermostats in the synagogue building, and we are rethinking the materials we use to eat with at synagogue events - we aren’t just being “green.” We are trying to make sure that the world we leave to our children can sustain life, that it can hold shalom for the generations after us. We also take part in Williamsburg's multifaith homeless shelter network, COFM. When we help to care for our neighbors who don’t have homes, even just for one night, we are literally helping to stitch back pieces of their lives that have been torn apart. That’s not abstract - that's shalom that you can see and touch. These are not just “programs.” They are small but significant ways of making shalom real, of practicing what it means to restore wholeness for ourselves and for others. And when we engage in them from a place of inner shalom, even if fragile, our efforts ripple outward with more strength and authenticity.

         As I cited earlier, the rabbis teach that shalom is the vessel that holds all other blessings. Without shalom, nothing else can endure. And so, as a community, our work is not only to repair the world, but to be a source of shalom for one another. That means showing up for each other. It means going to each other’s simchas and shivas. It means checking in when someone is ill, reaching out when someone is struggling, supporting one another in the work of finding wholeness. It means asking each other - and meaning - “How is your shalom?” It means creating the conditions for shalom to grow and thrive. It means making our congregation a community of shalom, a place where we help each other breathe again. It means remembering who we are, and what we value. It means asking: What brings me peace? What makes me feel whole? What do I need in order to serve, to love, and to act with purpose?

         And so, as we start the new year on this Rosh Hashanah morning, I ask you gently, but sincerely:

How is your shalom? Not just, “How are you?”, but, "Mah shlomcha" - how is your wholeness?

         And I share with you the following prayer:

May the year 5786 be a time for you to find breath again.

May you discover what restores you.

May you protect it fiercely.

May you act when you are able, rest when you are not, and may your pursuit of shalom be supported at all of its moments.

May you grow toward a new and deeper kind of shalom - the kind that sustains your soul, and gives you the strength to help others.

And may our community be a home for healing, for love, and for shalom.

Ken yehi ratzon - may this be God’s will. And let us all say, "Amen."