President’s Speech

During the Kol Nidre Service on October 11, 2024
By Rebecca Silverberg, Temple President

Good evening!

It is truly wonderful to be able to be with all of you here today.

As I think all of you know, this is my first Kol Nidre speech as this Congregation’s President.

And while, in years past, your president would stand before you on this most holy of days and celebrate all of the wonderful things that Temple has done over the past year, and encourage our members to donate time and money to the community – some of which I will do later in my remarks – but it strikes me that it would be disingenuous for me to stand here without acknowledging the October 7 tragedy and the horror and pain that many of us, if not all of us, have felt or witnessed over the last year.

This is our first Yom Kippur together since that date.

A year has gone by since Israel went through one of the most terrible calamities in its history, the Jewish people’s worst disaster since the Holocaust. A year has passed, and 101 hostages are still held by Hamas. A year has passed, and almost every day we hear of more people being killed or wounded.

And although the Days of Awe are generally a time of celebration, this entire year has felt like one lacking in celebration in its purest form. October 7 created a deeper experience of our otherness than most of us have experienced in our lifetimes, and the aftermath of that day has rippled into a sense of abandonment by many in the global community.

I am not so naïve as to think that I will be able to, in my words this evening, describe the collective experience of our community and its members following October 7.

But in this time of deep prayer and reflection, I thought what I might do is tell you briefly about my October 7 experience, or my truth, which is a story that I’ve not shared with anyone in this room before.

And then what I want to do is share the two lessons that I’ve learned from this past year.

The first lesson I learned was that I need to ask better questions about every person’s unique October 7 experience – because when the starting point is – how has October 7 impacted you – we find vulnerability, openness and a wealth of shared experiences.

The second lesson I learned was that this group of people in this room, and our larger Jewish community, has been so important to my healing and recovery from October 7.

Now – contextually, important to my October 7 story is that I lived in Israel while I was pursuing my Master’s degree, ironically it seems now, in conflict resolution. I was part of an international, Israeli and Palestinian group of students attending Tel Aviv University. I had the opportunity to travel all over Israel, within the West Bank, and within the larger Middle East. I have visited many of the places in Israel that have been most impacted by October 7 – and – for a time, I considered Israel my home, I have also considered it a home that I will return to because I continue to have strong connections to the people of Israel, an extended family so to speak.

Coming full circle now to my experience with October 7.

I recall vividly the sheer happiness I felt at the end of Simchat Torah services last year. I had not been to a Simchah Torah service in probably decades but felt compelled to be here last year (and not just because I had to deliver announcements). I left feeling deeply connected to this community, to the Torah, and to my own Judaism. I went to bed happy, hopeful, and contented.

Then I woke up on October 7. And it started as a normal day. My friends were throwing me a belated birthday party that night. I took the dog for a walk and I went to the grocery store. I was blissfully naïve, still revelling in the joy of the previous night’s services. I was sitting in the parking lot of that grocery store when I received a text from my husband that said – “Something is happening in Israel.” And I sat in that parking lot for the better part of an hour reading the news and watching video footage of the October 7 attacks.

Although I was numb for a period of time, I swung from an extreme emotional high to probably the deepest depression I’ve ever felt, and still feel somewhat to this day, in less than 24 hours. I spent days in bed torturing myself on social media and by watching the news and texting my friends in Israel to make sure they were okay.

If October 7 wasn’t bad enough, in the days following, we started to see groups of people celebrating the October 7 attacks, which to me and many in this room, was unbelievable. It felt like the ultimate betrayal. And then emerged widespread antisemitism in the West, to a degree that I’ve never experienced before. And everything, in that moment, felt so impossible and ugly.

I lost friends those weeks following October 7. Not only did I lose friends in Israel on October 7, but I lost friends here in Calgary. Friends who didn’t understand my pain, who applauded the terror attacks, who stood on the “wrong side of the street” so to speak. And eventually, as grief goes, my deep sadness turned to rage.

I was angry that I had to go to work and act normal because I didn’t feel normal. I was angry at the people in my life who hadn’t acknowledged October 7 or the impact October 7 could have on me or the community. I was angry at the politicians in this country for not doing enough to support Israel and to support Jewish communities here. I was angry at Hamas. And yes, I was even angry at this Temple for a period of time – for not doing the things I thought might be right or reasonable in these circumstances.

I felt isolated in my trauma and scared, and I withdrew pretty completely for several long months.

Now I’m going to get to the part where I started healing, which is a much more positive part of my story because it very much speaks to the healing and transformative power of our community.

But in preparing these remarks, and in coming to the first lesson I’ve learned from this experience, I reflected on the people who stood by and with me and with us over the last year. There have been many, but I want to highlight one person.

I have a friend. A best friend. She is not Jewish and I’ve only known her a few short years. She has been present with me every day since October 7. She cried with me, she watched hours of Tik Toks about October 7; she stood with me across from City Hall waving an Israeli flag when that is what I felt I needed to; and she attended several Federation events with me. She has celebrated Shabbats, Hannukah, Purim, and Passover with me.

And over the last year, I’ve also watched her teach her two young children about the Middle East conflict, October 7, and antisemitism, so that they understood why they were seeing what they were seeing, and why some of what they were seeing was deeply wrong. More positively she taught them about the wonderful parts of Judaism. Her 12-year-old even made a point this year of wishing me a happy new year – which is kind of a big thing for a kid who seems to be singularly focused on drums and music.

For the first time since October 7, and in the preparation of these remarks, I finally thought to ask her how October 7 impacted her. I’m going to share her response with you all tonight, because it is raw and vulnerable, and is one of many unique experiences that has October 7 at its core.

I wouldn’t say that October 7 was a particularly unusual day in my life, but the last year because October 7 has brought up many emotions.

It’s been heartbreaking that I have no control to protect my friends from the pain and the racism that ensued. I have felt very angry at times. It is difficult to find words to say to my friends because it only affects me in the same way any international conflict affects me, but it affects my friends on such a deeper level that I do not experience. I also have never felt the kind of loss of community or lives in the same way and I likely won’t. For those reasons, I feel like my words are hollow in some sense which is uncomfortable.

At the same time, I am grateful that you have a community to grieve with. I think I would have learned about the Jewish community in any event because you are so open about it, but I think the conflict brought out more Jew in you so to speak.

I will also say that during the last year, I have been horrified at times and scared. In the beginning, I was really scared for your safety in particular. Then I became scared for Jewish students and children as I saw the violence unfold in Canada and the United States. I cried for them…

And although this person is not here with us tonight, I think it was courageous that she could be so open with me, and by extension, all of you. And it has demonstrated to me, with all the ugliness we’ve seen in this world, there’s a huge amount of goodness and compassion left – by both Jews and non-Jews.

So now we turn to my second lesson, which is that the healing process for me really started in this sanctuary and in this building.

As time progressed, my anger has dimmed. I found myself reengaging with our community and the work we do in the larger community. I have started to find happy moments again –  moments of connection with many of you sitting here, moments of joy within our larger Calgary Jewish community, and moments of pride at being a Temple member and the President of Temple.

This is where we celebrate all that we have done as a community over the last year. I can’t go through everything that we’ve done, because that, in and of itself, is its own speech, but I want to highlight a few moments:

  1. We invited the Mayor into our community for a difficult conversation about community connections during troubled times, and took the first step to repairing a relationship that soured after Hannukah last year.
  2. We made new friends with members of the Al Madinah Islamic Assembly through our potluck and lunch programming this summer, and we are excited about future programming and opportunities to connect with our new friends.
  3. Our LIFE & LEGACY team continues to make great progress in building an endowment fund. With current pledges, we expect the endowment will amount to $2 million in the future—and that number continues to grow. Thank you to our Life & Legacy team.
  4. And recently, we converted and welcomed 12 new individuals to our Jewish family. These individuals started their conversion process before October 7 and stood with us throughout this entire difficult year. The Rabbi has described this group as being heroes to the Jewish community, and I agree.

Finally, my predecessor, Michael Clarke, launched the Ner Tamid, or Eternal Light, Campaign at Kol Nidre last year, to ensure that we had the funds to maintain our building for our children and their children. The initial goal was to raise 1 million dollars in 5 years through donations and pledges.

I am happy to announce that, since Yom Kippur last year, we have reached and exceeded our goal of raising $1 million. I would like to thank Betsy Jameson and Michael Clarke who spearheaded this campaign. And I would like to extend the deepest thanks to all those individuals who have donated or pledged money to Ner Tamid, including the most recent pledge from Thorn Walden, and I would especially like to highlight the generous donations by Al Osten, as well as Deborah Yedlin and Martin Moleneaux, whose pledges have substantially assisted Temple in reaching its goal in such a short time.

Now, on a more sober note – a gentle reminder that our dues and rentals do not cover the cost of operations in this building. And for folks who have been contemplating, but have not, made their Ner Tamid pledges, I would request and encourage you to make those donations to assist us in covering our operating budget so that we can continue to provide services and meaningful programming to our large community this year and for years to come.

I want to thank all of our volunteers and leaders for their time over the past year, and I want to highlight several people, specifically: Roz Oppenheim and Caron Glickman for organizing the Boilermaker Bash this past May and all they do for us; Michael Clarke and Josh Hesslein for their long service on our executive and Board and who have provided mentorship to me; Leslie Handy and her work on Caring Community, and Deborah Regner who maintains our flower beds and makes sure there is food at our onegs.

And I would also like to thank the people who keep our building and operations running, who are pivotal to our success – Danny, Jeremiah and Kenny, Patricia and Lana, Ruth, and Emma; the Shabbat school team; and of course the security team that keep us safe.

As well, a heartfelt thank you to our Rabbi for unending wisdom and calmness over the last year, Katie for her wonderful music, and all of the musicians who participate in our services.

So let me leave you on this final note – my heart is still broken. But day by day, in performing good work and acts of tikkun olam with this community, I’m starting to feel the pieces of my heart snap back together. And if you learn anything from my experience, then it is really that this Temple, our Temple, is so important in the healing process from October 7, and I encourage each and every one of you to find time to come together as a community, and to find meaningful volunteer opportunities with us.

This year has taught us that we are stronger together, and I hope that the next year will teach us that we are happier together as well.

G’mar Chatima Tovah.

 

Sowing Tears

Erev Rosh Hashanah Sermon, October 2, 2024
By Rabbi Mark Glickman

Over the years, I, like many of us, have been blessed to have learned from many great teachers– scholars, professors, rabbinic mentors, family role models, and many more. But a couple of months ago, there was a moment when a man who I never would have expected to have become a teacher of mine became one, and he did so in a way I will never forget.

He was a young man – maybe in his late twenties – and I met him through my stepmother. As many of you know, my stepmother, Sharon, died about two months ago, having spent a few years suffering through the ravages of dementia. (At the time of her death, she had been our stepmother for almost 40 years). The challenges Sharon would face became evident shortly after my father’s death in 2020, and her story, or at least some parts of it, will be familiar to many of you who have watched your own loved ones endure this horrible disease: The difficulties she started to have paying the bills and completing her errands; the questions she would repeat over and over again during our telephone conversations; her denial that there was any cause for concern; her continued denial even after receiving her diagnosis; her reluctance to accept help from hired caretakers; her falls; her refusal to move into a facility where she would be safe and properly attended to.

Finally, after it became evident that Sharon really couldn’t remain in her home any longer, we succeeded in finding her a room in a wonderful memory care facility near where she lived in Southern California. We got her there in the nick of time – within a month of her move, she had almost totally lost her ability to speak, and grew increasingly dependent on the staff for her daily care.

And the staff was magnificent. Not only did they competently take care of Sharon’s daily needs, but they did so with unflagging cheer and compassion. They were also good to us, always keeping us in the family aware of any changes or concerns we needed to know about.

My brothers, my sister-in-law, Caron, and I began calling ourselves “Team Sharon.” After she entered the facility, we would call Sharon as often as we could. At first, we called on her cell phone, but soon she could no longer operate her cell, and, to talk to her, we had to call the memory care unit and ask the staff to hold the phone to her ear for what quickly became increasingly one-sided conversations.

Often, the person who picked up the phone in the unit was a caretaker named Eduardo. He was always cheerful and helpful, and even though I hadn’t met him in person, I found myself growing increasingly grateful to him for the vibrant, positive energy that he always seemed to exude as he went about caring for Sharon. “Sharon,” I would hear him say in the background, “it’s Mark on the phone. He’s called to say hello to you….Go ahead, Mark, you can talk now.” At that point, I would proceed to conduct my monologue for a few moments, tell Sharon I loved her, and eventually hang up the phone.

Then, on a Thursday or Friday in late July, we got the call. Sharon had stopped eating and drinking; the legal orders she had put into place during healthier times allowed for no heroic measures to keep her going; they were doing all they could to keep her comfortable. By Sunday, my brother Larry and sister-in-law Lynn had travelled from Chicago to be at her side. They sat with her all week, and Sharon held on, desperately clinging to life as the rest of the family awaited the next phone call. By the following Saturday, Caron and I were at her side, too. Sharon was non-responsive, her breathing was laboured, we sat with her and offered her the only gift we could – the simple gift of our presence beside her.

Through it all, Eduardo continued to be a ray of light, giving Sharon her medication, adjusting her position in bed, and seeing what he could do to make our bedside vigil more comfortable as we sat with Sharon through those difficult days.

We were with her for hours when we first arrived that Saturday, and also for most of the day on Sunday, too. Then, at one point late Sunday afternoon, my brother Larry and I were sitting just outside the room, while Caron and my sister-in-law Lynn sat at Sharon’s bedside. Caron suddenly came out and said, “Guys, you’d better come in.”

Sharon had stopped breathing. We stood beside her in silence for a moment, then we held her hands and said the Shema on her behalf. Then, our silence continued.

Within moments, Eduardo was in the room, calmly and efficiently doing what he needed to do. He noted the time; he adjusted Sharon’s position in bed; he detached some equipment from Sharon’s lifeless body.

And then, suddenly, Eduardo stopped, turned toward the wall, and broke into tears. “I’m sorry,” he said after a few moments, turning back to us and wiping his face dry, “I try to be professional, but I grow so attached to these people sometimes.” It was only then that the rest of us broke into tears, too.

This wonderful man, this paragon of care and compassion, did so much more than his job description demanded of him. He built a connection – a real connection, a personal connection – with my stepmother even as her own connections with the world slowly unravelled. And then, after her long struggle, when her life came to an end, he wept.

How sad it is that he felt the need to apologize to us for his tears; his tears and all that they represented were yet one more invaluable gift that he gave to our family. His tears unlocked our own tears; his tears were a reminder at that moment of the awesome, indescribable value of a human life; his tears, at the moment of my stepmother’s death, reminded us of her invaluable worth as an individual.

We’ve grieved Sharon’s death since then – it was so very sad. And now that we’re several weeks out, in addition to my sadness over Sharon’s death, I’m also left with the unshakable conviction that the world needs more Eduardos. The world needs more people who are willing to weep. In fact, the more closely I look at our world, the more I realize that that world needs more tears.

This is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and in contrast to the revelry of the secular New Year, it is a time for reflection. And so, I invite you tonight to look back on the year that just was. If you’re like most of us, then I’m sure there were plenty of joys – times when you laughed, celebrations, and moments of achievement and deep, deep satisfaction.

But this has been a hard year for many of us in so many ways, and I hope you take this Rosh Hashanah to reflect upon the moments of difficulty, too. Some of you, like me, may have lost dear family members this year or continued to grieve losses of the past. You may have faced strained or broken relationships, suffered professional difficulties and illness, and sometimes just felt a sense of despair or sadness for no apparent reason whatsoever.

For us Jews, this has been one of the most difficult years in living memory. There was that horrible day last fall that saw the brutal murder of so many of our brothers and sisters in Israel, and the horrible if unavoidable war that came in its wake. Even here in Calgary, we have faced broken and strained relationships, blatant antisemitism, anger at our fellow Jews who disagree with us, and feelings of solitude when it feels like so few of our fellow Jews see things the way we do. We feel abandoned; we feel betrayed; we wish things would get better, and we despair when we see that they aren’t.

Suffering is an unavoidable element of the human condition, I suppose, but the knowledge of that fact is of little comfort as we experience it. And experience it we have this year, and we’ve seen people we love to experience it, too.

Through it all, we try to keep a stiff upper lip. We try to persuade those around us that we’re OK, even when we’re not. We try to hold back the tears.

But sometimes we can’t hold them back, because sometimes our feelings won’t let us. Tears are so very human. From the moment we are born and feel that first pang of hunger we shed them. We shed them as children when we skin our knees or grow angry or frustrated. Teenagers shed them at moments of lost love, or rejection, or despair in sorting out the difficult complexities of life. Whatever our age, our tears come when we feel intense emotions of any kind. The depth of love, and the loss of those we cherish; the birth of a child, and watching our children suffer.

Tears are always honest, always genuine expressions of the intensity of our feelings. Good actors can cry on cue, of course, but the way they do it is usually by conjuring up an experience they’ve had that brought out their tears in the first place. Even actors don’t fake tears – they relive powerful offstage experiences and make real tears flow as they act.

We human beings have feelings, and to experience them fully, we need to let ourselves cry more than we do. So often, we try to convey strength to the people around us. We try to convey that we’ve got it all together, that we’re bearing up against life’s challenges, and that we’re fine…just fine. To cry would show us to be vulnerable, to be imperfect…to be human. We don’t owe it to the world to always be sharing our emotions, of course, but I find it sad that we’re so often frightened to be honest about our humanity. I wonder what the world would be like if, either in private or with other people, we became more comfortable shedding tears

Our Jewish tradition has been aware of the importance of crying for many centuries. In fact, the Torah is full of tears – you can almost see them dripping off the scroll as we go through it. Lot and his wife, fleeing their home in the barren, desert city of Sodom, were told not to look back. Lot’s wife turned back anyway, and the text tells us that God turned her into a pillar of salt. Perhaps, suggests poet Merle Feld, she simply became a dried-out tear, forever frozen in place, an eternal expression of sadness and grief.

The Torah tells us that our ancestors were enslaved for many years before God freed them, and what eventually got God’s attention wasn’t anything particular about the bondage itself, but rather that the Israelites finally cried out in their suffering. Only when they cried, did redemption come.

And later, our rabbis taught that after the destruction of the Temple, the gates of prayer were locked. If you wanted to pray to God after that calamity, the Rabbi Elazar teaches in the Talmud, your prayers wouldn’t necessarily reach God. However, even then, Rabbi Elazar teaches, the gates of tears remained open.

If you cry before God, then God hears your prayers.

In fact, over and over again, our classical literature repeats this theme. The gates of tears are always open before God. We try to hold it together; we try to suppress our tears because their intensity and honestness can frighten us. But if we really want to connect with the divine, we need to let them flow. When we cry, a heavenly gate opens, and God welcomes us into the divine embrace.

It was Eduardo who got me thinking about all this, but the more think about it, the more I realize how sad it is that there are so many people who put so much energy into not letting ourselves do what Eduardo did. In fact, sadly, even Eduardo himself felt the need to apologize for his tears that day.

My friends, you don’t need to cry in public, but as we’ve seen this year among others, life inevitably brings pain at times, and holding back your tears can deny the reality of that pain, and ultimately serves no one. Cry alone; share your tears with a friend if you want – if you’d like, you can share them with me; come here, sit in services, and let your tears flow if that will help. I see some of you do that, and when you cry, I think I see it bring you comfort and release. I’m glad that this is a place where you can weep.

The psalmist, I think, said it best in the 126th Psalm – Shir Hama’alot, a Song of Ascents: “Those who sow in tears,” the psalmist wrote, “will reap in joy.” There are moments of pain that we all encounter. We could hold our tears back, the psalm seems to be telling us. But when we let them flow, they water the ground at our feet, and one day, our tears themselves will allow us to reap the fruit that grows before us. “Those who sow in tears…will reap in joy.” Joy itself, sometimes demands tears in order to sprout forth.

Eduardo gave us such a gift that day. In his tears, we saw his compassion. In his tears, we saw his love for our stepmother. In his tears, we found the ability to shed tears ourselves. May each of us in the year ahead, have joy and satisfaction, and may we each find a way to shed the tears we need to shed to enable us to achieve those great goals.

Shanah Tovah