This is the sermon I delivered at Congregation Neveh Shalom on Yom Kippur morning, September 21, 2026.

There is a strange thing about the word “I” on Yom Kippur. This is perhaps the most intensely personal day of the Jewish year. We examine our choices. We consider our relationships. We confront the places where we have fallen short. No one else can do our teshuvah for us. No one can apologize in our place. No one can decide for us who we want to become. And yet, when it comes time to confess, Judaism takes the word “I” almost entirely out of our mouths. 

Ashamnu. We have been guilty. Bagadnu. We have betrayed. Gazalnu. We have stolen. Al cheit shechatanu l’fanecha. For the sin that we have committed before You. We. We. We. Even if I did not commit every transgression on the list, I say the words. Even if you did not commit them, you say them too. The person who has been here every Shabbat and the person who had to remember which entrance we use on the High Holidays, all of us stand together and say: we. Because Judaism understands something fundamental about human beings: there is no “I” without a “we.” 

This year, we have been exploring that truth through the words Yachid v’Yachad: Every “I” Strengthens Our “We.” Yachid is the individual. Yachad is together. Jewish life lives in the relationship between them. Hillel expressed that relationship two thousand years ago: Im ein ani li, mi li? Uch’she’ani l’atzmi, mah ani? “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I?” 

Hillel does not ask us to choose. He tells us that we must become fully ourselves, but that we cannot become fully ourselves alone. Be an “I.” Know who you are. Know what you believe. Bring your gifts, your convictions, your questions, your story. Im ein ani li, mi li? If I am not for myself, who will be for me? 

And then Hillel reminds us that a life centered only on the self is somehow incomplete. Uch’she’ani l’atzmi, mah ani? If I am only for myself, what am I? Maybe because who we are is always, in some way, a product of who we have been with. 

There is a beautiful verse in Exodus, spoken as the Israelites prepare to build the Mishkan, the sacred space that will accompany them through the wilderness. God says, V’asu li mikdash v’shachanti b’tocham — “Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.” The Torah does not say, “Build Me a sanctuary so I can dwell in it.” It says b’tocham — I will dwell among them. 

The holiness was never really about the structure. It was about the people. The Mishkan was sacred because people brought something of themselves to create it. One brought gold. Another silver. Another fabric. Another skill. Another labor. No one person could build the whole thing. No single contribution was the Mishkan. But together, something emerged that none of them could have created alone. 

V’shachanti b’tocham. I will dwell among them. Maybe that is what community is supposed to be. 

Not a place where we disappear into a collective, but a place where what each of us brings becomes part of something larger. My voice does not become less important because yours is here. My story does not become less meaningful because yours is different. The opposite is true. Together, our voices become a community. Together, our stories become a people. And together is how Jews have always survived. 

There is an ancient teaching in Pirkei Avot: Al tifrosh min hatzibbur — do not separate yourself from the community. I used to hear that primarily as an obligation: stay connected. Show up. Do your part. I hear something else in it this year. It is also a promise. Do not separate yourself from the community, because you do not have to carry everything alone. 

There are moments when someone else will have strength when yours is depleted. Someone else will sing when you cannot find the melody. Someone else will believe when you are struggling to believe. Someone else will remember the story when you have forgotten it. Someone else will hold hope for you until you are ready to take it back. That is what it means to be yachad. 

There are prayers we simply cannot say alone. Torah cannot be read publicly alone. Kaddish cannot be recited alone. Judaism has built into its very structure the insistence that at the most important moments of our lives, other people must be there. When we celebrate, community celebrates with us. When we are sick, community visits us. When we welcome new life, community rejoices with us. When we mourn, community quite literally counts itself so that we do not have to say Kaddish alone. 

We need each other. Not because we are weak. Because that is how human beings are made. And perhaps nowhere do we understand that more deeply than in the service we are about to enter. Yizkor. 

In a few moments, many of us will speak the names of people who helped make us who we are. Parents. Grandparents. Siblings. Partners. Children. Friends. Teachers. People whose absence still catches us unexpectedly. Some of those relationships were beautiful. Some were complicated. Some gave us extraordinary gifts. Some gave us lessons we learned precisely because we wanted to live differently. But all of them are part of us. 

That may be the deepest truth of Yizkor: there is no such thing as a completely self-made human being. We are made of other people. We carry someone’s laugh. Someone’s recipe. Someone’s stubbornness. Someone’s courage. Someone’s phrase we swore we would never say and now hear coming out of our own mouths. Someone taught us how to pray. Someone taught us to question. Someone showed us generosity. Someone taught us what kind of parent or partner or friend we wanted to become. The “I” sitting in this sanctuary today is already a “we.” 

And perhaps that is why memory occupies such a sacred place in Judaism. We do not remember simply to look backward. We remember because memory shapes who we become. Zechor yemot olam, binu sh’not dor vador. “Remember the days of old; consider the years of generation after generation.” Moses teaches that remembering previous generations is how we understand our own. 

Yizkor asks us to remember. Yom Kippur asks us what we will do with what we remember. Someday, God willing many years from now, someone will remember us. What will they carry? What part of us will become part of them? 

That is not a question about achievement. I do not think anyone stands at Yizkor thinking, “I really miss her résumé.” We remember who showed up. Who called. Who made room at the table. Who believed in us. Who made us laugh when we desperately needed to laugh. Who stood beside us when life became frightening. Who taught us that we belonged. Who we are becomes what others carry forward. 

That is true of families, and it is true of communities. We are not simply maintaining a synagogue. We are building a Mishkan. We are creating a place where God might dwell b’tocham — among us. 

Every time a child feels at home here, we are building it. Every time someone walks through these doors carrying grief and discovers they do not have to carry it alone, we are building it. Every time someone learns something new, sings a melody they remember from childhood, finds a friend, celebrates a simcha, brings a meal, makes a minyan, teaches a child, visits someone who is ill, welcomes someone who is new, we are building it. 

No one of us is the Mishkan. All of us are. And so my charge for 5787 is simpler than I originally thought it was going to be. Bring what is yours to bring. Bring your voice. Bring your story. Bring your talent. Bring your questions. Bring your children. Bring your wisdom. Bring your weird little expertise that you are absolutely certain nobody needs — because I promise you, eventually, a synagogue will find a use for it. Bring your “I.” 

And then offer it to the “we.” Because someone here needs something you carry. And someday — probably sooner than you expect — you will need something they carry too. 

Im ein ani li, mi li? If I am not for myself, who will be for me? 

Uch’she’ani l’atzmi, mah ani? If I am only for myself, what am I? 

This is Yachid v’Yachad. Who we are. What we become. We become ourselves through one another. Soon we will enter Yizkor and remember the people who became part of us. May we honor them by becoming part of one another: by showing up, by giving what is ours to give, by allowing ourselves to receive what others have to offer. 

May we build a community strong enough to carry us when we need carrying, joyful enough to celebrate with us when life is good, and sacred enough that something greater than any one of us can dwell here. V’asu li mikdash v’shachanti b’tocham. Let us build a sacred place. And may God dwell among us. 

G’mar chatimah tovah.

This is the sermon I delivered at Congregation Neveh Shalom on Kol Nidre, September 20, 2026.

There is a strange thing that happens when we disagree with someone. The longer we go without actually talking to them, the more certain we become that we know exactly what they think.

We know why they made that decision. We know what they really meant in that email. We know what they care about. We know what they don’t care about. We know what they would say if we bothered to ask them, so eventually we stop bothering to ask. And somehow, the person with whom we disagree becomes the person we understand least and are most certain we understand completely. 

I don’t think this is just a synagogue problem. It is everywhere. We choose news sources, social media feeds, neighborhoods, and sometimes friendships that make it increasingly possible to avoid people who see the world differently than we do. We have built echo chambers so effective that we can go through much of our lives without seriously engaging a different opinion. 

And when we do encounter one, we often choose one of two responses. We don’t talk at all, or we retreat behind a screen and let our keyboards become our culture warriors. It’s almost as if every part of the country has developed its own political eruv, and you can carry almost anything inside it except a different opinion. And the most painful part – when the invitation to have a conversation is met with a brick wall: NO. I won’t do that.

I am not going to change the culture of our country from this bimah. But we can change the culture of our community. And I’ll be honest: a place where we cannot have reasonable conflict, talk through disagreement, and remain in relationship is not a synagogue I’d want to lead. 

So there are four words I have said a lot this year: “Come talk to me.” 

Come sit down. Let’s have coffee. Let’s actually talk it through. Not because I expect you to agree with me. Not because I think an hour together will magically convince you that I am right. But because something happens when we sit across from another human being that cannot happen in an email, a Facebook comment, a petition, a hallway complaint, or a conversation about someone instead of with them. 

We encounter a person across the table. And somewhere along the way, we have begun to believe that disagreement releases us from the obligation of relationship. We decide what someone believes before asking. We assume we understand their motives. Sometimes we talk about them with everyone except them. 

Perhaps that’s why Yom Kippur asks us to stop. For twenty-five hours, Judaism takes away our usual escape routes. We stop eating. We stop working. We stop rushing. We stop responding and reacting. And we come here, together, to tell the truth. Not the kind of truth that wins an argument. The kind of truth that might repair a life. 

With Yom Kippur being this great reset of the Jewish year, it’s easy to think it’s just a personal reset. It’s also an opportunity to reset the way we are willing to be with one another. 

There’s an organization I have spent time learning from called Resetting the Table. Their work helps communities navigate deep disagreement, especially when the issues touch our identities, values, fears, and commitments. Their goal is not agreement. Instead, they ask whether we can slow conflict down enough to understand what is actually happening between us. Can we become curious about what’s behind another person’s position? Can we name our differences without turning one another into caricatures? Can we disagree without surrendering relationship? 

Judaism has been asking that question for thousands of years. Pirkei Avot teaches, “Kol machloket shehi l’shem shamayim, sofah l’hitkayem.” Every disagreement that is for the sake of Heaven will endure. Notice what it does not say. It does not say the disagreement will be resolved. It does not say eventually one side will realize the other was right. It says, sofah l’hitkayem. It can endure. 

Our tradition imagines people remaining profoundly divided while our relationships remain intact. It imagines a community strong enough to contain competing opinions, fears, and priorities without requiring that one voice disappear. We have become very good at declaring what we believe. We are less practiced at remaining in relationship with someone who believes differently. 

There are, of course, beliefs and behaviors that require boundaries. Judaism doesn’t demand that we remain in relationship with someone who seeks our harm. But discomfort is not danger, as you may recall from my Yom Kippur sermon last year. Disagreement is not betrayal. Being challenged is not the same thing as being attacked. If everyone who disappoints us becomes someone with whom we will no longer speak, eventually our tables become very small indeed. 

The Talmud offers another model in Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. They argued about nearly everything. Yet Eruvin 13b teaches that Beit Hillel were nochin va’aluvin, kind and humble, and that they studied both their own opinions and those of Beit Shammai. In fact, they taught Beit Shammai’s position before teaching their own. 

Think about what that requires. Before defending your position, understand someone else’s well enough to articulate it accurately. To say: I have heard you. I understand what matters to you. And now I will tell you why I disagree. 

Imagine if that were our standard. Listening is not capitulation. Curiosity is not weakness. Understanding another person’s argument does not require abandoning your own. We can disagree fiercely without surrendering our convictions or one another’s humanity. 

This is where Yom Kippur becomes more than a metaphor. The Mishnah teaches that Yom Kippur atones for transgressions between a person and God. But for transgressions bein adam l’chavero, between one person and another, Yom Kippur does not atone until we have sought reconciliation. You can fast for twenty-five hours. You can beat your chest through every Al Chet. You can stand here until the gates close tomorrow night. And still, there are things God cannot repair for us. Because some repair requires another human being. 

Our cheshbon hanefesh, our accounting of the soul, must include the relationships we have abandoned because disagreement became too difficult. Whom have I stopped being curious about? Whose motives have I decided I already understand? Whom do I talk about more than I talk to? Whom have I reduced to a position? The conservative. The progressive. The Zionist. The anti-Zionist. The leader. The critic. Once I have assigned the label, I no longer have to encounter the person. But Judaism insists that the person is the entire point of the encounter. 

We teach that every human being is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God. It’s a beautiful teaching. You could also make the case that it’s one of the most challenging. Why? Because it’s every human, not some humans. It doesn’t allow us the comfort of labels. 

So how do we begin? Resetting the Table teaches practices that are deceptively simple. First, slow it down. When conflict escalates, our instinct is to speed up. To respond or correct or defend. Teshuvah asks us to interrupt that instinct. 

Then, ask yourself what you’re trying to accomplish. There are arguments worth winning and principles you shouldn’t surrender, but be careful of winning the point and losing the person. 

Next, ask before assuming. “Help me understand how you got there.” “What feels most important to you?” “What are you worried will happen?” Listen long enough that you could tell their story back to them. Can you describe their position in a way they would recognize as their own? If not, you probably are not ready to respond. 

And then name the difference. “I hear you, and here is where I see it differently.” We may leave still disagreeing. That’s allowed. Sometimes that’s what success looks like. We spoke honestly. We listened seriously. But we disagreed. And still, we stayed at the table. 

Stay at the table as long as you can. We cannot reset a table we refuse to approach. The culture of a community is built in moments exactly like these, in the choice to go toward one another rather than away. 

So my charge this Yom Kippur is simple. Think of one person you have stopped being curious about. Someone you have stopped wondering about. Someone you think you already understand. 

And ask yourself one question: What might I not know? Not, “How am I wrong?” You might not be. Not, “How can I agree with them?” You might never. What might I not know? What experience brought them here? What are they afraid of losing? What do they believe they are protecting? And what do I wish they understood about me? 

Then, if it is possible, go to the table. Come with conviction. Come with your anger. Come with your fear. Come with your history and your hurt and your questions. Come knowing that you may leave believing exactly what you believed when you arrived. But come. Sit down. Slow it down. Ask one more question. Listen for the story underneath the position. Say what you believe without denying the humanity of the person across from you. Perhaps the table will not solve our disagreement. Perhaps it will do something more important. It will keep us in relationship. 

The Book of Life is not a book filled with people who agree with us. It is filled with people. Complicated people. Frustrating people. Frightened people. People carrying stories we do not know and wounds we cannot see. People who will disappoint us and people whom we will inevitably disappoint. People created, every one of them, b’tzelem Elohim. 

This year, may we have the courage to meet them at the table. May we have the humility to listen before we assume, the strength to speak honestly without cruelty, and the wisdom to know that disagreement does not have to mean disconnection. And may we remember that sometimes the most sacred words we can offer another human being are not “I agree with you,” but simply: 

Come. Sit down. Let’s talk.