When It All Falls Apart
Parashat Toldot 2017 Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz When It All Falls Apart Rosh haShanah seems like a lifetime away as we are inching towards Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan. On the first evening of Rosh haShanah, I gave a sermon exploring what kind of Jews we would hope to be, bringing in three Biblical patriarchs as my paradigmatic proof-text. I spoke about Abraham ‘ha’Ivri’, the boundary-crosser. Jacob, ‘Yisrael’, the God-wrestler and Judah, ‘Yehudah’, the grateful one. These men represent the first, third and fourth generations of the Abrahamic mission respectively. And perhaps you are wondering what I left out. During Rosh haShanah, we want to posit our boldest visions of what we hope to be. Rosh haShanah is aspirational. We aspire to remake ourselves, to shape our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, to set ourselves newer and loftier goals, to become the best versions of ourselves. The High Holidays are the days for the spiritually audacious, where e...