Ahz mah (So what)

When I was in fifth grade, my friend K beat me up. I say she beat me up, because that was the expression in those days. It was actually a series of incidents over perhaps a week or two. An angry shove when the teacher’s back was turned, another shove down the stairs on the way to gym; and then finally, in the hallway after school, hair-pulling and punches in the stomach. I stood there, baffled and afraid, taking the blows. “Stop it,” I said. “Stop it,” she mimicked. Another friend came over and hugged me, making herself into a shield. K just punched her in the back instead. Eventually, K must have walked away; I don’t remember how it ended. I do remember that no adult saw or intervened, and no child in the crowded hallway thought to seek an adult’s assistance. We were in our own world. Fifth grade. Click here for complete sermon

 We stand within the community on Yom Kippur and confess the many ways we have fallen short of our own moral expectations. We even have an old custom of hitting ourselves over and over during the “ahl cheits,” the communal recitation of our sins. How many of you learned that tradition growing up? Tonight I want to talk about how to stop hitting ourselves. Click here for complete sermon

My father died nine years ago. Some years after he died, my mother emptied his Brooks Brothers pajamas out of the top drawer of his dresser to make space for a few of her things. Other than that, the dresser remained untouched. Mom eventually moved out of the house to an apartment in our hometown, and then two years ago moved up here to Sharon. My father’s untouched dresser went with her for both moves. When my mother died this past June and I was faced with the task of clearing out her apartment, I began with my father’s dresser. Among the treasures (and junk) I unearthed in that dresser was a large, obviously old, manila envelope. Within the envelope I found a checkbook, a savings bank passbook, a bank statement, a high school report card, a high school diploma, a birth certificate, a teen worker’s permit, a tattered New York marriage license, an employee identification card. Here, in one envelope, along with a handful of photos found in another dresser drawer, are all the artifac

A kitchen table memory: I am eight years old. I am alone at the kitchen table, poking at the cold remains of dinner on my plate. My father and brother have already eaten and gone. My mother is at the sink doing dishes, her back to me. I have been told to sit alone for as long as it will take to finish the cold remains of dinner on my plate. I have been told that I am a “slow eater.” I have been told that I talk too much during meals. The brown formica-top kitchen table my parents purchased after their marriage in 1952, used as a kitchen table until my mother’s death this past June, is now the work table in my home office. Inheriting this kitchen table and re-purposing it in our home is affecting me in ways I could not have imagined. Click here for complete sermon