Over the last week or so, as we have celebrated and commemorated Simchat Torah, there are two different images that will forever remain in my memory.

One is from Erev Simchat Torah, as we danced and sang and yes, even rejoiced as we ended our cycle of reading our most sacred of texts, and began that cycle once again.

I cannot remember the song, but what I do remember is that a number of us were dancing on the upper bimah, when two little boys – including one who had just received his baby Torah at Consecration earlier in the evening – came to join us, the group of grownups moving around in a circle. They laughed and smiled with us and we made sure they didn’t hit their heads on the railings, and in that moment, I thought to myself, “this is what it is all about, this is the definition of l’dor va’dor, from generation to generation”. This adorable intergenerational moment epitomized the phrase from Kohelet that we have been hearing so much of these last few weeks: et s’fod, v’et r’kod – “there is a time for weeping and a time for dancing.”

The other image is from Tuesday night, as our community gathered with Yaron and Jacqui Vital, parents of Adi Vital-Kaploun, of blessed memory, a dual Canadian-Israeli citizen who was murdered on October 7 whilst protecting her two young sons. Yaron, Jacqui and Adi (z”l) are also the cousins of our Cantorial Soloist, Lindi Rivers.

As many of you will know by now, over the High Holy Days, we dedicated a beautiful new Torah mantle in Adi’s shem tov (good name), sketched and stitched by our talented congregant, Jodi Bager. You can read that story here.

At the conclusion of the evening, Jacqui and Yaron were presented, by Jodi, the Torah mantle designed in their daughter’s honour. There was barely a dry eye in the Mishkan as they held that scroll tightly, surrounded by their Canadian family, and Lindi led us in etz chayim hi, it is a tree of life. In this emotional moment, it was a reminder for us to live life exactly as we learned Adi would have wanted: with purpose, and with joy.

Et s’fod v’et r’kod – there is a time for weeping and a time for dancing, and we as Jews are skilled at holding simultaneous significant, often conflicting, emotions.

What I wanted to share with you, is that lesson in what I have come to understand about what Jewish joy is: crying with one eye and dancing with another, as our history and tradition have taught us to navigate the hardest and the happiest of times, and not to expect perpetual joy but to instead find fulfilment in what grounds us in life – including Torah, and community. These are the things that we hold fast to, for all of its supporters, in every generation are…happy!

Our Jewish wisdom is full of different reasons for why we might perform mitzvot, or sacred commandments. They might be to do with our notions of, or relationship with God, meaning we might do them because God has instructed us as Jews to do so, or has promised some kind of reward or punishment if we don’t. They might be to do with our own ethical imperatives, as stated by Torah – not bribing, or stealing, or placing a stumbling block in front of the blind, for example, since it “confounds the words of the righteous” (Exodus 23:8). There may even be utilitarian reasons, as per Maimonides, who stated that we might not know all the purposes behind each mitzvah, but that they led to the best possible outcome, for the greatest number of fellow people. Sometimes, we even do them lishma, for their own sake.

This is a way of saying that I am in awe each day of the mitzvot performed here at Holy Blossom, and all the many ways that they happen. Today, I want to take the chance to uplift just a few that occur, sometimes quietly, sometimes more explicitly, under my department of Kehila Kedosha.

The first is our Kugel Kindness initiative. Did you know that we have a dedicated cadre of volunteers who bake and deliver the comforting meal of a kugel to those in our congregation who are at times of significant life transition (bereavement, major illness,o r a new baby)? You may have been on the receiving end of one, you may have helped with the baking or delivering, but it is always heartwarming to know when they are appreciated as an aspect of bringing our community closer. We are grateful to our sister congregation at Bet Shalom in Minnesota for allowing us to learn from them and get this idea off the ground!

The second is related, which is our Bikkur Cholim program. Whether it’s a phone/Zoom match for someone who is isolated, a card when you’re ill, or handwritten notes and Jewish programming at retirement facilities around Shabbat and holidays, they are the ones who help our members feel seen and cared for at their most vulnerable.

Bereishit Rabbah teaches us that the mitzvot were given “solely to refine humanity”. It is these amazing people who carry them out, that give me great hope for the capacity of humanity to do good, to make a difference in the lives of others, and who not only talk the talk, but walk the walk, of our Reform Jewish values and congregational ethos – all with humility, warmth, and compassion.

If you would like to get involved in this important work, or to find out more, drop me (Rabbi McCarroll – [email protected]) a line, and I’d love to hear from you!

With Pesach just around the corner, it is a time when many of us hearken back to the traditions and nostalgia of our childhood as we plan our Seder meals. Maybe we have the melodies we sing, the little props we put on the table, or the special Haggadot we use.

All of these traditions are aimed at the one goal: to prompt the guests in attendance to ask – why?

When we ask why, we might also mean the general framework of being engaged with the Exodus story, of learning it well so that, in time, it is “passed over” to the next generation.

In fact, we go out of our way on Seder to impart this idea.

The Talmud will record a tradition of Rabbi Akiva’s that he would distribute roasted grains and nuts to the children at the Seder, ostensibly so that they would not fall asleep, and so that their curiosity would be piqued to ask the Four Questions.

This is what it means when our Haggadah teaches: b’chol dor vador adam chayav lir’ot et atzmo k’ilu hoo yatzah mi’Mitzrayim – “in every generation one must see themselves as if they too have come out of Egypt”.

In other words, this small game is a prime example of taking the traditional mitzvah of telling the tale of the Exodus, and imbuing it with our own twist to ensure it is meaningful and in our own time and day, as a new generation learns and takes ownership over their heritage and narrative.

We are, truthfully, so fortunate to be in such a process with our congregation, where we know that, over the last three years, 20% of our members are new to Holy Blossom.

Equally, whilst we are growing larger, we are also growing younger, with nearly 200 Terumah families joining our community, bucking many worldwide trends when it comes to synagogue membership.

This is the perfect opportunity for our Family Shabbat Morning Services, one of our wonderful family worship offerings at Holy Blossom, as next Shabbat we will marry tradition and modernity as we welcome new member families and celebrate the upcoming Pesach festival together.

We hope to see many of our Holy Blossom families there, no matter how long you have been among us, as we join in song and friendship, and find our own “why” as we create amazing Jewish memories and rituals together!

There is a recently published article called What Will “Jew” Be, by the French Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur, which can be found in a new book entitled “Communities of Meaning”, a collection of essays in honour of Rabbi Larry Hoffman and his extraordinary contributions to Jewish thought and life over his many decades of teaching.

In it, she recounts a game she played in her liturgy class with Rabbi Hoffman, in which he wrote the letters “P-A-I-N” on the board, and he asked them to play charades to convey its meaning. Her English-speaking classmates, naturally, made contorted faces as they mimed being hurt. When it was her turn, however, Rabbi Horvilleur mimed eating, with the word “pain” in French, of course, meaning, “bread”. Knowing exactly what he was doing, Horvilleur was happy to play along with this moment of being “lost in translation”.

So it is with prayer, that Rabbi Hoffman was aiming to demonstrate. Whilst we have the words of the liturgy on the page, our interpretation of prayer is also informed by language, time, history, and the minds and bodies that express them.

So it is with Judaism, too, Rabbi Horvilleur expands. Whilst there are certain aspects of our Jewish identities that are baked into our DNA – we have our texts, our holidays, our rituals – it is equally comprised of our own life experiences and the encounters we are exposed to. As she says in summary, “Just as we never precisely know what a text meant originally, we never know for sure what being a Jew meant at the beginning nor what it will mean one day in the future”.

As we grapple with what our Judaism will look like in the wake of October 7, we decide how to shape our own future.

To that end, we understand and acknowledge the fear, the anxiety, the grief, and the sadness that all of us have felt following the tragedy, and the resultant rise of antisemitism here at home in Canada.

That being said, there is a silver lining, too – for those who previously felt that their Judaism was adjacent to who they were, there is a renewed attachment to being Jewish as a core facet of their being, and we are seeing it here at Holy Blossom. This is evidenced in the increase in attendance at worship services, where you, our congregants, come together in prayer as you seek sacred space and sacred community.

I would propose that we have two options as a result.

One is to feel a sense of resentment that being Jewish is no longer an “opt-in” affair. Whether we want to or not, there is no avoiding our Jewishness. It is at the centre of who we are whether we want it to be or not, whether it’s our own internal pressure or whether it’s coming from external forces, and that might feel uncomfortable.

The other is to embrace the opportunity that this brings, and, perhaps unexpectedly, to find the joy in reconnecting with our roots, in reconnecting with our congregation – and to give ourselves permission to feel that spark of contentedness among our people, to find that anchor at a time when our world is so unstable.

We encourage you to keep choosing and finding joy.

It might be through our meaningful and musical Kabbalat Shabbat Services (6 pm every Friday!).

It might be through the sweetness and song of Family Services (our next one being this Shabbat, February 10) or Tot Shabbat (next one March 1).

It might be through the fullness of our educational offerings, such as our Youth Education Centre.

It might be through the absurdity and hilarity of our upcoming Purim festivities.

So, I will conclude with the question with which Rabbi Horvilleur ends her essay: “What Will Jew Be?”, when faced with this crossroads, and the choices we can make as a result, and as we shape this new future together.