Raba Amirit Rosen
Dear community, friends, guests, family and our honorees, Judy and Rabbi Benjy Segal.
The Jubilee year, the 50th year in the Torah, is sanctified. The book of Leviticus tells us that on the Jubilee year, the sound of the shofar is passed throughout the land, all its inhabitants are called to freedom, families return to their homes and estates, .and just like in the Shmita year, the land is left to rest
The freedom and liberty of the Jubilee are not expressed as liberation from the past – on the contrary. Freedom is expressed by the possibility of returning home, returning to one’s family, land, roots and being able to be renewed out of a sense of .belonging and community
Judy and Rabbi Benji along with the other founders created a community of men and women who returned home to their homeland, Eretz Israel. The community was then and now, a shared domestic space to celebrate the return, to be a family for each other in joy and sorrow, out of an experience of freedom and responsibility, out of a return to the roots, to grow an extended family and a space for spiritual and social creativity in Israel. On a personal note, I say that Judy and Rabbi Benji were among the first to invite me and David to their home and made us feel at home in the community.
Judy and Rabbi Benjy's endeavors grew and expanded beyond their beautiful family and community. Judy created and built at the Youth Village (Havat Hanoar), a home for lone soldiers who return from protecting us and our home. Judy provided them with a loving and supportive home for them as well. Rabbi Benjy's educational and scholarly work expanded on the Land of Israel, his literary analysis on Psalms, and now, the completion of the five scrolls in concluding his analysis on the Book of .Lamentations
The 50th anniversary is the year in which the sound of the shofar declares freedom and homecoming. We think of our hostages who are still incarcerated in captivity, and we pray for their return. Our hearts are with the grieving families who have lost the most precious of all. Our hearts are with the families and with those who cannot dwell in their homes because of the war, we think of all those who are waiting to return home and rebuild their home and their future. We want to send wishes for a complete recovery and rehabilitation to all those wounded in body and spirit as a result of the war, and we pray that soldiers and those serving in reserve (miluim) and all the security forces will return home safe and sound.
This is an opportunity to honor the Miluim (reservists') families, members of Kehillat Moreshet Avraham who have sacrificed so much for us all since October 7th.
Since October 7, the community has been home to hundreds of families who took part in childrens' activities that took place every day in the synagogue’s bomb shelter for the first three weeks when the educational and social systems were not functioning. Activities for children and families continued throughout the year thanks to the Rabbi Arnold Goodman Dor L'Dor hub for Jewish education for all ages, other donations, and a host of volunteers from the community and neighborhood. The deepening of ties with the neighborhood has led to expanded opportunities for cooperation with the municipality’s community center, neighboring communities, and neighborhood activists.
Kehilat Moreshet Avraham has so many partners, is a home for so many families in Israel and overseas. A home for pluralistic Judaism, for those whose souls’ thirst for Jewish study and scholarly criticism, an egalitarian and spiritual Judaism and a space for creativity and growth. A community that expresses the legacy of Abraham and Sarah, whose tent was open to every human being.
Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook in his book "Shabbat Ha'aretz" explains why the shofar is blown to announce the year of jubilee on Yom Kippur. Rav Kook connects the process of personal repentance and correction that reaches its peak on Yom Kippur, and the social change that takes place in the year of jubilee, the return home and the liberation of the slaves and the land. And so he says:
Shabbat Ha'aretz, Preface 10 / Rabbi Avraham Isaac Hacohen Kook (1865-1935):“... In the tenth of the month on Yom Kippur, you will pass a shofar throughout your country. The Spirit of the Almighty, of encompassing forgiveness, which meets each individual every Yom Kippur, transcends to the sanctified encompassing character of the Jubilee, dressing the nation in the spirit of forgiveness and repentance to straighten out all the wrongs of the past. "And you shall call freedom in the land to all its inhabitants."
Rav Kook connects the sound of the shofar, the symbol of correction and the process of repentance that occurs in the Yom Kippur prayer with the call of the sparrow and the social correction that takes place in the year of jubilee. The personal process of Teshuvah on Yom Kippur rises to the holiness of the Jubilee when the spiritual process brings the people to act in order to straighten out the distortions of the past and create a better society. A society where you can return home and live in security and peace, a just society that allows you to live with dignity on the earth without exploitation, neither of humans nor of the earth. This is what makes the Jubilee holy; we remember what we were sent for, and from that we return to ourselves and our heritage and let others return, and prayer in the synagogue becomes the social reality we would like to see.
Kehilat Moreshet Avraham aspires to create a prayer space where God ascends with the sound of the shofar (Psalm 47:6) and in firm connection to that prayer space, works to create a supportive space for friends, for the neighborhood, for the people of Israel and for all people from all religions and cultures who aspire to the long-awaited social and spiritual change we crave and work for.
And just as the Jubilee year, the fiftieth year, is a year of return that enables the renewal of the people and the land, we know that the 50th anniversary of KMA is a milestone to thank the Almighty for all the goodness, to thank our dear founders and all those who deal with public needs faithfully. Thus, from connecting to our home and to God’s spirit, from connecting and caring for one another, we will know how to grow forth and send roots, give fruit and work for a society of justice and equality, security, life and peace even during these very difficult times. Let us conclude with the words of the prophet Isaiah, who links the legacy of Abraham and Sarah with our hopes and blessings for Zion and for our beloved :community (Isaiah 51, 1-2) Listen to me, you who pursue justice, you who seek GOD: Look to the rock you were hewn from, to the quarry you were dug from. Look back to Abraham your father and to Sarah who brought you forth. For I called him one, and blessed him and made him many. For GOD has comforted Zion, comforted all her ruins— and made her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of GOD. Gladness and joy shall abide in her, thanksgiving and the sound of melody.
