Yom Kippur. Shabbat Shabbaton. The Sabbath of Sabbaths. Sacred time on the Jewish calendar. Time we spend with loved ones is also sacred time. The loss of a loved one makes us acutely aware of the passage of time. And this has been a year of loss – as a nation we were shocked and horrified by the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, 20 children and six staff members brutally and needlessly slaughtered. Then came the Boston Marathon bombings, many less killed, thank God, but hundreds injured and it had a huge impact on the American psyche as we watched the manhunt unfold on our television screens turning what was one of the most anticipated days of celebration in this country into a day of mourning. And most recently we have been horrified by the atrocities of the Syrian Civil War. More than 100,000 casualties overall and now almost 1500 dead in a chemical weapons attack, nearly 1/3 of them children.

Specifically in the Jewish community, this year we lost a great teacher when Rabbi David Hartman, founder of the Shalom Hartman Institute died. This summer as we studied there, we were collectively taught the "Torah of David Hartman." Torah not in the narrow sense of the scroll in the Ark, but in its broadest sense that which someone has to teach that is essential to their person, their Torah. Every great Jewish teacher has Torah to impart and Rabbi Hartman did so to a very talented collection of disciples, who in turn transmit his Torah to others. Dr. Hartman has been described as a Lonely Man of Truth, at takeoff on a classic work, The Lonely Man of Faith, by his teacher Rav Soloveitichik; because he stood up against most of the Jewish community sharing what he thought we needed to hear, never taking the easy path, even when that made him an outcast within his own Orthodox community. David Hartman taught a Torah that valued honesty and truth, the value of Israel and Zionism and the importance of pluralism within the Jewish community. He wanted us to learn together even when we couldn't manage to pray together.

Communal losses aside, there were many in our community who suffered losses – loss of jobs, loss of abilities and the loss of loved ones. Granted this is true every year; but currently we have a community of mourner's who come to minyan to say Kaddish and to support one another. The good news is that we no longer have minyan issues in the morning, there are generally 15-20 of us and often half the people are saying Kaddish. There are seven of us who come daily because we are in our year of aveylut, of mourning. There is a tradition that you don't begin to say Yizkor for someone until after the first Yahrzeit, but I honestly don't know if I'll be able to stand for Yizkor and think about anything besides my mother.

Being a mourner has been a strange, fascinating and sometimes difficult journey. I have often been present at the passing of loved ones, but always as the rabbi; there to offer prayers, words of comfort and explanations of customs. This time I was on the other side of the equation. I sat with my family listening to the rabbi at the funeral and then felt your surrounding presence in my home during shiva. It was both overwhelming and comforting at the same time. And it left me with such a positive feeling in the midst of such a sad time.

One of the most difficult things for any of us to do as members of a community is to walk into a shiva house, it feels very strange to open the door of a strange home and just walk in. It runs counter to our experience as Americans where our homes are our private sanctuaries and one only enters when invited. On the other hand, there is a tremendous sense of satisfaction providing comfort to someone in their home as they mourn the loss of a loved one. That's what it means to be a part of a caring community.

I resolved to say Kaddish for my mother threes daily. I didn't think this would be a huge change in practice for me since I was already davening three times daily. I can vaguely remember when I would only find myself in the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur; the first step up in observance was in many ways the biggest, when I became a Shabbat regular; it was quite a jump from annual attendee to a weekly attendee. The transition from Shabbat regular to daily minyan was mostly a professional development, when I came to Wayne you had a daily minyan and it seemed right to me that the rabbi be present for worship services. This change was more of an imposition on Dassy as prior to coming here, I had the flexibility to drive the kids to school in the morning and suddenly I was just gone in the morning.

When Irwin Nijaki came to me, years ago, and said that it was just not right that we didn't have an evening minyan. I acknowledged that he wasn't wrong, but pointed out that most synagogues our size maintain either a morning or an evening minyan, but don't try to sustain both. However, I told him if he wanted to try, I was right there with him. We already had people coming at 8 pm for classes and meetings and so we plugged in a minyan at 7:45 and asked people to come a few minutes early. Our evening minyan still struggles; it does not have a committed core like the morning minyan does. But every Monday night, Bruce Seidman is here to lead whoever attends, Sid Blecherman actively promotes our Thursday night minyan and Tuesday night is populated and led by our Hebrew High students. Sunday & Wednesday nights we dropped due to lack of interest.

We are a member of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, which this year is celebrating its Centennial, in October I'll be going to Baltimore with Karen and Sheryl for the Conference which is being billed as the "Conversation of the Century". Each year USCJ comes out with some educational or religious opportunity that we can add to enrich our lives. One year it was "Minha Moments" a small card you fit into your pocket that had the weekday minha service on it, so that if one could not manage to get to a minyan for minha, one would still be encouraged to do the minha service. So I started saying minha on my own. BTW – for anyone looking for this year's addition, it comes to us from the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem and it is entitled Daf Shevui, which means, "a page a week" is will be a slower pace than Daf Yomi/A page a day where some have the practice of studying one page of Talmud every day and in 7.5 years they get through the whole thing, this is a much longer process! You can sign up on line tomorrow if you're interested.

I was wrong. Looking for a minyan in the middle of every day had a huge effect on my life. We don't live in a community that gathers three times daily for prayer, so I had to seek it out. I was asked by the synagogue leadership if I wanted us to add services to our weekly repertoire, but I didn't feel that we should change how we operate as a community simply to accommodate my personal needs. We did institute a 4 PM minha on Tuesdays so that I would not have to leave the building during Religious school and that will revive this week with the advent of school. So if you are in Wayne on Tuesday and can spare 15 minutes, your presence will be appreciated.

I discovered that for part of the year there is a minha minyan in a factory here in Wayne where most of the employees are observant Jews. But most of the time I had to go Fair Lawn to an Orthodox synagogue for minha. Services are scheduled in connection with sunset so services started as early as 4:15 in December and as late as 9:30 pm when I was in MN last July. At Hartman we had almost 200 rabbis from across the religious spectrum, so lots of learn was planned, but no services. So I organized a daily minha services there as well. Everything I have done for the last nine months has revolved around attending services three times daily. It has been challenging, but also fulfilling. I have met many wonderful and supportive people both here at Shomrei Torah and around the world. I've probably davened in a dozen different synagogues this year from classical Reform where the rabbi didn't wear a Kipah to black hat Orthodox and been welcome in all of them.

The experience of saying Kaddish, something my mother would never have expected me to do, but I suspect would have appreciated the fact that I'm doing so, has reinforced a number of lessons for me. First, everyone suffers loss, we are all broken and yet it is that very brokenness that makes us kind, caring and compassionate; in a word, human. Secondly, sadness shared, is a burden lightened, to have to have gone through all this alone would have been very depressing. That we can share it with others make it more tolerable. Finally, I am once again awed by the wisdom of our tradition – from a quick burial to the intensity of Shiva, to the year of mourning – Judaism understands the processes that we go through and have rituals to assist us through the transition of the loss. Judaism understands that tragedies happen, but that life always, always, always goes on.

Death and how we respond to it is both intensely personal and yet also communal for us as Jews. It is something that everyone experiences at some point in time and we make sure that no one goes through it alone. You were here for me and I am here for you. Yizkor is a time, a sacred time, where we stop to remember, to contemplate and to appreciate the people who have touched our lives, entered our souls and become a part of the fabric of who we are as people. Let us allow this moment to help transform us into the kind of person that continues to live the values our parents and grandparents exemplified for us.

Let me remind everyone that all are welcome to stay for Yizkor, even if your parents are still living; and I'd like to invite those who have the honor of holding the Torah scrolls for Yizkor to come forward. We now turn in our Mahzor to page 290.