TEMPLE BETH EL OF BOCA RATON SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018 | ELUL/TISHREI/CHESHVAN 5779 MAKE AN IMPACT IN 5779 IMPACT HIGH HOLY DAYS BACK TO SCHOOL pages 6-7 pages 14-16 pages 17-21 A Chance to Make an Impact BY RABBI DAN LEVIN
[email protected] Recently I was speaking with a couple knives. Instead, in offering us the Torah, who were thinking about joining Temple God poses a question: Do you want to Beth El with their family. “So what do we make a difference? get from our membership?” they asked. On the high holy days, we are asked “I think you’re asking the wrong to imagine that there is a Book of Life in question,” I replied. “The question is not: which each year we author a page. Think ‘What do I get?’ I think instead Judaism back over the course of the year. What teaches us to ask: ‘What can I give?’” have you written in the story of your life? There is a Midrash where God decides What did you seek to accomplish? What to offer the gift of Torah to other did you give? What difference did you of those battling illness. In others, we nations before the people of Israel. God make? comfort those who are healing from loss approaches the first nation and asks, Judaism is a tradition that teaches and grief. “Will you accept the Torah?” They reply, us how, if we choose, we can build But we also impact the lives of young “What’s in it?” God answers, “A law that lives of rich meaning and holiness.