High holidays sermons from rabbi aviva & Debbie Yunker Kail

Rabbi Aviva's Book of Life Sermon, Rosh Hashanah 5787
For the last several months, I have been contemplating and wrestling with one prayer that we repeat again and again throughout these days:
Zochreinu l’chayim--Melech chafetz bachayim- remember us for life.—Ruler who desires life.
V’chotveinu b’sefer hachayim—write us in the Book of Life.
L’ma’ancha Elohim chayim—for Your sake, God of life.
In this prayer, we ask: Remember us… write us in the Book of Life.  
The Book of Life. 
What a fascinating concept.  On one hand, I’m imagining each of us with our own page - layered with histories of revisions, various path choices and the etchings of the peaks and valleys of our lives, filled with footnotes and hyperlinks connecting to the pages of others who help fill our own life’s stories with plenty of room for the stories yet untold.  It feels comforting to imagine that each of us occupies one page in God’s great book of the living. We matter, each of us leaving a mark for all of time.  
I’m sure though, for many of us, the concept of the Book of Life could also feel rather difficult. But to be clear, I’m not talking about the unetane tokef prayer, the one that asks who will live and who will die - as this book, the one I’m speaking of, is more about the chronicle of all who have ever lived. Even those who have no longer walk this earth alongside us still live on - through our dna, our memory, or stories - they are very much alive in our hearts.
What I’ve actually been wrestling for these past months - is the nature of life itself.
Yes there are some amazing and wonderful things about life for sure. Good friends, loving family, delicious foods, epic adventures, and Ted Lasso - But there is so much about life that is so hard and so painful, that it's been challenging for me to genuinely wrap my head around what of life God actually desires, and what we are asking to be inscribed in. 
Even the way we understand life itself seems to be counter.  A rejection letter? “That’s life* A break up? *That’s life*  A life cut to short - that too is….life.  
And there are things in this life that we know should have no place in it—and yet they do. From the things we deal with every single day - like loneliness, depression, anxiety, healthy issues, financial struggles,  kids who won’t eat their dinner -  peers not pulling their weight or a disrespectful interaction - to the major things like hate, greed, deceit. 
Even tonight we remember that twenty-five years ago terrorists attacked this nation, taking nearly 3,000  innocent lives - may their lives be a blessing. We have seen that same human capacity for destruction time and again, and we are still living with the aftermath of so much of it. 
So why do we ask, year after year, to be inscribed in the Book of Life when we know how broken, volatile, and sometimes brutal life can be?
Apparently, the rabbis weren’t so sure about life either.
In the Talmud, Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel spend two and a half years debating an unbelievable question: Would it have been better for human beings never to have been created at all?
One side argued that it was better that we were created. The other argued that it would have been preferable if we had never been created. Eventually, they took a vote and reached their conclusion:
Noach lo l’adam shelo nivra, yoter mishenivra.
It would have been preferable for a human not to have been created.
That is a heartbreaking conclusion. But the rabbis do not allow it to be the final word. They continue:
Achshav shenivra—now that a person has been created--yefashpesh b’ma’asav. They should examine their deeds. And some say: They should carefully consider their deeds.
Rashi explains the difference: one means looking back at what you have done so we can learn from our mistakes and improve ourselves; the other means looking ahead and becoming more intentional about the choices we are about to make.
Look back. Look forward. Learn from where you have been and consider where you are going.
The rabbis do not resolve the problem of existence. They do not explain why life contains so much pain or promise that everything will eventually work out. They simply say: Here we are. We have been created. So now, what are we going to do with the life in front of us?
I find something strangely comforting in their honesty. They do not pretend that life is easy or that being alive comes with a promise that everything will be okay. But they also do not allow the difficulty of life to excuse us from living it. Life is something we have been given—not a promise of utopia, but a responsibility and a blessing.
And maybe the Torah’s opening already understands this. The world does not begin neat, orderly, and ready for us. It begins with tohu va’vohu—chaos, darkness, and emptiness. God does not wait for the chaos to disappear before beginning to create. A divine wind hovers over it, and God speaks light into the darkness.
Maybe that is what it means to call God Melech chafetz bachayim—the Source who DESIRES Life is one who seeks to bring light in the face of darkness. - creates goodness despite the brokenness that pervades.  
Then I found some sweet wisdom right in the book of Psalms - Ps. 34 asks Mi ha-ish hechafetz chayim: Who is the person who desires life?  
It answers: One who loves their days and longs to see what is good.
This does not mean ignoring what is difficult or pretending the pain is not there but rather one who desires life, according to the Psalmist -  is one who appreciates each day and notices the good, even through the darkest times.  What we focus on says so much about who we are and what we let live in our lives.
The Psalm continues one who desires life, guards their tongue from evil and their lips from deceit. The Psalmist reminds us that the way we speak matters. How do we speak about ourselves? How do we talk about one another? How do we talk about “the other” - the ones different from us? The words we use shape the stories of our lives.
Finally, the Psalmist writes: Turn away from what's bad and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. Peace, the Psalm seems to understand, does not simply arrive once everything difficult has been resolved. It is something we seek and move toward in the midst of an unfinished world.
We began by describing God as the One who desires life - the melekh hafetz b’chaim -  But the Psalm asks us who we would be if we too desired life. If we truly desired life, embraced it for all it is - chaos, mess and all - we would be ones who look for what’s good - who would remember the words we speak - and how we say them - define us- and that pursuing goodness, especially in the face of adversity - is what it means to embrace the life we’ve been given. And perhaps this is what it means to be inscribed in the Book of Life—not a promise that the difficulty will disappear, but to be part of the response, the repair, to be pursuers of making the life that there is, better and brighter for one another and for the pages to come.
Shanah Tova - May we all be inscribed in the Book of  Life -  for goodness and peace - Amen.

Debbie Yunker Kail's Kol Nidre Sermon
It's so funny that on Rosh Hashanah, Rabbi Emily shared a story from college, because I had been planning to share a high school story with you all tonight. So, here goes.
Before I made Judaism my own, I made musicals my own. Growing up in the Boston suburbs, my parents would take us to the theatre every so often, and they made it a ritual: we'd buy a poster and wait outside the doors after the show to see how many autographs we could get. Those posters are framed in my parents' basement, which was also my teen hangout spot, so they became a fixture for me.
My sophomore year of high school, I started to hear buzz about the musical Rent, and so, as one did in 1995, I checked the two-disc CD out of the library. For my age, the topics were racy and deeply impactful: queer characters as main characters, some living with HIV/AIDS, facing their own mortality. I learned every word of every song well before I saw the show, and the one that stuck with me most was "No Day but Today.” The opening really gets me:
There's only us, there's only this
Forget regret or life is yours to miss
No other road, no other way
No day but today
Wow — in a world that can really suck sometimes, life is OURS to miss. It may feel like it's happening to us, but this song says otherwise. Amidst the ups and downs of high school, whether it was dwelling on why a friend lied to me, juggling when I'd see my boyfriend and when I'd study, or tackling a mound of laundry that seemed to self-multiply, each day was mine to live as I saw fit.
Tonight I want to talk about what happens when we take that idea, that today is ours, and bring it into this room.
Rent says: today is ours.
But let's face it: it's easy, maybe even easier, to feel like we can't control what's happening and are just riding a wave.
Yom Kippur says: today is set apart.
The biblical guidance for today comes from Leviticus 23:27–28:
"The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be a sacred occasion for you: you shall practice self-denial… and you shall do no work on that very day (b'etzem hayom hazeh), for it is a Day of Atonement."
Listen to that phrase: b'etzem hayom hazeh, "on this very day." That word, hayom, is the same word we'll sing tomorrow as "today."
We are told to practice self-denial and to stop working, but what are we supposed to atone for?
Our Haftarah from Isaiah tells us it's not just a "one-day" situation where we check off the box of fasting. When the people of Israel plead with God, they feel ignored after doing the fast. And God retorts that yes, they refrained from eating, but they oppressed their workers and caused physical harm to others. The fast God wants is about how we treat each other: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked. I'll come back to what that could look like for us. And let’s remember that Isaiah is speaking to a whole community. Some of these are harms none of us commits alone, and so they are repairs none of us can make alone either.
In his essay "Yom Kippur," Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel says the "business" of Yom Kippur is that it's "the day in which God Himself purifies us." I'll put it out there that I'm here, even as I struggle with what it means for God to purify me. My need for independence and agency is likely why the Rent song resonates for me. When Heschel continues, "We are all failures; at least one day a year we should recognize it," now he's talking to me. Recognizing that we are not perfect is what allows a simple song to remind me that every day holds the possibility to do better, to be better. Tonight, Kol Nidre begins 25 hours set apart for exactly that.
Tomorrow at the conclusion of morning services, we will sing Hayom, which focuses on the idea of Today.
Hayom.
Today, strengthen us. Amen.
Today, bless us. Amen.
Today, magnify us. Amen.
Today, seek our good. Amen.
Today, hear our cry. Amen.
Today, accept our prayer with compassion and favor. Amen.
Today, support us with Your righteous right hand. Amen.
I told you earlier that I resist the feeling that life is happening to us. But every line of Hayom is a request: strengthen us, bless us, hear us. So how much of change is what I do, and how much is what I allow, or make space for? I don't think this day wants us to pick one.
Rent says: today is ours.
Yom Kippur says: today is set apart, and we let it work on us.
Hayom says: today is something we ask for, and any today can be the day we begin.
At Hillel, we are thrilled to see the community here for this holy day. Yom Kippur gives us a day that's already set apart, on the calendar, with all of us doing it together. That's a gift, because most of us can't manage that alone on an ordinary Tuesday. But we also know that fasting and wearing white are not a universal requirement for a reset. I know there are students fasting and not attending services, and people here tonight who cannot or choose not to fast and are still showing up. The beauty of Hillel is that it's not all-or-nothing. And I see students set a day apart all the time: the day they decide to show up, to host, to lead, to try again. They don't need a fast to begin. That's Isaiah's point, too. The fast was never the goal; the change was. Rashi, reading the Torah's phrase "this day," says every day should feel new to us, as if we were commanded just today.
So I want to pause and ask each of you to think of one day that changed your life. Maybe it was a big move, a college acceptance, the birth or death of a loved one. Or maybe it was the day a drugstore pharmacist was surprisingly nice when you were frustrated and renewed your faith in humanity. Oh, that one's just me? Last week, a prescription for my daughter had been "on hold" for five days, and the pharmacist couldn't have been nicer. Some days don't change our whole life, but they do re-center us, remind us of simple goodness that can inspire us. 
Hayom. Any day can be one that sticks.
At Hillel, I see it in the multiple trips to the building in a single day, a student planning an event for our community, a student schlepping chairs and tables to host 40 people in his home this past Friday night, a student letting us in so we can help with a challenging personal moment,  and a new student walking into their first Shabbat dinner alone and leaving with a full table of friends. Jewish students at ASU choose leadership in a Jewish context; they choose to attend Hillel events every day of the week, and some even choose to travel to Israel even when it’s hard. They choose to keep living their Jewish identity. And, most importantly, they choose each other.
That "each other" is the message I want to leave you with. This day can feel intensely individual, but the friends in Rent build a whole song around "us," Ashamnu says "we have sinned," Heschel says "we are all failures," and every line of Hayom is plural.
None of this is meant to be done alone, and none of us has it all figured out, far from it.
So tomorrow, when we sing Hayom, listen for the "nu" at the end of the words. It's the sound of "us," and it's the same sound that ends Ashamnu. The same "us" is in our confession and in our asking.
No day but today. That was a teenage anthem for me. Tonight I hear it as an invitation. Kol Nidre is set apart, but it isn't meant to be the only day that matters. It's a launch pad. It's here to help us see that any day can be the one we choose to begin, and that we're meant to begin together.
So let me start with something small. Isaiah says the fast God wants includes feeding the hungry. As a Hillel leader, here's one commitment I'm making this year: the food left over from our events will reach people who need it. And I can't do it alone. If you want to help, find me this week. And what's yours? What's one small thing you could begin? Pay attention to my/Hillel’s social media this week for a way to share it. 
Today is ours. Today is set apart. And any today can be the day we begin, together.
Gmar chatimah tovah.

Rabbi Aviva's Yom Kippur Sermon:  Ayeka, Where Are You?
Confession: I’ve spent a lot of this season thinking that, for whatever reason, I just wasn’t feeling it. We’ve been through so much. So much change, so much heartbreak, so much new. There has been so much on my plate. So many responsibilities. So many relationships that need tending.
And the closer I got to Yom Kippur, the more I wrestled. I could prepare for Yom Kippur. I could plan services. Teach. Meet with students. Organize. Think about the prayers, the music, the flow of the day. But I felt like I couldn't prepare myself for Yom Kippur—to actually turn inward and face what this season was asking of me. And that was a hard thing to admit, especially as a rabbi.
But the truth is, what Yom Kippur asks of us—the work of teshuvah, repair, course correction, the self-awareness of acknowledging what needs to change—started to feel like another agenda item. Another responsibility. Another thing I was supposed to make time for. Maybe I could just prepare the holiday and let something eventually move me.
Except there was no way I could actually reach this moment of the year and just skirt around it. And when I finally took a moment with myself, I realized I had misunderstood what I was feeling. Yes, I was exhausted. But underneath the exhaustion was something else.
Shame.
Ugh. Heavy, weighted, unbridled, fresh-and-aged shame.
And when I finally let myself see it, I cried. Because there are things I could do better. There are moments I truly missed the mark. There were ways I spent my time that I’m not proud of. Ways I responded that I wish were different. Ways I failed to care for myself or other people—maybe even some of you in this room—as well as I could.
And finally admitting that didn’t feel very good. It felt like one more crushing reality. A whole grocery list of things I was supposed to make time for.
Except…that doesn’t really make sense.
This is my life. This is my time.
And we already make time for the things that matter to us. So if my relationships matter to me, if taking care of myself matters to me, if how I spend the hours of my life matters to me—why would changing the things that get in the way of those values not matter too?
Maybe because change is hard. And maybe because the things we want to change are often very easy to defend. I’m tired. I’m hungry. I’ve had a long day. I deserve this. This is how I unwind. This is just how I am when I’m stressed. And often the habits getting in our way really do give us something: comfort, relief, distraction, connection, a little escape.
For me, one of those things is my phone. There is always something there—information, connection, something I’m sure I need to check. And before I’ve really decided, my hand is reaching for it. It’s easy to justify. But sometimes I realize that the attention I’m giving it is attention I actually wanted to give somewhere else—to another person, to rest, to myself, to the life happening right in front of me.
This is exactly what these Days of Awe are for. This whole season gives us a chance to put our choices on check. To notice what has become automatic. To notice what we defend because it is familiar or easy.
Even the Torah’s language for Yom Kippur asks us to practice self-denial. For one day, refrain. Food. Drink. Physical comforts. Interrupt the usual pattern. Not because comfort is bad, but perhaps because when we cannot automatically reach for the thing that usually satisfies us, we notice something.
What has more power over me than I realized? What am I really hungry for? What do I reach for when I don’t want to sit with myself?
For one day, Yom Kippur asks us to interrupt the usual patterns long enough to see. And that can be frightening. Because once we really see ourselves, there can be shame.
Our rabbis teach that the capacity for bushah, for shame, can actually be a good sign. It means we possess enough moral sensitivity to recognize that our actions matter. But shame can become something else. It can move from: I did something I regret to there is something wrong with me.
And that kind of shame doesn’t lead us toward teshuvah. It makes us hide.
Which is exactly what happens at the very beginning of Torah. Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge-the one thing they were told not to do. Then the Torah said- Their eyes were opened. Suddenly they see themselves differently. And when they hear God approaching, they hide.
God asks: Ayekah? Where are you?
Not: How could you have done this? Not: Why are you such a disappointment?
Where are you?
And maybe that is the question Yom Kippur asks us too.
This is where I think the ritual of Yom Kippur is much kinder than we sometimes make it. The High Priest confesses. The wrongs of Israel are spoken. And then they are placed onto a goat that is sent out into the wilderness.
Maimonides says the ritual is symbolic—as if to say: we have named these deeds, cast them behind our backs, and removed them from us as far as possible. There is value in speaking it out and then ritually letting it go. Which is, in so many ways, exactly what we are doing here today. 
This matters. Because carrying the full weight of everything we have done, everything we should have done, everything we imagine we could have been—can crush us.
And Yom Kippur is not twenty-five hours for bashing ourselves. Leviticus says this day is for atonement to be made for us—to cleanse us. God knows we are not perfect. God knows we will never be perfect.
Yom Kippur is, in some ways, a release valve.
But it only works if we show up to it. We cannot be relieved of what we refuse to acknowledge. And neither are we meant to carry our guilt and shame forever.
Maybe this year that is what I am trying to understand about my own shame. I don’t want it to crush me. But I also don’t want to dismiss it.
Please God, see my shame as a reflection of how deeply I care about this life. That I care how I spend my time. That I care how I treat people. That I care for this body and these relationships and this one life I have been given. And help me put down enough of the shame that I can actually do something about it.
As much as I didn’t think I could prepare myself for Yom Kippur, it turns out Yom Kippur may have been preparing me. Not because I suddenly have the energy for all of it. Not because I’ve fixed what needs fixing. But because maybe Yom Kippur isn’t one more thing asking something from us. Maybe it is giving us the space to finally face—and put down—what we were already carrying.
Ayekah? Where are you now?
This is your life. This is your time.
And as Mary Oliver asks: “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Perhaps Yom Kippur allows us to put down enough of the life we think we should have lived—so that we can answer for the life that is still ours.