- Rabbi Nanus
- Rosh Hashanah
- Sermon
Rosh Hashanah 5786/2025
Rabbi Susan Nanus
Resnick Family Campus
Wilshire Boulevard Temple, Los Angeles
God Is Close to the Brokenhearted
“Every year before the High Holy Days, the Baal Shem Tov, the spiritual master and founder of Hasidic Judaism, held a special competition to see who would blow the shofar for him on Rosh Hashanah.
This was a great honor, but no easy task. Not only did you have to blow the shofar like a virtuoso, but you also had to learn an elaborate system of kavanot - secret prayers to direct the blasts toward God and the angels in the celestial realms.
Now, there was one devoted follower of the Baal Shem named Rav Zev Kitzes who wanted to blow the shofar for his beloved teacher so badly that he had been practicing for years. He studied, he meditated, he visualized the perfect sounds of his shofar rising through the seven levels of heaven to the very throne of God.
On the day of the auditions, Rav Kitzes listened with trepidation as the other shofar blowers tried their utmost to fulfill the expectations of the Baal Shem Tov.
Finally, it was Rav Kitzes’ turn. But as he lifted his shofar to his lips, something disastrous happened. He choked. The responsibility of this holy task completely overwhelmed him, and his mind froze completely.
He couldn’t remember a single kavanah. He couldn’t even remember what he was supposed to be doing at all. He just stood there in utter silence.
When he realized how completely he had failed, the heart of Rav Kitzes broke in two. He began to weep, sobbing loudly, his shoulders heaving, his whole body shaking as he wept.
“All right,” said the Baal Shem Tov. “You’re hired.”
Rav Kitzes stared at him in disbelief. “I don’t understand. I failed completely.”
The Baal Shem Tov gently put his hand on his shoulder.
“No. You did not fail. You see, the Palace of the Holy One has many doors – a door to mercy, a door to justice, a door to forgiveness, and so on. And each door has its own unique key – a prayer, a kavanah, a mitzvah, Torah study, and so on….
“But there is only one key that opens every door to every chamber. One master key that brings you directly into the Presence of God whereover that may be.
That key is the broken heart. For as it is written, “God is close to the brokenhearted.”
This year, on this Rosh Hashana, I think we are all broken-hearted. Broken hearted about Israel. Broken hearted about the hostages. Broken hearted about Gaza. Broken-hearted about the terrifying rise of Antisemitism. Broken-hearted for our immigrant community. Broken-hearted at the violence, the anger, the divisiveness that has ripped families, friends, and communities apart.
And it hurts. It feels terrible. And frightening. We are anxious and worried and feel so disoriented. “Where am I? Is this really the world right now? What is happening?”
The natural impulse when our heart is broken and we are in so much pain is to shut down in self-protection. To numb ourselves to anything outside our comfort zone and put up a wall to make us feel safe.
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I can’t deal with you and your ideas. It’s too painful and too upsetting and you are so wrong!
I am willing to bet that almost all of us sitting here this morning have said something or thought something like that.
Including me. Half the time, I can’t read the newspaper, I can’t watch the news; social media makes my hair stand on end, and I get so angry or so full of despair that I either want to scream or hide under my bed.
You know what the problem is? Everyone else is doing the same thing. Everyone else is just as polarized and furious and things are getting darker, and scarier and worse every day. Where does it stop? Where will it end? And what do we do?
I used to have a friend who was born in this country, but lived most of his life in Israel. Whenever he came to L.A, we would go out together, and when he was in Israel, we would stay in touch through email. But we were on completely different sides of the political spectrum -- on Israel, on this country, on what was better for the Jews…and we would have these strong disagreements which I could not understand and drove me crazy. How could he think so differently than me? How could he be so myopic, so opposite, so completely off base?
Until finally, one day, I got so agitated that I emailed him and said “if this is how you feel, there is nothing more to say and don’t ever contact me again.” And he didn’t.
I don’t know what he thought or what he felt when he read those words, and I didn’t care. I labeled him. I condemned him. And I cancelled him.
That was five years ago, and now things are so much worse - in Israel, in this country, across the world. And I realize now that my behavior contributed to this terrible, dark turn of events. I participated in the divisiveness and the intolerance and the ongoing erosion of our highest human ideals - civility, empathy, respect, compassion.
I see now that I have been part of the very problem that is breaking all of our hearts. I see now that instead of my broken heart bringing me closer to God, as the Baal Shem Tov explained, it has pushed me farther away into the darkness.
I see now that it is time to make amends. It is time for me to do Teshuva.
Dear Robert,
On this first day of Rosh Hashana let me first wish you, your children and grandchildren a Shanah Tova.. Sadly, I really don't know how you’re doing, but I hope you are all safe. When I think about October 7 and everything that happened since, I can’t believe I never reached out to you. I can’t believe I closed my heart and mind to you so completely.
I am filled with regret and remorse that our political disagreements caused me to cut you off. I am ashamed and embarrassed.
I never tried to understand your point of view. I never really listened. You were a colonel in the Israeli Air force. You fought in every Israeli war since 1973. So much hardship and loss, Robert.
Please forgive me for not thinking beyond your stoic facade. I knew about the trauma of your Holocaust survivor parents, and how that trauma also became yours. I knew how you worried about your hippie daughter living in a Negev tent like a Bedouin. I knew about your terribly painful divorce.
You always brought me a little gift whenever you visited. Despite being totally secular and irreligious, the beautiful illuminated prayerbook you gave me touched my heart. You respected that I was a rabbi, and a woman rabbi at that.
You saw me as a full human being. I treated you like a one-dimensional cut-out because I couldn’t see past your politics. I discounted everything else about you, including your feelings
The great Talmudic sage Hillel said. “In a place where there are no human beings, strive to be human.” I think what he meant was that for each of us to remain humane even when, especially when, others lose their humanity. I’m sorry for how I treated you, Robert, and I am making a change in the new year. To be decent and kind. To hold my tongue and listen. To use my words wisely. To judge less and love more. Even when I’m in a place where no one else is doing that. This is my solemn pledge to you, Robert.
If the world is going to be better, we all need to be better. Please forgive me and welcome me back into your heart.
Love, Susan
Today is Rosh Hashanah, which as we know, in Hebrew means “the beginning of the New Year.” But there are also many other names for this holy day.
Yom Truah - the day of the Shofar blasts. The day that traditionally we are supposed to hear 100 calls of Tekiah, Shevarim, and Teruah, to wake us up and shake us up –- to make a heshbon hanefesh, an accounting of our souls and examine how we have conducted ourselves in the past year.
Another name is Yom HaZikaron - the Day of Remembrance. When God remembers us for what we did wrong and also for what we did right, for the mitzvahs we performed, for the kindnesses that we extended. I also think it's a day to remember the teachings of our tradition and what Judaism stands for, the ethics and values that we hold so dear - compassion, community, goodness, resilience, love, repentance and repair. This is a day to remember them and hold onto them more tightly than ever.
A third name is Yom Ha Din - the Day of Judgment. Not when we judge everybody else, but when God judges us and perhaps when we can judge ourselves and ask - Is this the kind of person I want to be? Is this the kind of world that I want to live in? Years ago, I won a small award for a television movie I wrote about a Righteous gentile, a simple Polish Catholic woman who saved a little Jewish boy during the Holocaust. The award was given by a group called the Christopher Brothers and it’s on my bookshelf. It’s a small brass disk on which is engraved, “Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.”
The fourth and final way that we describe Rosh Hashana is to say, “Hayom Harat HaOlam.” Which is translated as “Today is the birthday of the world.” But, that’s not really what it means. “Harat” comes from the same Hebrew root as “Herayon” - which means pregnant. So, what we’re really saying is that today the world is pregnant with possibilities, for change, for understanding, for reconciliation, for peace. Or not. It is up to us.
For all the Roberts in our lives, in our families, our city, our nation and the world, may we wake up, remember who we are and fulfill our potential to give birth to a better future. May we all be more decent and kind. May we all judge less and love more, welcoming each other and God with open ears, open minds and open hearts so that this can be a more humane and hopeful New Year.
Shana Tova