La Shana Tova. This is happy new year. Honey is a metaphor for the sweetness that should fill our lives.There was an announcement made today in temple by our former rabbi, Jerry Weider. Apparently, the Council of Reform Rabbis has unanimously come out against the language of hate in our current administration. By putting the blame on both sides, by not denouncing Nazis and Confederates, Trump has placed our country in very dangerous waters. In addition, by creating challenges for the LGBTQ community, by banning Transgenders in the military, by introducing a healthcare bill-yet again-that few have read, that a budget council has not had time to assess, that leaves policy up to the states, again there is a show of unprecedented inhumanity-that is the expression used.


I am a proud Jew, but an occasional Jew, in that I rarely go to temple and do not even celebrate all the holidays, but this announcement has made me feel jubilant about the world of our forefathers. I would like to believe that when my grandfather came here from Russia-to come to a better world-his vision as an immigrant is that America would come to signify hope, a hope that has been crushed by our current morally reprehensible administration.

Yet now, Reform Rabbis coast to coast are saying, we-as a people-are not about this language of exclusion; we are about inclusion; the health and welfare of our fellow human beings. And this statement makes me feel the "honey" of this new year, even when there is other personal grief. I care about the state of my world; I am a humanist, and apparently, so, too, are rabbis who today stand at the pulpit and say (as my rabbi did) "We celebrate love and diversity. Not hate." Bravo!