(This was delivered on September 30, 2019, as a Rosh Hashanah address to the congregation I serve, Machar, The Washington Congregation for Secular Humanistic Judaism.)
We’ve come to the part of our proceedings where the rabbi talks at you for a while.
Before I begin, I need to let you know that we’re talking about anger, and we’ll be talking about trauma. I won’t be going into deep detail, but — if you find that you need space, or need to step out, please do what you need to take care of yourself.
Every year that I’ve led High Holidays services — here, in Indiana and Arizona as a student rabbi — I’ve been asked, “What if I can’t forgive?” Sometimes it’s asked simply as a matter of curiosity. But often, that question isn’t the real question that’s bothering someone when they ask.
Often, the real question is whether it’s okay to be angry. Because we’re angry often: sometimes over small things, sometimes over not-so-small things. Many of us here today are at least a little angry almost all the time, as we — and I include myself in this group — watch the ever-accelerating betrayal of the values we thought our society stood for.
A Humanistic Jew Goes to Washington 