I’d like to share with you something I’ve done since my first pulpit, as a student rabbi, in Joplin, Mo. I have never talked about it, but have always wanted to write about it.  It begins when I see you here, at the High Holidays. I scan the rows and see you here.  I see you and I remember part of your story this past year, if we have not seen each other much, or I do not know you as well as I want to, I silently ask for that to change.  So on any given year, I sew, with my mind’s eye a patchwork that creates a most gorgeous Beth Am quilt.  Squares of fabric each a representing a different story representative of a life worth living.  For example one patch is of a daughter reunited with her parents after quite a while overseas. Another is of a couple married 60 years, and are grateful that they are still here, together.  God is good.  And still, one patch is for the parents who have nursed their child back to health, another for the parents who so desperately wish their child could be with them today and every day.

I look and I see others who I know have been impacted by text study, by Torah, by the 12 Steps, by something learned this year.  I look and see how it has changed them.   I see you who has asked how to find some meaning in your life. I scan the room and remember conversations that we have had together, laughs, and prayers too.  I share the delight in this year’s Bnei mitzvah students who I see wearing their tallit for the first time on the High Holidays.  I have a special patch for the girl who became bat mitzvah through music and pure love of Judaism while she uttered not a single word  but her spirit and joy was louder than any words or sound we could ever hear.   I see another patch this year, for our youth-groupers collecting food for the food pantry, and I see that they are so much more that youth-groupers–they are kids that come to us with real-life problems and life-stories. I have a patch with couples who have gotten divorced or are struggling this year. I look at others who have lost a spouse or a loved one. I see you, I remember your stories and carry them too. And still, around the room I see examples that life goes on. You’re doing okay because this is what life is.   There are colorful Patches representing new births, becoming parents, grandparents, celebrating special days, received blessings on the bima! Simcha, joy! Patches that represent generations fortunate enough to sit here together.  And still, there are so many more… ! The Patchwork quilt spread over us allows me to breathe in blessings received. Blessings given.  The Beth Am community.

So this is my tradition during one of the high holy Day services each year. Sometimes prayer is not about the liturgy that is on the page of a prayerbook, it is about the prayer that is in our heart, the prayer that is our very life.  The prayer brought out through community and shared experience can be the most powerful of all.   The Beth Am Quilt, in my mind’s eye, is rich in color, texture, fabric and is carefully woven together stitch by stitch, story by story. I look out onto you, and you onto me and I know that we, each one in our own way and together, are Nachshons–risk-takers.  Navigating unchartered waters, willing to take risks because we know there is a better way, a promised land waiting for us at the other end.