Service Introductions — Nishmat Kol Chai & Ha-Melech

Creation, Renewed — and Letting Go of False Kings

Rosh Hashanah is often called the birthday of the world, but our tradition tells it less as a story of something from nothing, and more as one of re-creation — the world emerging out of tohu va'vohu, chaos and darkness, into something new. On this day, we're invited to realign with that same spark within each of us, joining in with the breath of every living thing in praise.

That same invitation carried into the liturgy's Ha-Melech — God as sovereign, enthroned — language, which for many in the room sits uneasily. Rather than asking everyone to accept kingship imagery literally, the offer was to hear it differently: a reminder that we're not actually in control, that no human authority should override what we know to be right, and that the parts of us ruled by habit and desire aren't the whole story. Realigning with the spark within, once again, means remembering we're not the king either.

Rabbi Aliza's Dvar Torah

Hayom: The Practice of Presence

Rabbi Aliza traced the word hayom — "today" — as it echoes through our High Holy Day liturgy: today the world was created, today we stand in judgment, today calls for the courage to listen. She named a through-line for this season at HBT: building spiritual resilience in genuinely difficult times, when it's easy to get stuck grieving the past or dreading the future.

She turned to Moshe as an unlikely model — a "prophet of presence" who, at the burning bush, asked God to spare the people news of future suffering, insisting that today's trouble is enough for today. That same word, hayom, appears again and again in Deuteronomy as Moshe's final teachings to the Israelites, always pointing forward to whichever day we happen to be standing in. Her charge to the congregation: presence isn't passive — it's the only place any of us can actually act from, and it takes real practice to return to it.

Jason's Bima Appeal

Building Together

Speaking on behalf of both co-presidents and the board, Jason shared what a strong moment this is for HBT — membership at its highest in five years, Chaverim thriving, and 126 new solar panels on the roof, to be celebrated with a ribbon-cutting on Sukkot. He spoke personally about how his own involvement grew a little at a time, and how each "yes" deepened his connection to the community — and how HBT showed up for his family this past year with real support.

He closed with the Bima Appeal itself: a $27,000 goal, more than half already pledged, and an invitation for everyone — however they're able, in dollars, time, or talent — to take part in sustaining the community that holds them.

Ben's Dvar Torah — Rosh Hashanah Day 2

Abraham and Isaac: Not Withheld, Not Owned

Ben introduced the Akedah, the binding of Isaac — the Torah reading for Rosh Hashanah Day 2, where God tests Abraham by commanding him to offer up his son. He pointed out something easy to miss: the text never actually says Abraham "passed." Instead, when the angel stops him and Abraham is blessed in the story's final verses, the reason given is specific — not that he was willing to sacrifice his son, but that he did not withhold him.

He also unpacked the original Hebrew instruction to "bring Isaac up," which shares its root with aliyah, the word for being called up to the Torah — a detail commentators like Rashi read as a sign that the offering was never meant to be literal. Drawing on the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Ben framed the story as part of the Torah's broader pushback against ancient norms that treated children as their parents' property: none of the Patriarchs are firstborn sons, and the Akedah itself establishes that a child belongs to no one but themselves.

He closed by naming the day — the second of the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, the Ten Days of Repentance — as an invitation to examine which "common practices" we've inherited without questioning, and to remember that every person, our own children included, stands as an individual in their own right.