SEPTEMBER 17 • 2020 | 15
our ancestors carried off into
diaspora nearly 2,600 years
ago, they focused on what
made us a people — to live
with holiness, to honor every
individual as created B’
tselem
Elohim (in the image of God),
to create community even
without the Temple, and do so
with their mikdash me’
at, their
home sanctuaries, so to speak.
We will do the very same right
now. And in so doing, we’
ll
make our faith more relevant
in our lives and our people
even more resilient.
Rabbi Michael L. Moskowitz is spiritual
leader at Temple Shir Shalom in West
Bloomfield.
Seeing
Differently
R
osh Hashanah is Yom
Harat Olam, the anniver-
sary of the creation of
the world. The anniversary of
God creating light. The anni-
versary of the
potential to see.
I have been
thinking a lot
about seeing as
we approach the
Yamim Noraim
(Days of Awe).
The Torah read-
ings for Rosh Hashanah come
from Parshat Vaeira. The word
vaeira comes from the verb to
see. And what the characters
are able to see, and not see,
matters a lot.
Sarah sees Ishmael, the
son of her slave Hagar and
Abraham, and envisions an
unacceptable future in which
the son of a slave might share
some of the inheritance of her
own son, Isaac. The conse-
quences of Sarah’
s feared vision
are dire. Hagar and her son
are treated as if their lives did
not matter and are cast into
the wilderness. Sarah tears a
family apart and creates enmi-
ty between the Israelites and
Ishmaelites.
After Hagar and Ishmael
run out of water, we get an
image that is haunting during
this time of separation. Hagar
assumes her son will die and
self-isolates so she does not
have to see it. But after God
intervenes, Hagar instead sees
the well that will save their
lives.
In the Akeidah, Abraham
assures Isaac that “God will
see to the sheep for the burnt
offering.” When God stops
Abraham from killing his son,
Abraham is able to see the ram
that is sacrificed instead.
We have all seen, and some
of us have experienced, a lot
of suffering this year. It may
be hard to enter the New Year
fully able to see the way to a
more hopeful future. We can
use our texts, and surprisingly,
our technology to teach us.
In a few days, many of us
will be seeing each other on a
screen once again. Maybe we
are used to it by now. Maybe
we will never be. However,
this disconnected connection
allows us to see differently. To
see people in the context of
their own homes, to see people
who have been unable to join
in the past and to see ancient
words in new formats.
I hope we engage with these
images and words and not just
watch them. And that they
enable us, as we look up from
our screens and into the world,
to see new possibilities. As we
celebrate and remember cre-
ation, may we, created in the
image of God, see new ways
to see each other, honor mem-
ories, build hope and create
anew. L
’
Shanah Tovah U’
metukah
(To a good and sweet year).
Rabbi Ariana Silverman is the spiritual
leader at the Isaac Agree Downtown
Synagogue in Detroit.
Rabbi Ariana
Silverman
dr_j
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