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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