Rosh Hashanah Sermon 2025

Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman
Rosh Hashanah Sermon
Congregation Shaarei Shamayim
September 23, 2025

"How Do We Endure and How Do We Resist?"

The year was 2010, and Renee and I were on an adventure, riding a train from Columbus, Wisconsin to Syracuse, New York. Somewhere on our journey, not far from the Canadian border, two immigration officials boarded the train. They walked down our aisle, periodically asking to see people’s identification. I was so surprised, but before I could even think about what was happening, they were gone. 

The memory stuck. Often I wondered what I would have done if I saw them pulling someone off the train. 

As plainclothes men in masks now routinely snatch immigrants off the streets far from any international border, this question is no longer so hypothetical. What would I do if–or when–I witness an ICE raid in Madison? I think about a Facebook post I recently read: “What to do at an ICE checkpoint - Probably time to start practicing…Best to build some muscle memory.”

I used to think when I gave a sermon that I had to paint a grim picture of what was happening in our world to motivate people to take action. But now it’s a different time. We know how bad things are. We don’t need reminders.

What we don’t know is how we’re going to get through this. When we live in a country descending into authoritarianism, we must ask ourselves: How do we endure and how do we resist?

I don’t think there is one answer. I think that there are as many answers as people in this room, because it is an answer we must each discern for ourselves. 

We are grieving. We are angry. We are on the verge of despair. So much has been lost in the last nine months since Trump took office. He has attacked science, medicine, the media, the climate, education, international aid, DEI, and abortion. He has trampled on the rights of women, trans people, immigrants and refugees, Black people, and workers. The list goes on. His actions have impacted many of us very directly. 

We feel unprepared to live in a country with dwindling democratic norms. Even if we could have predicted that this is where we were headed, watching masked men snatch immigrants off the streets is horrifying. This is not the world we had hoped we would leave to the next generation.
Given the emotional weight of the year, many of us want to retreat. Our hearts and our minds cannot handle one more infuriating supreme court ruling, one more manipulative politician, one more federal cut. So we turn inwards. We tend to our own gardens and find joy only in our private lives. We try to acclimate to the new circumstances around us. We silence the news, or we doomscroll. Either way, we abandon community. We disengage with others. 

The problem is that we cede the public sphere to people who do not share our values. We allow them to make decisions that will cause great harm to our society, and eventually to us. 

This is why so many Jewish texts emphasize that we are responsible for each other – for our neighbor and for the stranger. We are obligated to work for justice and freedom for everyone. The Talmud states: 

Anyone who is able to protest the transgressions of their household and does not, is held responsible for the  transgressions of their household. Anyone who is able to protest the  transgressions of their city and does not, is held responsible for the  transgressions of their city. Anyone who is able to protest the  transgressions of the whole world and does not, is held responsible for the  transgressions of the whole world (Shabbat 54b). 

On Rosh Hashanah, we are supposed to take stock of where we have been this past year and where we hope to go in the year to come. We reflect on our widening circles of obligation, and in what ways we will live into the Talmud’s demand that we are responsible for each other. To assume all is lost is to give up, to relinquish our power, to fall into despair, and to absolve ourselves of responsibility. To assume that things will get better eventually is to leave the work to someone else. It is also to absolve ourselves of responsibility.

Our actions matter. Another passage from the Talmud illustrates this with a bit of hyperbole, but the image is worth remembering: “A person should always see the world as if it is half guilty and half meritorious. With one good deed, they can tip the balance of the entire world” (Talmud Bavli – Kiddushin 40b).

If we can tip the balance of the entire world, then we have work to do. 

On the High Holy Days we are confronted with liturgy that is both powerful and problematic. Earlier we chanted the Unetaneh Tokef. It paints an image of God as a divine judge who opens the Book of Life and examines our actions.

It states: “B’rosh hashanah yikatevun, uveyom tzom kippur yeychataymun. On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed. Kamah ya’avrun, v’chamah yi-ba-rey-un. How many shall pass away and how many shall be born. Mi yichyeh, umi yamut. Who shall live and who shall die.”It contains a paradox – God has decreed our fate. Yet at the end of the prayer it states: “U’tshuvah, u’tefillah, u’tzedakah ma’avirin et ro’a hagezerah. Repentance, prayer, and righteous giving avert the severity of the decree.”

This theology does not resonate with most of us. But taken less literally, the prayer is a meditation on human vulnerability. It affirms our experience of the random and uncontrollable nature of life. It gives us purpose as we navigate through the pain of living in a fragile world.

Unetaneh Tokef offers an answer to our questions:  When we live in a country descending into authoritarianism, how will we endure, and how will we resist? 

It tells us – like so many other texts – that we have work to do. It gives us three categories of action to avert the harshness of God’s decree: Teshuvah – repentance. Tefillah – prayer. Tzedakah – righteous giving.

This is how we will endure, and this is how we will resist.

We often translate teshuvah as repentance, but it actually means return – return to our truest selves, to our highest values, and to our responsibility to others. The process of teshuvah involves self-examination, accountability, and repair. 

We have to reckon with our fear, anxiety, and loss. We have to open our hearts, difficult as that might be. To wall ourselves off is a form of retreat.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel – one of the greatest rabbis of the twentieth century – wrote in 1972: “…Morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.” 

Teshuvah is about locating that wellspring of love, compassion, and empathy within us. And honoring it, lifting it up, and letting ourselves feel concern for the suffering of human beings. Indifference is our enemy, because it causes us to relinquish our responsibility to others. Some of us have much power–in our workplace, in our communities, in the public sphere–and others of us have less power. But we still live in a free society, and each of us has work to do. Each of us is responsible. 

Doing teshuvah forces us to look at ourselves honestly. When have we been complicit, silent, or self-protective? When have we abandoned, or even just turned away from, others in need?

Often, teshuvah is a private process, when we reflect and engage in introspection. But we need each other. We need to listen to each other. We need to learn from each other. We need to form small groups of people who can talk together about our world–not to share the latest news, but to find answers to our questions:  When we live in a country descending into authoritarianism, how do we endure and how do we resist? 

We need to build resilience, learn from past mistakes, and fight our fatigue and feelings of overwhelm. We might feel unprepared for this moment. But actually, we already have what we need: We have a community that can sustain us. We have a Jewish tradition that provides us with a moral framework. We have communal expectations that when others are suffering, we step up. We have stories from our own families of perseverance in terrible times.

The Unetaneh Tokef prayer also demands that we engage in tefillah, or prayer. Often we brush this off as our tradition’s insistence that we pray to God to deal favorably with us. But tefillah is so much more than a transactional relationship with God. 

When we think about tefillah broadly, it provides us with a spiritual path that can nurture us. It encourages us not to turn away. Chanting traditional liturgy, developing a gratitude practice, or doing regular meditation can give us the strength to open our hearts to others. If we can live in awareness of the holiness of our world, and see beauty in the destruction, we can temper our cynicism and despair. 

Unetaneh Tokef asks us to care for ourselves. We are hurting, and even as we reach out to others, we must tend to our own needs. Some of us need quiet reflection. Others of us need a loud gym to exercise out our frustration. 

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav encouraged hitbodedut – a regular ritual of personal prayer. He wrote, “A person would set aside an hour every day to speak with God in their own words…this brings rest to the heart and joy to the soul.”

Prayer will help us strengthen our resilience because our hearts can and will break when we stand in solidarity with people who are at risk. Joanna May, the environmental activist and scholar of Buddhism who died this summer, wrote:

This is a dark time, filled with suffering and uncertainty. Like living cells in a larger body, it is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. So don’t be afraid of the anguish you feel, or the anger or fear, because these responses arise from the depth of your caring and the truth of your interconnectedness with all beings (Embodiment Matters).

When that anguish comes, we are not alone. We can draw on a divine presence, or the holiness between us. Prayer or meditation or any kind of regular practice can ground us in the present – especially in times of fear. It can help us to stop reminiscing about the past or worrying about a dystopian future. So much is unknown. We have to prepare ourselves to remain open-hearted and ready to act.

The Unetaneh Tokef prayer tells us to first do teshuvah, get yourself together and do introspection so that you can turn towards your deepest ideals. Second, engage in tefillah, resource yourself with a spiritual practice to sustain you during dark times.

And now tzedakah – take action in the world. The root of tzedakah is tzedek, or justice. Tzedakah, specifically, is giving of money and resources in a way that brings justice to our world. More broadly, tzedakah – and tzedek – tells us that we are responsible for others.

We read in Leviticus, "You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor" (Leviticus 19:16). It means: “Come to your neighbor’s assistance if they are in distress. Intervene if their life is threatened. Act to prevent harm.” 

So we turn back to our two passages from the Talmud. The first: Live up to your obligations to your household, to your city, and to the world. Your actions matter, you are obligated to protest, you are responsible.

For some of us, our protests will be loud. On the streets. It will be direct action and civil disobedience. Others of us will protest quietly. We will protect our neighbor through bureaucratic means. Or in the courtroom. Or through legislation. Or through elections. We will care for the vulnerable. We will build community. We will give tzedakah, financial resources, to offer protection. We will build organizational structures. 

The second: If the world is half guilty and half meritorious, our one good deed can tip the balance of the entire world. How will we do that one good deed, repeatedly? How will we resist in our own way every day? 

These High Holy Days remind us that we do not know what will unfold this year. But we meditate on our human vulnerability, take responsibility, and turn towards each other. We remember – always – the kind of world we want to live in. And then we act, with others and in community, to reach that world. If not for our generation, then for the next.

As the writer and political activist, Rebecca Solnit, reminds us:

We are in the middle of the story and we write it with how we show up, how we build solidarity, how we support those in the front lines, how we stand on principle, how we don't let them erase those principles of truth, fact, law,  science, human rights (Facebook post, August 19, 2025).

U’tshuvah, u’tefillah, u’tzedakah ma’avirin et ro’a hagezerah.

Through returning to our best selves and focusing on our highest values,

Through creating a spiritual practice and cultivating connection and holiness,

Through acts of justice and generosity,

We will transform the harshness of our world.

This is how we will live in a country descending into authoritarianism. This is how we will endure, and this is how we will resist.

Shanah tovah.