for wrongdoings and turn away from sin in
order to return to society. Part of this is the
beauty and the challenge of the Hebrew lan-
guage – many words used for secular life
also hold religious meaning.
After gathering together for morning
songs and prayers, we got to work. Some
days we picked citrus from the trees, other
days we shook down olives from branches.
We created mosaic artwork as stepping-
stones, did lots of landscaping, and lots of
shlepping
.
I even learned how to
brine olives.
After working for a bit, we would eat
breakfast together. Following our meal, we
would sit together for
Torah
study. Now re-
member – Arabs and Jews studying
Torah
,
together.
One morning in November, we were
looking at the
Torah
portion
Vayishlach
–
when Jacob wrestles with a man or angel
possibly, after which he is given the new
name, Israel, planting in him the yoke of fa-
thering a nation. “What does it mean to
make a name for yourselves,” we asked
them, “how can you grow and change and
earn a good reputation?”
Every day these guys have
Yom Kippur
.
Every day as they sit in jail they are re-
minded of what act they committed to find
themselves there. Once a month when they
come to the
Kibbutz
for the morning, they
are reminded of the beauty of fresh air and
freedom. They understand that Judaism
and, therefore, the Jewish State, gives them
an opportunity for renewal, repentance, and
return. They can repent for their crime –
and it might take a long, long time. They
can renew their commitment to humanity
through hard work and determination to
changing their ways. They can return to so-
ciety and hopefully will not return to jail.
A complete act of
Teshuvah
,
as both re-
pentance and turning, occurs when we are
confronted with the situation once more –
but make the choice that is healthy, not
harmful, challenging but courageous. There
is no “mapquest” route that ensures success
or happiness and, at times, we might find it
easier to drive along the path recklessly. Or
at least, it’s faster than stopping to ask for
directions. It is a true struggle to make a
change in our lives.
Yom Kippur
is that
warning sign – the pit stop in our year, re-
minding us to make a change, repent, and
return – turn around, retrace our path, and
begin again.
Excerpted from Jennifer Gubitz’s Yom Kippur Sermon
during her rabbinical student pulpit at Temple Beth
El in Rocky Mount, NC.
Poland
Diary
Rabbi Jonathan Hanish, L ’08
D
uring my rabbinical studies at
HUC-JIR, I arrived in Poland to
participate in a seminar on Jewish-
Christian relations, organized by Dr. Michael
Signer,
z”l
,
and Betty Signer, with the Univer-
sity of Notre Dame. I came two days early so
that I could celebrate
Simhat Torah
in a coun-
try filled with the souls of my ancestors.
So there I was, in the only synagogue to
have survived World War II – a synagogue
that was inside the walls of the Warsaw ghetto
and then, as the ghetto shrunk, outside its
walls. The Germans used it as a storehouse
and then as a stable. Today it is the only syn-
agogue remaining in Warsaw, but not the
only congregation.
Within minutes of entering the syna-
gogue I was caught up in the frenzy of
dancing. Over 200 people filled the room but
most were spectators, either too afraid or not
knowledgeable enough to participate in the
festivity of the
hakafot
.
I traveled to Lublin, once the largest cen-
ter of Jews in southeast Poland. I joined 50
seminary and theology students – 40 Roman
Catholic students and 10 Jewish students –
from Poland, Germany, the United States,
and Israel. My function was to help today’s
generation of Poles and Germans process
their ancestor’s role in the destruction of Pol-
ish Jewry. Our first full day in Lublin
34
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MEET HUC-J IR’S STUDENTS
Jennifer
Gubitz, N’12
