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September 13, 2024 - 10 Elul 5784 Parasha Ki Tetzei - Winding Down and Ramping UP
Dear Friends, One thing you should know about me as your new rabbi is that I'm a huge sports fan. Huge. And that may actually be an understatement. In fact, if you ask my wife, Tali, she'd probably tell you it is. I was born and raised in Philadelphia, and my parents and entire extended family hail from Toronto, just like Rabbi Wasser, so the teams from those two cities are the ones with whom the Strom family swears allegiance. Fiercely. I'm casually into basketball, but my loves are baseball, football, and hockey. And, if you told me I had to rank them according to personal significance, they'd be 1A, 1B, and 1C, with the order only alternating depending on the day. So, we currently find ourselves in one of my two favorite "seasons," if you will, as September is when the pennant races and playoff chases of baseball are in full swing, as well as the triumphant, long-awaited return of the NFL. It is incredibly and palpably exciting for those of us athletics enthusiasts; the dramatic climax and conclusion of one sport's run, alongside the fresh, hopeful start of another. It is a beginning and an ending at the same time, the last laps of one marathon juxtaposed against the first strides of another. All of this followed soon thereafter by the opening of the NBA and NHL seasons. My other favorite "season" is in April, for essentially the same reason: that the opening month of baseball season coincides with the NHL hockey playoffs, which is the event on the sporting world's calendar I look forward to and enjoy the most. This year, it occurred to me: such is our lives. We are always - figuratively, and often literally - simultaneously ending and starting anew, concluding and creating, winding down and ramping up. This is what it means to be human, I believe, at its best and its very essence. This is what it means to be the incredibly complex - and sometimes even self-contradictory - beings that God created us to be. This is what it means to approach our lives as a work-in-progress, that every day we're blessed with is an opportunity to change ourselves for the better, to endeavor to curb or phase out what isn't working for us, as well as adopting, incorporating, and developing that which has the potential to help us grow into better people. And that is what Elul and this time of year on the Jewish calendar is all about. It's about doing the hard work of Cheshbon Hanefesh, looking ourselves in the mirror, examining ourselves and our lives, and striving to change what we know needs to be changed, while strengthening that which, at least for the moment, does not. Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, as the start of the new year and the Day of Atonement a week and a half into it, are both an ending and a beginning. We, as Jews, wouldn't and shouldn't have it any other way. So, while I'm guessing most of you won't be joining me in pulling for my Phillies, Eagles, Flyers, and Sixers, I know that this time of year speaks to endings and beginnings all the same. I hope that we can find meaning in this very Jewish awareness of time among the many dualities of life and our world that make our human existence extraordinarily complex, but also beautiful and meaningful. Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Joshua Strom
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