Eats, Shoots and Leaves is a non-fiction book which bemoans the state of punctuation in American lingua franca. 

The title of the book is the punch line of a joke about a panda who goes into a restaurant. 

If the comma is in the wrong place it seems the panda eats, shoots (to kill) and then leaves. It really is supposed to be a description of the panda, who eats a diet of shoots and leaves. 

Another version of this idea is exemplified by the phrase - 

Let’s eat Grandma. 

Depending on where you put the comma will totally change the message. 

Either we are calling Grandma to dinner, or, she IS dinner. 

This past week in our synagogue during the reading of the Torah portion the reader stopped suddenly in mid-sentence. He was peering intently at the black letters on white parchment in the Torah and then called the Rabbi down for a consultation. The law is that if a single letter in the Torah is cracked, erased or missing, it invalidates the scroll and needs to be repaired before it can be read from, so a clarification was required before the reading could continue. 

Why does it matter if a letter is missing? 

Why would it make the entire scroll invalid?

The Torah is comprised of 600,000 letters, each one vital to the completion and usability of the scroll. If even one is missing the whole scroll is invalid. 

The 600,000 letters are symbolic of the souls of the Jewish people. 

Each soul is vital. 

If even one soul is missing the fabric of the Jewish people is incomplete. 

This reminds us that each and every one of us has a unique role to fulfill in the eternal production of humanity. 

There is only one you. 

When I was a little girl I was very careful not to upset my Mother. 

But being a little girl sometimes I did. 

There was one thing that would upset my Mother more than anything else. 

When I would fight with my sister. 

(Now I know you are shaking your head in disbelief, but fight I did!)

My Mother was an only child herself. Whenever we would fight she would always tell us

“I wish I had a sister. We never would have fought. Why on earth would you fight with a sister?”

Spoken like a person who never experienced sibling rivalry!

We are now in the midst of the 10 Days of Repentance. 

This an opportunity for us to take stock of our challenges and recalculate and recalibrate on the journey towards becoming a better version of ourselves. This culminates in Yom Kippur when we stand before Gd having done some repair. 

The Mishna in the Tractate Yuma states however, that Yom Kippur does not atone for sins committed between one person and another unless one has sought to appease whoever they have wronged and received forgiveness. 

The power of Yom Kippur to atone for sins cannot be activated unless we have assuaged any hurt feelings. 

This seems very challenging. How do we know how to do this?

We actually know exactly what to do!

This is the time of year when one of the songs in the Top 40 is the irresistible ditty

 Dip the Apple in the honey...may you have a sweet New Year

T.T.T.O Oh My Darling Clementine!

If you are not familiar with this catchy tune, you can find it on YouTube to enhance your Rosh Hashana experience. 

One of my kids, back in his preschool days, took poetic license with this song and insisted on changing  the word honey and replacing it with the word ketchup, despite many eye rolls from an older (read 6 year old) sibling. 

When asked about the change from the traditional honey, the child answered, because I don’t like honey, I like ketchup. 

There’s always one in every crowd. 

But it does beg the question. Do we have to dip the apple in honey?  If we are hoping for a sweet year why not use sugar or even ketchup if that captures your fancy and tastebuds?

And perhaps even more profoundly, besides perhaps providing some entertainment for the preschool set,  why are we indulging in this activity at all?

We are coming close to the end of the book of Deuteronomy, a book which consists of a long speech which Moses delivers at the close of his life. 

In the speech Moses reviews the history of the Jewish people, the joys and tragefies which have taken place and speaks about entering the Land of Israel. 

There is discussion of what society will look like once they live in the land, all the commandments regarding agriculture as well as the judicial system and the ethical standards to which we should strive. 

This week’s Parsha, Ki Tavo, has only 6 commandments or mitzvot, one of which is the law to tithe or give 10% of ones earnings to charity. This speaks to the sensitivity we hope to cultivate in ourselves to see those around us who are in need and take responsibility for the care of the vulnerable. 

We are being trained to see. 

Mother in law jokes abound. 

We may make many of them ourselves, but beware,  one day those jokes may come back to haunt us!

There is one joke my Dad obm always used to repeat. 

“Why was Adam the luckiest man in the world? 

Because he didn’t have a mother in law.”

I never had a mother in law. 

This coming Sunday will be the 40th yahrzeit of my husband’s mother. 

I never met her. 

She passed away three years before I was introduced to my husband. 

So I never had a mother in law. 

I have come to know her through stories and remembrances, through her children and even through my own children as they begin to exhibit some of her character traits. 

Sonya Silverman obm never knew a stranger. 

Her home was open to one and all and she loved to host for Shabbat and holidays. Anyone who ever needed a bed was welcome in her home.

She once hosted a group of musicians who were traveling in California and were down on their luck and needed a place to stay. After they left she told her kids about this ragtag bunch and when they asked what was the name of the band she said “I don’t know, something like the dead grapefruits.”

Yes, the Grateful Dead were hosted by mother in law!

But on a more profound note she was a lifelong Jewish learner, passionate about her heritage and eager to share all she learned with one and all. 

When some of her children began to follow a path of Jewish observance which differed from hers, she embraced them and allowed them to fly. 

She did not clip their wings and  respected their choices. 

She was a loving and protective mother above all else. 

It’s been a wonderful summer. We are concluding a massive road trip, crisscrossing the East coast visiting and reconnecting with dear family and precious friends and mentors. 

I have seen a lot of people. 

But this week I was gifted with an insight regarding seeing someone. 

Really seeing someone. 

I paid a visit to an acquaintance who suffered the unimaginable loss of an only child. She told me her son passed away in her arms. 

I really didn’t know what to say. I listened to this bereaved mom share reminiscences of her precious child and my heart was breaking. 

She was so sad. 

She was mired in the devastating pain of her loss. 

I could not find any words to comfort her. 

And then she comforted me!

At one point I asked her how she is spending her days. 

I was astonished by her reaction to my query. 

She literally began to come to life before my eyes as she started to describe some of the initiatives she is spearheading in her community in memory of her son. He was a very bright and cerebral child, not much interested in sports.  So one of the projects she is creating in a local school is a special “recess closet” which will be stocked with age appropriate games and puzzles for kids who need activities other than sports. She eagerly shared some of her other projects and I was so inspired by her desire to support other children in order to commemorate her child. 

Then, she told me about the friendship bench!  

This is a special bench she is creating for the kindergarten in her neighborhood. She actually heard this idea from Sivan Rahav Meir, Israeli correspondent and Torah teacher, who reported on this idea which was initiated by a bereaved mom in Israel. 

The friendship bench is placed in the classroom. When a child sits on the bench they are communicating that they are feeling vulnerable or in need of a friend. 

They are asking to be seen. 

The friends in the class are taught to respond by reaching out in friendship. 

I was so touched by this concept. 

We all need to be seen. 

What a powerful way to allow a vulnerability to become a tool for love and connection. 

As we spoke further I felt I was in the presence of greatness. 

I “saw” this woman in a whole different way. 

She had suffered such an unspeakable tragedy yet she was finding solace in “seeing” others and trying to help them be seen. She was meeting them in their place of vulnerability and offering a loving hand in support. 

When I was growing up in Manhattan, we often had people coming to our door to collect charity. 

Sometimes these charity collectors came as representatives of worthy institutions, other times they came on behalf of an individual in need, and sometimes they were actually collecting for themselves. 

My Father obm generously responded to their requests and often would engage the gentleman, many of whom had traveled far and wide, in conversation, to treat them as human beings and express interest in their background and learn more about their travails. 

I was always in awe as I watched these conversations. My Dad was a very busy person on a strict schedule. But his mien was totally caring and present as he would seem to have all the time in the world as he listened to their stories with rapt attention and shared his comments with them as one would with an old and dear friend. 

One evening their was a ring at the door and I ushered in a charity collector. When I called my Father obm to the front of the house I whispered to him that this particular gentleman had already been to our house earlier that today. 

I watched in surprise as my Father went through the whole spiel all over again, inquiring and listening and concluding with a donation. 

After the gentleman left I asked my Father about his actions, hadn’t he heard me tell him that this was a second visit by this man?

His answer moved me deeply. 

He said that his custom is to pray three times daily. Each and every day he turns to his Creator and engages in conversation through prayer and makes requests again and again. 

If he is coming to Gd over and over again with requests and beseeching, how can he not respond to a second request from someone in need?

“Small people do big things, big people do small things”

So said Rabbi David Kronglas, spiritual guide at the Ner Israel Rabbinical College in the last generation. 

Rabbi Kronglas was trying to impress upon his students the importance of small and meaningful actions. People who make large sweeping motions with great pomp and circumstance may not be the ones to be relied upon in a pinch. The truly great people are the ones who quietly lend support and get the deed done, in spite of the lack of publicity. Very often the greatness of a person can be glimpsed in quiet actions that we may discover wholly by accident. 

We have just concluded the saddest time of the year. 

Last week we commemorated the time we lost the first and second Temples and the period of mourning is segueing into a time of consolation. 

There is a powerful image shared with us by our Sages. 

In the Talmud it describes the shocking final scene of the destruction of the Temple. While the edifice was going up in flames, the cohort of young Kohanim, the Priests, who were charged with the service in the Temple,  realized the end had come. The Talmud depicts the haunting scene  as they watch the holy building going up in flames. Holding the keys to the building in their hands they declare to Gd that since they were not worthy to remain the stewards of this holy place and it’s endeavors, they are, so to speak, returning the keys to Gd. The Talmud states they then threw the keys heavenward and a “hand” reached out and caught the keys for safekeeping. 

This depiction reveals the despair of those tragic days, and the utter hopelessness that prevailed. 

We are still trying to find the keys to unlock the gates of redemption. 

The seven weeks between the 9th of Av and Rosh Hashana are called the 7 weeks of consolation. 

Each week, we read different passages from the prophets in the weekly Haftorahs that give us hope that all is not lost and we can continue to unlock doors which will bring us to personal and national redemption. 

Sometimes, in our personal or national lives we will experience events that will illustrate for us the reality that doors which may be locked and are preventing us from moving forward in our journey may ultimately swing open when least expected.