5787 Simchat Torah Honourees

I’m humbled to receive this honour. Thank you.

I started coming to the Shaar 20 years ago and I couldn’t have fathomed then how much this would mean to me.

I’m not what I thought a Shaar guy was. You and your top hats and beautiful choir and “don’t use the middle stairs!” (So my kids grew up running down that middle aisle during the Torah parade so they could go kiss all the torahs left behind in the aron.) I grew up outside of all this, but saw your community values. I wanted to be a part of it, and thought maybe I would just stay on the edges.

After this many years, I know you all. I know some better than others, sure, but I know where you like to sit, how early or late you show up on Shabbat, and how long you take to get down to kiddush. Who sings along with Gideon (waiting for his G-dsmack moments!), and who is there for stillness. We sing zemirot after kiddush and have a great cup of coffee at breakfast together after morning minyan.

When Rabbi Scheier “gave” us the term Shaar Family, he made room for all of us.

Let’s read that last sentence again.

When Rabbi Scheier “gave” us the term Shaar Family, he made room for all of us.

My first high holidays at the Shaar were unfamiliar territory. The pomp was dialled up to 11. That’s when I discovered the Third Service that Beverly Spanier had initiated years before, and that’s when she first conscripted me to blow shofar for them. I wasn’t very good but got better every year. I’ve blown shofar every year since then for the various iterations of the downstairs service.

Every year we start blowing shofar in the mornings at the end of the daily minyan, starting in the month of Elul. The sound it makes should break your heart. It should remind you of who God wants you to be, and realize you’re not living up to it. Every day you hear it, till you can’t ignore it. On the day before Rosh Hashanah we take a break from the daily blowing. By this point your subconscious is doing some of the work without you, and the day of quiet is louder than expected.

Rosh Hashanah booms out to the whole community. 100 notes. It’s the very first sound God made when communicating with us at Har Sinai. In the Torah, in Sefer Shemot (19:19) it says: Vayehi Kol Hashofar Holekh Veḥazek Me’od – וַיְהִי קוֹל הַשֹּׁפָר הוֹלֵךְ וְחָזֵק מְאֹד “And the sound of the shofar continued, growing very strong.” We couldn’t see God for all the smoke and darkness, but we could hear. Our covenant with God began with our ears. And these 100 notes take the Jewish DNA back in time to a people who left Egypt and stood waiting for God’s Law.

As much as the sounds shake our hearts at the beginning, by the end those same sounds raise us up and we can see what we need to be in the coming year.

This year I had the privilege of blowing shofar at the Sephardic Service in the Raby Kiddush Room. I love that the Shaar has the first Sephardic minyan in Westmount. (Rav Chetrit delivered a deeply spiritual marathon.) Did you know they don’t have a tekiah gedola to close out Yom Kippur?? It’s a teruah gedola and it’s just what you’re thinking – hundreds of little blasts! The feeling at the end of Neilah, whether downstairs or upstairs, is the same. Relief and joy and hope. For ourselves and for the world. It’s the feeling we mirror now at Simchat Torah. We’re starting again. We accomplished a lot last year, and here comes another year where we can do a little better. It’s a recurring task that God gives us. This year the honour of starting the cycle falls to me, and it’s a privilege I hope not to squander. So what can I do better?

See how to reduce the division in our world. Reduce the polarization.

Stand up proudly for Israel. Defend her.

Help the poor live with more dignity.

Be kinder to your family.

Be kinder to yourself.

I’m grateful for my chavruta Rabbi Ellis. His presence is an integral part of the spirit of Torah that fills our building. The Shaar is lucky to have him. And that luck started with Yosi. Impeccable in so many ways. His attention to the details, both ritual and interpersonal, makes everyone feel seen.

Rabbi Adam and Rabba Abby together helped shape a community where my daughter, now away at school, is reading torah on the holidays. Elliott and Malvina – you guys are great. It’s a privilege sharing this with you.

I’m blessed with amazing children, Jonathan, Noah, Elijah and Yoyo, and a wife I’m tremendously proud of, Rachelle, that loves me. I’m blessed to have 4 siblings and their families in my life, and my parents, with me here today. Hashem is constantly good to me. So thank you, my Shaar people. I know I still sometimes try to swim upstream, but you guys put up with me pretty well. And that’s a lot of what family is about.

Tizku Leshanim Tovot Verabot