Rabbi's Message

Why do we blow Shofar on Rosh Hashanah?
Although many reasons are given, the most fundamental and historic reason takes us back to that very first Rosh Hashanah - the day of Adam’s creation.

Immediately after his “birth” on that very first Rosh Hashanah, Adam gathered all his fellow creatures and said to them “Let us give thanks to G-d and crown Him as King of the Universe.” He then sounded the Shofar and proclaimed, “Come, let us bow down, let us prostrate ourselves before G-d Who made us!”

It turns out that the very first mitzvah performed by a human being was an expression of gratitude to the One who gave him life.

What was the very first sin?
You might say that it was the eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Although in a certain sense you would be right, our rabbis tell us that Adam and Eve can hardly be held accountable for it. You see it was really a contrived sin. The odds were stacked against them and they really didn’t stand a chance. The urge to eat was so great that no human being could have resisted it. Why? Because G-d had wanted them to sin so that they would experience the real world - this world - not just Gan Eden. Our Rabbis go so far as to say that blaming Adam and Eve for that sin is shockingly libellous.

So what was the first real sin - the first sin that Adam did have a choice over?

Soon after Adam ate of the forbidden fruit on Rosh Hashanah Adam is confronted by G-d as to why he ate of the Tree of Knowledge. He replied, “It’s not my fault, the woman who YOU gave me caused me to sin!”

G-d had graciously given him Eve as partner to alleviate his loneliness. Not only does Adam not express appreciation for the beautiful gift. He turns the gift on its head, claiming that it is the source of all his sorrows.

You know the story:
A woman's husband had been slipping in and out of a coma for several months, yet she stayed by his bedside every single day. One day he came to and motioned for her to come nearer. As she leaned toward him, he said, “Esther, you know what? You have been with me through all the bad times. When I got fired, you were there to support me. When my business failed, you were there. When I got shot, you were by my side. When we lost the house, you gave me support. When my health started failing, you were still by my side...
“You know what?”
“What dear?” she asked gently.
“I think you bring me bad luck.”

So the first mitzvah in the Torah is gratitude, and the first sin of the Torah is ingratitude. And both occurred on Rosh Hashanah!

I am devoting today’s sermon to a man who I believe epitomised gratitude - my late father, alav hashalom.

Dad - The Early Days

Everyone’s father is of course special to them. He is the person, together with our mothers, to whom we owe our very physical existence. They are the ones who sacrificed so that we could be who we are today. They are the ones who when we were very young we aspired to be like. They are also the ones who, as we were growing up and began forging our own identities, we often had conflicts with. And they are the ones who more often than not, we don’t express our gratitude to. Well today I want to express my gratitude to dad for teaching me the meaning of faith and for teaching me the meaning of gratitude.

My dad spent the first ten years of his life in Poland. He didn’t like talking about it - he was born into the great poverty that followed the first world war and grew up during the depression. His father left Poland when he was three years old, sailing to far-away Australia, so he could earn money and send it back to the family in Poland. Dad didn’t see him again until he was 11 years old when, together with his older siblings, he joined his father after the untimely passing of his mother in Poland. Dad would tell me that for the first years of his life he had no father and for the rest of his life he had no mother. He had no recollection of his father and mother together.

The only positive memories I ever heard from my dad about life in Poland was his description of how he and his older brother Velvel would carry the pot of chollent to the local baker’s oven on Friday and retrieve it on Shabbos. He also had very fond memories of a favourite Uncle Benzion, his mother’s brother, who he loved dearly. It was after him that I was named.

Dad never had a bar-mitzvah - his father couldn’t afford it. But Yiddish was his mama loshon and he could read Hebrew slowly with a Poilische accent. When we were growing up, dad made kiddush Friday night and mum kept a kosher home. Dad made an effort to walk to shule on Yom Kippur - although it was many miles away from our home in Preston. He was also a staunch labour Zionist - as so many of Melbourne’s Polish Jews were - and our parents instilled in us a love for Israel. But apart from that, dad wasn’t religious.

Because of the family’s abject poverty even here in Australia, dad couldn’t finish school. But he was always inquisitive and in his youth had a passion for understanding electricity and technology. I believe that it was because of his love of technology, instilled in me from a very young age, that I became so fascinated by science.

More than anything dad, like so many of his generation, wanted me to have what he didn’t - a decent profession. You can therefore imagine his bitter upset when I decided to go to Yeshiva for a year, and then the year became two and then many more years. In the seventies for an Australian kid to become religious and go off to Yeshiva was almost unheard of. Although I didn’t appreciate it at the time, I later realised that dad was worried that I wouldn’t be able to make a living as a Rabbi. Well, I made a living, but I can’t but agree with him that becoming a Rabbi is not a job for a Jewish boy. There are easier ways of making a living. Read More

President's Message

In early September I went for Shabbos morning service in New York to Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue. The senior rabbi, Meir Soloveichik, in lieu of a sermon delivered a lecture at the end of the service on the famous Rembrandt painting of 1659, Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law, in Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie; he was scheduled to give the same talk the next day at a conference on Rembrandt and the Jews at the Yeshiva University Museum. He argues that the painting has been misunderstood. Here I summarise his arguments. (Rabbi Soloveichik is also a professor at Yeshiva University. He is a great-nephew of the Rav and was rumoured to be a candidate to succeed Jonathan Sacks as chief rabbi. He is 39 years old.) Read More

This weeks Friday night Kiddush has been kindly co-sponsored by Robbie & Lauren Blau in commemoration of Robbie's father's yahrtzeit, and by Adrian & Sue Shine.

If you would like to sponsor a Kiddush in honour of a Simcha, Birthday or a Yahrtzeit please contact Shmuly on 0401 558 223 or shmuly@southhead.org.

Youth News

What a start to the new year!
Thank you all so much for making this Rosh Hashanah AMAZING. From the exciting Tishrei Go cards to the Fun-filled games and activities, the atmosphere at South Head Youth was electric!!

But the fun has only just begun. We can’t wait to show you whats in store for Yom Kippur!

Starting 7pm on Tuesday evening and resuming at 11am on Wednesday morning you are sure to have the YOM KIPPUR OF A LIFETIME at South Head Youth. Featuring a never seen before YOM KIPPUR ESCAPE ROOM plus much more, you don’t want to miss out.

Did you mange to collect all the Tishrei Go cards!? It's not to late.
From Rosh Hashana till Yom Kippur we do Teshuva, begging Hashem transform any negativity into good and seal us in the book of life. Similarly we’ve made all the Rosh Hashanah cards available till the end of Yom Kippur!

Shabbat Shalom and Gmar Tov from the entire South Head Youth Crew. See you at Children's Service!

P.S Don’t forget to register your Tishrei Go cards online to gain entry into the grand raffle! https://www.southhead.org/form/tishreigo.html

For all information on upcoming youth events please contact us on 9371 7300 ext 3 or 0432 876 770 or youth@southhead.org

My father was in the business of buying and selling postal stamps. As a result he travelled a lot, especially to Central and South America, buying stamps there and selling them to collectors in Europe. And, as if the Rebbe didn’t have enough on his mind, he instructed his secretariat to save the foreign stamps from his incoming mail for my father. I recall my father peeling off these stamps from the envelopes and arranging them in special collectors’ albums. Read More

Q. This week’s Torah portion states, ‘“For I know your rebelliousness ... behold! While I am still alive with your today ... and surely after my death” (31:27). The words “imachem hayom” — “with you today” seem extra?

A. The Gemara (Berachot 18a) says “The righteous are considered to be alive, in a spiritual sense, even after death.” Moshe was alluding to this concept. Thus, he said to them that though he would live eternally, he was speaking of his experience of when “odeni chai imachem” — “I am physically alive together with you.” Read More