This year, as we approach our holiest day, there is so much sadness. For too many, the decisions God made last year were wrenched apart by unspeakable human acts. Who shall live and who shall die? This must be God’s choice. Our task is clear. Our prayers and our deeds must work to repair the world.

When we gathered for worship Erev Rosh Hashanah, the words of the High Holy Day liturgy held a special poignancy this year. That the fate of so many had been cruelly sealed, not by Divine hand, but by the evil of man - it was more than we could fathom. Still, we have come again to our beginning, and to the time of contemplation. Now more than ever, we need to return to God, to find in ourselves the sparks of the Holy One so that we can continue the world’s repair.

When we gathered for worship Erev Rosh Hashanah, the words of the High Holy Day liturgy held a special poignancy this year. That the fate of so many had been cruelly sealed, not by Divine hand, but by the evil of man - it was more than we could fathom. Still, we have come again to our beginning, and to the time of contemplation. Now more than ever, we need to return to God, to find in ourselves the sparks of the Holy One so that we can continue the world’s repair.

There has never been a day like September 11, 2001. I thought I would have the day to savor - it was my 50th birthday, after all - a personally special day. I do not need to recount what has happened. From the first news report through the painful escalating day and night, we all were captives of the events.

Cantor Gershon Silins and Executive Director Bekki Harris Kaplan are the newest members of the Beth Emet family. They joined us this summer, but have yet to be officially welcomed. One of my jobs, as Beth Emet’s psalmist, is to contribute some words to mark this event in the life cycle of the congregation. This new psalm will be read at Shabbat services next week.

I have been blessed with a physician of rare quality, integrity and humanity. He even makes house calls - especially when he knows how difficult it would be for me to go to his office or the hospital. All along, through crisis and times of maintenance, we have worked together. A model, I think, for all patients and their physicians.

Rabbi Peter Knobel and a delegation of Beth Emet members left this week for Simferopol, Ukraine, home of our sister congregation, Etz Chayim. Along with a Torah scroll, newly garbed in a mantle handworked by other Beth Emet members, they will be bringing prayerbooks, mezzuzot (the small scrolls that are affixed to the doorpost of a house), and tallitot (prayer shawls). They will also bring this psalm.

Our tradition has a blessing for everything. So too when one hears of a death. We say: Blessed is the Eternal our God, Ruler of the Universe, the true Judge. Uncle Irv died this morning; perhaps he and God together picked the moment. How did he last this long, so fragile, yet still with mental vitality? I think it was a quiet death, surrounded by family, a final stillness.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of speaking to a women’s “Lunch and Learn” group at a local JCC. I had forgotten how delicious it is to be with other women who are interested and interesting. I mostly told stories about how I came to write psalms and the stories behind some of them. The give and take was gratifying.

Tisha B’Av, the Ninth of Av, occurs this year on July 29th. A day of fasting, it commemorates the destruction of the first and second Temples, and many other tragedies that befell the Jewish people on that day. Yet there is a teaching that on the afternoon of this day of mourning, the Messiah will be born. So out of personal tragedy, God will restore us: even as we weep, our tears will water ground for new growth.