Long ago in a faraway village, a water carrier had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole he carried across his shoulders. One of the pots was perfect, but the other had a crack in it. Each day, the man walked to the stream, filled both pots with water, and carried them home. By the time he arrived, the cracked pot was only half full.

This routine went on for years. The cracked pot felt ashamed, believing it had failed in its purpose. One day it said to the water carrier, “I’m so sorry. Because of my flaw, you don’t get the full amount of water you need. I’ve let you down.”The man gently replied, “Tomorrow, as we walk home, I want you to notice the side of the path where I carry you.”

The next day, as they walked, the pot looked and saw the path lined with beautiful flowers – only on its side! The man said, “I knew you were cracked, so I planted seeds along your side of the path. Every day, you’ve watered them without realizing. Thanks to you, we have these beautiful flowers. Without your flaw, this beauty wouldn’t exist.”

The cracked pot smiled, no longer ashamed, but proud, filled with joy, and with a newfound understanding of its purpose.

Some may glean that this story teaches that each one of us is a crackpot. And while that may be true, the real lessons here are so much deeper. The first lesson is that each one of us is flawed in some way. We are broken vessels, cracked open, yearning for our fullest potential and not always getting there. The second lesson is about honesty and courage. The cracked pot chose to reach out to the water carrier to apologize. “I’m so sorry I can’t be what you need me to be,” it said. The third lesson is about the importance of being in caring relationship. In that moment, the water carrier sees the pot in all of its incompleteness and finds a way to turn its tears, its spilled water, into a blessing and a joy.

ָהלוְֹך ֵיֵלְך וָּבֹכה ֹנֵשׂא ֶמֶשְׁך־ַהָזַּרע בֹּא־ָיֹבא ְבִרָנּה ֹנֵ֗שׂא ֲאֻלמָֹּתיו׃

Though he goes along weeping, carrying the seed-bag, he shall come back with songs of joy, carrying his sheaves (Psalms 126).

Tears, sorrow, and joy are all intricately and intimately connected. Judaism teaches us this over and over again.

“One may lie down weeping at nightfall; but at dawn there are shouts of joy” (Psalms 30:6). Last week on Rosh Hashanah I spoke about tears. The tears of our ancestor Rachel weeping over her children. The tears of Hagar weeping over her son, the tears of the Israelites in slavery. As I shared with you, it is our tears that connect us. It is our tears that bring out our empathy. It is our tears that let us see the humanity in one another. And it is our tears that give me hope for tomorrow. We cry when we realize something is wrong. And the fact that we are able to realize that
and that it brings this reaction – our humanity is in there.

ְוֵישׁ־ִתְָּק֥וה ְלאֲַחִריֵ֖תְך

“There is hope for what comes after this,” we learned in our Rosh Hashanah Haftorah. On Shabbat and holidays in Birkat Hamazon, our grace prayer after meals, we add the words of Psalm 26 to our prayer and we say,

ַהזְֹּרִ֥עים ְבִּדְמָ֗עה ְבִּרָנּ֥ה ִיְקֹֽצרוּ׃

“Those who sow in tears shall reap with songs of joy.” That is my aspiration. That is my prayer. That is my mission for us this year. To reap in Radical Joy.

Now you might think, Rabbi Josh, why are you talking to us about joy on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement? Our Sages taught:

וּפִּרים ִאְתְקִריאַת ַעל ֵשׁם יוֹם ַהִוּפּכִּרים, ַדֲּעִתיִדין ְלִאְתַעְנָגא ֵבּי,הּ וְּלַוּנּשֵׁיי ֵליהּ ֵמִעוּנּי
ְלֹעֶנג,

“Purim” is called that because of Yom HaKippurim [“the day that is like Purim”], for, in the future, people will rejoice on Yom Kippur, and will transform its required afflictions to delight.

But this joy is not trivial or frivolous, to be clear. In his book about the High Holiday season This is Real and you are Completely Unprepared, Rabbi Alan Lew explains, “Joy is a deep release of the soul, and it includes death and pain. It is any feeling fully felt, any experience we give our whole being to. We are conditioned to choose pleasure and to reject pain, but the truth is, any moment of our life fully inhabited, any feeling fully felt, any immersion in the full depth of life, can be the source of deep joy.”

So let me tell you a story about Jewish joy. This is a snapshot of just the past five weeks here at Agudas Achim.

First we celebrated two Jewish weddings, both of which included one partner who chose and converted to Judaism this summer after incredible journeys of learning, engagement, and passionate commitment. In the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah we celebrated three b’nai mitzvah, all of whom stepped onto the bimah and led our congregation with joy and presence.

We celebrated four new births, and in addition we welcomed two children into Judaism and bestowed them with beautiful Hebrew names. Our brand new 55+ community met multiple times and the new Agudas Achim book club already finished their first book. On the last Shabbat in August we welcomed everyone back from summer with AgudasFest, where over 200 people joined us for an unbelievable musical Kabbalat Shabbat in our parking lot with our teen band, all of whom are incredible alumni of the Columbus Jewish Day School.

On September 7th we kicked off Makom, our new Jewish Learning Hub, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony with Mayor Ben Kessler and a Jewish Ribbon-cutting ceremony, which is a Mezuzah Hanging, with Miriam and Bernie Yenkin. Over 60

students and parents joined us to make mezuzot for their homes and to fill up our synagogue with laughter, learning, and song.

Two weeks ago, with the help of JewishColumbus, we kicked off our second year of Bexley Lunch Club, where we take middle and high school students out for Kosher lunch at Agudas Achim once a month. 70 middle and high school students joined us, coming from five different synagogues and some who are not affiliated anywhere. Watching them interact and just be Jewish kids shows me how much stronger we are when we come together. Our next lunch club is next Monday in the Agudas Achim Sukkah!

It’s been a wild lead-up to the holidays. But it has also been invigorating. Every relationship, every milestone, every small conversation or interaction reminds me how much I love it here. How much I love that this is what I get to do as a rabbi, and how much I love you. We are creating the kind of community that so many people long for. The kind of community that I longed for. A place where joy and meaning come together to celebrate and affirm Jewish life.

I love and am so grateful for the opportunity you have given me to be your rabbi. We are showing one another what it means to be in sacred relationship. So how did we get here? Last year we talked about a Chazon, a vision for Agudas Achim. We dreamt of a thriving community, a vibrant religious school with intentional learning and engagement, an energizing Shabbat community with songfilled prayer and delicious kiddush lunch.

We thought deeply about what it would mean and what it would take to enable all of that, and we did it. Together with visionary dreamers and builders like Les and Abigail Wexner, Bobby Schottenstein and Jeri Block, Bernie and Miriam Yenkin, and so many more, and with the help and guidance of incredible leaders in our community like our immediate past president Randy Sokol, our advisors Rabbi Elka Abrahamson and Julie Tilson Stanley, and our executive committee, we raised almost two million dollars in three year commitments towards our Makom Campaign. These funds brought us to the present day, and allowed us to create a Jewish Learning Hub that would benefit all members simply for being a part of this community.

I asked you to find yourselves here, and you did. Our community has grown by 100 families in the last two years alone! But I’m not here to tell you about the past. I’m here tonight to empower, charge, and challenge us all for the future. We have found ourselves here, so what do we do now? How do we continue to center and deepen Jewish joy and meaning for all of us?

There were a lot of other things that happened in the last five weeks as well, and that happen all the time in our lives, and we could tell ourselves any number of stories about how this last month and a half went. It was not a very good month for the world, it was not a very good month for Israel, it was not a very good month for America.

These truths are a part of our story. But I think the ultimate lesson of the cracked pot is that we are in control of the story we tell about ourselves. Who do we want to be? Who do we want to tell our children and the next generation that we are? What is the story that we want to weave for them, and for ourselves?

In the book of Numbers when the Israelites are wandering in the desert and get close to the land of Israel, they send 12 spies to scout out the land. When they return, they go straight to Moses and Aaron within view of the entire community and show them the giant fruit they harvested there:

ָבּאנוּ ֶאל־ָהאֶָרץ ֲאֶשׁר ְשַׁלְחָתּנוּ ְוגַם ָזַבת ָחָלב וְּדַבשׁ ִהוא ְוֶזה־ִפְּרָיהּ׃

“We came to the land you sent us to; it does indeed flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit (Bam. 13:27).”

But then they continue,

ְוָ֣שׁם ָרִ֗אינוּ ֶאת־ַהְנִּפיִ֛לים ַוְנִּ֤הי ְבֵעיֵ֙נינוּ֙ ַֽכֲּחָגִ֔בים ְוֵ֥כן ָהִ֖יינוּ ְבֵּעיֵניֶֽהם׃

“We saw the Nephilim there—the Anakites, the giants—and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them (Bam. 13:33).”

Reb Menachem Mendl of Kotzk explained that this moment was actually the true big sin of the spies. It is understandable that in that moment they thought of themselves as grasshoppers, but how could they possibly know what the Nephilim thought of them? And how could they cajole the rest of the people to see themselves in that way too? There is no way to know how the

other may view you, and so all you can do is worry about and work on how you view yourself.

In this day and age, we know very well the stories that others are telling about us. We know about the resurgence of antisemitism rearing its ugly head, and we know that there seems to be more of it now than at any other time in our lifetime. So why do we keep gathering to talk about it and telling ourselves that same story over and over again?

Do you know what else is happening now? This is the Jewish story as I see it today: Since October 7th, Jews around the world have had to reckon with who we are to ourselves and who we are to the rest of the world. That has led so many people to actually turn towards Judaism, rather than away from it. When terrorists sought to murder Jews and destroy the Jewish state, Jews in the diaspora, at least in this community, stepped in, actively and visibly showing their Jewish heritage with pride and rallying together to celebrate our heritage.

In his podcast “Call Me Back” last May, Dan Senor gave an address on the State of World Jewry. I could just recite the whole thing here because it is exactly what I want to say, but here is one of the main points. “We can’t make the antisemites any less antisemitic,” he says. “so what are we to do? …Without something more lasting, a shift at the core of our approach to American Jewish life, we may drift back into that false sense of normal we were living on October 6th.”

The author Sarah Hurwitz, who is coming to speak at the JCC in two weeks, put it this way when addressing a group of Hillel student leaders. “We can fight antisemitism, and I think that’s great, but I think instead of trying to bail out a tsunami with buckets, we should also build an ark.” Put differently, the one thing we can control is whether we choose to lead Jewish lives. Dan Senor asks, “How do we invest in Judaism, in Jewish peoplehood, in Jewish communal life, and in connection to Israel? There’s really only one way.” He answers. “Immersion in Jewish tradition, rituals, ruach, and learning with other Jews.
Judaism works by way of bubbles. When encountered in a bubble, Judaism comes alive.”

There is a seismic shift happening in the way we view ourselves and we need to wholeheartedly embrace this and the story we tell about our present and our future. We have to step in. When we tell the story of our Judaism, we need to make sure our storytellers tell a story of joy. A story of community. A story of passion and connection. A story of literacy. Of knowing who we are and where we came from. Storytellers like that don’t just appear, they aren’t just born, they are cultivated and nurtured and raised with purpose.

There are many ways to do this, but the most proven successful way that happens is through a trifecta of engagement – the three legged stool of Jewish day school, Jewish summer camp, and synagogue and communal Jewish life.

We have an incredible day school, the Columbus Jewish Day School, which we already are set to send Jona and Ziv to. Jona already asks, “when do I get to go to CJDS like my cousin Hugo?” At CJDS, Judaism comes alive every single day. Every student that comes through this school that I have had the pleasure to encounter has a deep love for our people, our language, our

culture, and our heritage. They have a foundation of Jewish knowledge and identity development that is strongest when it is encountered every single day. They are rooted, and they grow up to be teens and adults who lead our community, and who excel wherever they end up afterwards.

At the same time we are also sending more Jewish children to Jewish overnight camp – over 50 just this summer from Agudas Achim alone, immersing them in an atmosphere of Jewish joy that they carry with them throughout the entire year. This summer was my 25th summer at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, and I was joined there by over 20 campers and staff from Columbus and I saw it firsthand.

And all of this is anchored and uplifted by what we choose to do here – in the synagogue and at home. This is our ark. This is our bubble. Because it’s not just about the kids. Each one of us needs to decide for ourselves how we want to tell our Jewish story this year, and beyond. We are crafting this next chapter together. So take a minute and think about how you want to grow in your Jewish journey. What questions do you have? What do you want

to learn? What do you want to practice? How do you want to embody your Jewish heritage in the year to come?

You can craft your own path, and we have built in ways that have sustained our people for thousands of years. Our holidays have engagement embedded in the rituals. For example, join us on Tuesday night October 14th for one of the most joyous nights on the Jewish calendar: Simchat Torah. We’ll dance and sing and parade our Torahs before unrolling one all the way, to literally walk through our people’s journey together in one night.

Looking for something more frequent? Shabbat is here for us at the end of every week. We have community kiddush lunch every single Shabbat after services cooked by our amazing kiddush committee. Come in your cleats, come in your workout clothes. And then stay to clean up too. Starting after Simchat Torah we’re going to set up a “toranut,” a responsibility rotation so every single member unit can have the opportunity to help us set up and clean up Kiddush once a year.

How will you write yourself and your family into this next chapter in our story? We are not grasshoppers. We are so much more than that. I can feel it, I can see it. At a recent Bat Mitzvah a local guest walked up to me after services and gave me a hug and said, “when I walk into Agudas Achim these days, it feels like the whole shul is giving me a big hug!” That’s what we want! One of the most beautiful comments I heard from a dear friend and congregant last week was that Rosh Hashanah felt like the Conservative synagogue she grew up in thirty years ago, and she never thought she’d experience that kind of vibrancy and energy at a Conservative synagogue today.

That vibrancy is being felt by the next generation. At Makom in addition to our wonderful teachers we have 11 teen madrichim who choose to show up early every Sunday morning to teach and be role models in our Jewish Learning Hub. Two of these teens aren’t even members of this synagogue. They just know that this is something important, that teaching and learning and engaging and living joyful Judaism is important. And it’s not just about these role models, these teen madrichim and our teen band. It’s about these young kids and young families who look up at these

teens and say, I want to be like them, I want my kids to be like them. I want that for all of us.

And I want this too: Last week, a middle school student who went to school on the second day of Rosh Hashanah made the choice, of his own accord, to bike over to Agudas during his lunch break and join us in the sanctuary for a bit of services and a musaf muffin. He walked right in, and he said he just felt at home and he wanted to get a little taste of Rosh Hashanah, even if he couldn’t be there the whole time. Honestly I’m just blown away. If there is one thing you remember from this sermon remember that. These kids see themselves in our story. And they are becoming Jewish storytellers in their own right

Because this is our story. It is a story of Jewish joy. Jewish Joy that is deep and thick and intergenerational. It is real. It is immersive and communal. It is, in the words of Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, “the antidote to Antisemitism.” Jewish joy, Jewish engagement, Jewish identity development. This is what we need to be doing – Instilling in ourselves and in our children and community meaningful and experientially joyous reasons to be

Jewish rather than reasons to fear. We at Agudas are here for you so we can do just that. Build a place where joy and meaning come together to celebrate and affirm Jewish life. That’s how I hope we can write this next chapter, and I hope we can do it together.

G’mar Chatimah Tovah.