What the Whale Says: Yom Kippur Evening 5770
Oct 10th, 2009 by roospod
A sermon about forgiveness and apology from the Kol Nidre service at Monmouth Reform Temple. Most of the information and stories about whales came from “Watching Whales Watching Us” by Charles Siebert in the NYTimes Magazine this past summer.
Rabbi Roos, In preparation for our meeting this morning at Temple Sinai, I listened to your sermon, “What the Whale Says.” I have to admit that after the first 4 minutes I thought it was going to be an enormous stretch to link the observations of whale behavior to the themes of Yom Kippur, but I stuck with it until the last words. You have the soul of understanding and the ability to link many of the powerful lessons of the liturgy. I could hear them as much in your voice as in your words. And, yes, you are certainly correct in thinking that if the most brutally treated creatures could forgive us, we ought to be able to forgive others, even if their apologies may not always sound the way we would hope. Indeed, the need to forgive is as important as the need to ask for forgiveness. I look forward to meeting you.
Shalom,
Dan