Finding Home—A sermon for Rosh Hashanah Eve
Finding Home—A sermon for Rosh Hashanah Eve 9/11/26
Sunday, August 23, was a very, very long day for me. I set out for the airport at 3:45 am Adelaide time to catch a 6:00 am flight to Melbourne, and then a 14 hour flight from there to Los Angeles, which landed at 8:30 am—Sunday morning! Then another flight to Chicago, and the ride from Chicago through the usual traffic and finally back to South Bend. As I came into town, I spotted familiar landmarks: Ritter’s Custard, Martin’s Supermarkets, Trader Joe’s, the Dollar Store, Dollar General, Dollar Tree...and then finally back to my house and my cat. I was home.
Over the last two and a half years, I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating the concept of “home.” When does an apartment or a house become a home? When does a geographical location start to feel like home? How does that transformation take place?
I note that many languages do not have separate words for “house” and “home.” Hebrew certainly doesn’t. During the long, long stretch when Israeli hostages were being held in Gaza, songs were written hoping for the captives to return habayta. While this rendered naturally into English as “coming home,” the word actually means to return to one’s house. This begs the question of whether the concept of “home” is something that depends on a language’s ability to articulate it. I’m guessing the answer is no, because so many people in so many parts of the world hold dearly to an idea of a place that is uniquely theirs, a place where they feel grounded.
Our earliest ancestors had no such place. Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah and Rachel were nomads, moving across the land in search of pasture for their flocks. When Sarah died, Abraham approached the local peoples to buy a parcel of land—as a burial ground. In his negotiations with the Hittites, he identified himself as a temporary sojourner—although by then he had already been in the land of Canaan for sixty years. Settled, and yet not truly settled.
By the time of Moses’ great speeches in the book of Deuteronomy, the land of Israel—the promised land—had been identified with home. Not only would the Jewish people come to possess it, but it would become an essential part of who they were. Their religious practice would rely on having a particular place—the Temple Mount—to offer sacrifices to God. Their festivals would be determined by the agricultural cycles of the land. This land would become their home.
It is rare that any of us come to a sense of home because God speaks to us directly. Instead, we blunder around, perhaps trying one place and then another, searching for home until one day we wake up and realize that we are already there.
This sermon began to take shape a few months ago, when I put the question to the congregation—what makes Michiana home? Many Temple members have lived in this area for two or more generations. Others came here perhaps for a short time, perhaps for the long term, and ultimately found themselves at home. I asked, how did you decide that this was home? The answer was the connection to community. Home came not from the beauty of the place or the quality of the food or the services available. Home was all about the special people, people who felt just one step removed from family. If that sense of community was established, the other elements could come together to create a sense of home.
For me, Rosh Hashanah feels very much like a homecoming. Since I have been a Jew my entire life, the sights, sounds, and tastes of the holiday take me to a very profound place inside myself. I could eat apples and honey the rest of the year, but I tend to do so only at this time of the year, and so that first bite of crunchy apple and sticky honey evokes powerful memories for me. When the congregation joins together to sing “Avinu Malkeinu,” a melody I’ve been singing since childhood, I feel a deep sense of connection. For me as a rabbi, this day has an even stronger resonance that goes beyond my professional responsibilities: this robe that I’m wearing belonged to my grandfather, Rabbi Joseph Utschen. I never knew him, but it means a great deal to me to be able to literally take on his mantle when I put on this robe each year. I hope that each of you also experiences this special day as a time for returning home.
This Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I will be exploring the idea of “home” through different lenses. Tomorrow morning, I will talk about my home here in the United States. While many of you have lived here and only here your entire lives, for me it has been a choice to make my home here. I’ll explore that choice with you. On Kol Nidre, I will speak about Judaism as our home. And finally, on Yom Kippur morning, I’ll talk about another one of my homes–the state of Israel, a place for which I hold enormous love and also great ambivalence.
Just a few months ago, I affixed mezuzot to the doorposts of my new home with many of you as guests. This is the ritual that Judaism uses to announce that a house has become a home. Now, whenever I step through a doorway, whether from the garage or the front door, I take just a moment to touch the mezuzah, kiss my fingers, and reflect on what it means to have a home. So many do not. Those living with family and domestic violence may have a house to live in—and it may even be a beautiful house—but it’s not truly home if they are exposed to an ongoing threat of danger within its walls. People who are paying a high percentage of their total income for rent and who are living paycheck to paycheck may have a place to live—but it’s not truly home if they are uncertain if they will still be able to afford the rent next month. There are people right here in Michiana living in apartment complexes that barely qualify as shelter–low-cost housing without reliable heating or hot water. A place to live, but not home. Obviously those living with war and natural disasters may well feel that they are at home, but at the same time they are haunted by a gnawing sense of insecurity and danger.
One of our tasks at this time of year is to become attuned to those near and far who are less fortunate than we are. I’m guessing that we all live in places that keep us dry when it’s raining, warm in the winter and at least a little cool in the summer. We do not face the ongoing threats that so many around the world and even here in Michiana have to deal with. We are taught that this is an especially good time of the year to give tzedakah–to bring a greater sense of justice and balance to the world. I would encourage you to go forth and do so, holding in your hearts the many, many people around the world who long for a home. Temple’s Sustain fund provides for those in our region who are in need of help, and now is a perfect time to make a generous donation to this fund.
To those of you who attend Shabbat services most weeks, to those who come rarely, and to those who may be here for the very first time in person or on Zoom, welcome home! May these truly be Days of Awe for you–days to reconnect with the very best within each of us as well as with this community that holds us all. May each and every one of us be inscribed for a year of sweetness and joy, abundance and health, hope and peace, and may those blessings spread to the whole world. Shana tova!
