Shana Tova! Today, on Rosh Hashanah we wish each other a Happy New Year. You might not know but this holiday has many names. Among them is Yom HaZikaron – the Day of Remembrance. Today, the shofar awakens us to remember our past actions. As Rabbi Karyn Kedar teaches, “The Day of Remembrance asks us to turn around to look into the past for its lessons, its mistakes, its greatness.”[i]
That’s why I think it’s appropriate this morning for us to remember who we’ve been as a congregation and all that we’ve accomplished. Today is our 40th High Holy Days! 40 times Bolton Street Synagogue has gathered to welcome the New Year. This morning, we’ll reminisce on 40 years of memories.
It was 1986,[ii] when Baltimore’s newest synagogue gathered in a meeting room at Brown Memorial Church. I was told that room was small, and so, those first High Holy Days were held at the stately building on Eutaw Place, the former Oheb Shalom Congregation. A few years later, a small group gathered in our first building in Bolton Hill. There was no custodian, so members fixed up the building and bonded over the cleaning of toilets. Children set up the chairs, leaving just one foot length and one foot width between each row making sure to pack everyone in. Those first years were special because that building was ours.
But I was told it wasn’t always so pleasant! When Rosh Hashanah was early, it would be unbearably hot in a building without A/C. In 2004, the first High Holy Days were held here on Cold Spring Lane. We might have lost the breezes, but our new building was accessible to all, and we never worried about the weather!
Over these last 40 High Holy Days, countless lay leaders and rabbis, educators and cantors have led the congregation in song and celebration. Children danced “at high tide, low tide,” Tots sang the Shofar Song, congregants chanted Torah, musicians shared their talents, while a multitude of adults and kids blew shofar. At our High Holy Day Food Drive, kids would weigh the donations and excitingly announce when we beat last year’s numbers. In Roland Park, a new tradition was born where picnic dinners would be set up across the Meadow as we welcomed each New Year. On Yom Kippur, we offered a blessing for all our non-Jewish family members. We weathered a pandemic participating in services through our computer screens. Over the years, we noshed, we learned, and we prayed. Today, we remember 40 years as a congregation!
Memory is at the heart of what it means to be a Jew. The word Zakhor, to remember, appears 197 times in the Bible. Each year at the Passover Seder, all of us, even the wisest amongst us, must retell the story of the Exodus. Our Torah reminds us that we cannot move forward unless we remember where we’ve come from. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks teaches: “History is his story – memory is my story. History is information. Memory, by contrast, is part of my identity… Memory is the past as present, as it lives in me.”[iii]
That’s why we as a congregation, on our 40th Anniversary, decided to share our Bolton Street Synagogue memories. On a Friday evening earlier this April, we kicked off our House Meeting Campaign. Over 100 congregants assembled in the Social Hall as each person shared their “Bolton Street Story.” From April until August, we gathered an additional fifteen times, where groups of 6 – 12 congregants met for a House Meeting to share their stories as well as their hopes and dreams for the future.
We want to celebrate this incredible endeavor. Dozens of congregants led this House Meeting Campaign. Thank you for your hard work. Please stand if you organized, hosted, led, or were part of our House Meeting Campaign! In addition, over 130 member units, half of our congregation, joined us for at least one conversation. How amazing that so many of you took time out of your schedule to join us!
By far the most repeated theme that came up during these conversations was around belonging. At every meeting, congregants shared stories about how welcoming our community is to non-Jewish family members, Jews-by-choice, LGBTQ people, Jews of color, and those who don’t feel welcome in other synagogue. Bolton Street Synagogue was described as a place where you could come as you are, where you felt you belonged, and where there was no-judgment. We aren’t perfect as a congregation, but that is something we should celebrate!
These stories illustrate who we are. They communicate our identity and our vision. They remind us of the values that we hold most dear, as shared in our mission statement, “To be an inclusive Jewish home for the diverse Baltimore community engaging in spirituality, friendship, learning, and social justice.”[iv]
We know memory serves as a building block for Jewish identity, but according to our rabbis that’s not enough. Our memories should also spur us to action. In a few minutes, we will hear the blast of the shofar. The second section of the shofar service, Zichronot,[v] Remembrances, includes a long list of verses in which God remembers. In every single example, God first remembers and then acts. After God remembers Noah on the Ark, the flood waters disperse. After God remembers our ancestors groaning under bondage, the Israelites are freed. After God remembers Rachel navigating infertility, her womb is open.
That responsibility for turning memories into action applies to us too! Dr Ellen Umansky teaches: “The obligation to remember cannot be separated from the obligation to observe.”[vi] We remember our loved ones by lighting a yahrtzeit candle. We remember the creation of the world by resting on Shabbat. In the Torah, each time we are commanded to “not oppress the stranger” it follows with “for you were strangers in Egypt.”[vii] It is the memory of our slavery that propels us to act. Memories are never enough unless they lead us to action.
On this, our 40th Rosh Hashanah, we too should remember all the good work we accomplished as a synagogue![viii] We served meals at homeless shelters on Christmas Day. We marched for women’s rights, marriage equality, and our immigrant neighbors. We welcomed homeless families into our building providing them with a place to sleep, meals to eat, and entertainment for their children. We were advocates for better public education for our kids. We wrote postcards encouraging people to vote. We wrapped Christmas presents for families in need. We baked casseroles. We did mitzvot on Good Deeds Day. We dropped off food for immigrant families. The building might have changed, the people might have changed, even our actions might have changed, but the foundational values have remained the same.
Memory helps form our Jewish identity. Memory spurs us to action. But memory must also serve as a bridge to connect us to the future. Becca Leviss the founder and director of the Judeofuturism Project reminds us that at its best Jewish storytelling is both past and future oriented. In Deuteronomy, we retell our story while preparing to move into a future promised land. At each Passover seder, we collapse time and imagine that we are in the story. We were slaves, but at the same time fully liberated. Our memories highlight our past while allowing us to dream of our future.[ix]
The House Meetings this spring and summer were not just an opportunity to reminisce or to be nostalgic. That would not be enough. Like the Passover Seder, these gatherings spurred us to hope and dream of our future. There were three overarching themes that came up during our conversations:
First, Maintaining Intimacy – We heard how excited you are to
welcome new members to our community! As we continue to grow, you’re
thinking about the best ways to maintain that intimate “everybody knows you”
feeling for our newest and long-term members alike.
Second, Building Community – we heard how you are looking for more informal small get togethers as well as intergenerational gatherings. You are also thinking about our long-time members as well as seniors and how we can support them, especially as they grow older.
Third, Opportunities to Engage – we heard of your willingness and interest to be more engaged in synagogue life. You want to get more involved, but you don’t always know how. You wish to further our acts of Tikkun Olam and create new opportunities for learning and adult engagement.
These three big themes: maintaining intimacy, building community, and opportunities to engage, will drive us as a congregation in the year ahead. This is only the first step! Please join us for a further conversation in October when we share more of our findings and work together to achieve these dreams.
Why wait until we gather in October? Let’s start right now with something a little bit different! We’re going to have a short, four-minute conversation! Hopefully with someone you don’t know. At the end of each row are postcards that can now be passed out. They list the themes that I shared as well as these questions: “Which theme is most important to you? Why is it important to you?” Turn towards those around you, in groups of 3 to 4, introduce yourselves, read the postcard, and answer the questions! When we start singing, please stop your conversation and rejoin us.
[After four minutes of conversation, we join together with the singing of Hashiveinu]
The prayer we just sang, Hashiveinu,[x]
ask the Holy One to “renew our days as in the past.” On this, our 40th High Holy Days,
may we find a sense of renewal as we did in the past. May our memories strengthen our
identity. May our memories spur us to
action. May our memories build
community. May our memories link our
past to our future. Amen.
[i] “Fragments
of Memory” by Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar found in Rosh Hashanah Readings
edited by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins, p. 202
[ii]
Thank you to many of our Bolton Street Synagogue founding members as well as
those who joined in recent years for sharing their favorite Bolton Street Synagogue
High Holy Day memories.
[iii] Rabbi
Jonathan Sacks Haggadah, p. 38
[v] This
second section of the Shofar Service, Zichronot, Remembrance, can be
found in Mishkan HaNefesh Rosh Hashanah on pp. 262-269
[vi] “Zakhor”
by Rabbi Ellen Umansky found in Rosh Hashanah Readings edited by Rabbi
Dov Peretz Elkins, p. 198
[vii] Multiple
examples found in the Torah including Exodus 22:20, 23:9, and Leviticus 19:34
[viii]
Thank you to our many long-time members and Social Action Committee members who
shared their memories of the Tikkun Olam work that we’ve accomplished over 40
years.
[ix] Rebecca
Leviss, “Who We Are and Who We Can Become: Jewish Storytelling and Democratic
Imagination,” in Sources: A Journal of Jewish Ideas, Summer 2026, p. 118-120
[x]
Lamentations 5:21
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