Yom Kippur 5772 Remarks at Northwestern

Hello—my name is Michael Simon, and I’m the Executive Director of Fiedler Hillel at Northwestern University. It is an honor and a pleasure to welcome you to our Yom Kippur services.

Northwestern Hillel is the center of Jewish life at this great university, and it’s the catalyst for Jewish expression of all kinds. Our mission at Hillel is to inspire every Jewish student at Northwestern to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life, and we work to create meaningful experiences that enable our students to explore their Jewish identity within the context of what it means to be human.

During the High Holidays, and at other points during the year, we are also privileged to serve the Jewish community of Evanston and greater Chicago. It’s a pleasure to welcome all of you – students, parents, alumni, faculty, staff, and community members – to our High Holiday services. Your presence here– and your support of Northwestern Hillel throughout the year – enable us to do our important work. For that I thank all of you who have contributed to Hillel in the past. And I ask you to help us grow ~ please make an extra effort in the coming year to partner with us as we engage more students than ever before and as we continue to enrich Jewish life at Northwestern and beyond.

The High Holidays at Northwestern are our largest events of the year, and it takes a lot of great effort, much of it behind the scenes, to make these services a success. I want to again thank our Hillel staff members, student staff and volunteers, ushers, security personnel, and community volunteers who make these High Holidays possible. A special thank-you to Rabbi Jordi Schuster Battis and Rabbi Josh Feigelson for their leadership, and an extra special thank you to Rachael Swetin, our Operations Manager at Hillel, for her incredible work. And a thank-you to Mickey Cartagena, our custodian, for all of his great help in making these services a success.

* * * * * * * * * *

At Rosh Hashanah, I spoke about Hillel’s accomplishments last year and our plans for the coming year – if you’re interested in learning more, I invite you to read the “Return Again” brochures that are floating around, and to check out nuhillel.org for up-to-date information about our events, activities, blog postings, etc. Today, I want to talk for a moment about Jewish values on campus.

* * * * * * * * * *

So, here we are. Today is the big day – one of the biggest days of the year in the Jewish calendar.

And, here in Evanston, this is a huge day.

Hundreds, even thousands of people are gathered on campus for a communal experience. It is a day they have approached with excited anticipation, and perhaps a bit of trepidation. Will we succeed, or fail?

It’s a day when voices join together in song, in a call and response form.

It is a day when there are horns blasting, people beating their chests, and everyone is dressed in special garb.

Today is the big day here on campus. Today is, of course…

The Northwestern-Michigan football game.

This is the first major home football game of the year, against a nationally-ranked powerhouse team, starting an hour before neilah, the closing service of the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. The tailgate parties will start – well, by now the tailgates have already started.

At Hillel’s Freshman Fest last month, our fantastic university President Morty Schapiro told us about his efforts to move the starting time of today’s game from noon to the evening – we applaud his work, though he couldn’t quite get the starting time moved to after the official end of Yom Kippur. In recent days, numerous students have mentioned to me the dilemma they are experiencing because Yom Kippur coincides with this big home game. A student reporter even interviewed me for an article about it in North by Northwestern. For our students, this glitch in the calendar places in stark relief a tension between one’s identity as a Jew and one’s more general, universal identity as a college student.

I have been fascinated and, in some ways, inspired by the range of responses I’ve heard from our students. On both ends of the spectrum, there are students for whom there really is no conflict. On one end, there are those for whom Yom Kippur is a solemn day with a particular time for its observance. Those students will not be paying attention to the game until after Yom Kippur ends, if at all. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those for whom the timing of the game is not a problem. They might have attended Kol Nidre, fasted for part of the day, but this is a home football game, with lots of tailgating…it’s a party atmosphere that occurs only a handful of times a year, and they’re not going to miss it. In between, there are students who are planning to break their fast at the stadium and catch as much of the game as possible. And there is even a creative, decidedly unorthodox idea that has taken shape among some students – they’re having an alternative fast, which started early yesterday afternoon and will end around 2 pm, and then they’re going to have the first annual Break-the-Fast Tailgate party this afternoon.

My take on this spectrum of responses is twofold. First: WOW. This is our Hillel’s mission in action, students grappling with a values conflict and engaging with it meaningfully through their actions. Students expressing their Jewish identity in a variety of ways that are in conversation with Jewish tradition but that respond to life in the here and now. And that makes me feel great – even inspired.

But this conflict – Yom Kippur vs. a Football game, the Fast vs. the Tailgate – raises broader questions. God’s message in the haftarah we read today from the Book of Isaiah seems almost directly addressed to us: Is this the fast I desire, a day for men to starve their bodies?...No, this is the fast I desire: To unlock fetters of wickedness, to let the oppressed go free, to share your bread with the hungry, to take the wretched poor into your home, to clothe the naked. With these rousing words, Isaiah refocuses his audience away from the ritual of the fast to the meaning behind it – we fast not as an empty demonstration of our piousness but to re-connect us to those in need, to re-commit ourselves to repairing the world.

I am thrilled that our students are grappling with the question of how to balance Yom Kippur vs. Football (and Tailgates), but what happens the other days of the year, when there is no big game and no special holiday?

Do we grapple with our Jewish values in considering the food we eat (and buy and prepare)? Not just whether or not we follow kashrut according to Jewish law, but whether we consider ethical issues regarding the processes that bring our food from its production to our table.

Do we struggle with our Jewish values in considering how we spend money? Are we making a meaningful consideration of tzedakah/charitable giving with the same care and intensity that we explore the choice of a new smartphone or laptop?

And here, on Yom Kippur, we might be wrestling with whether to fast, when to end the fast, whether to enjoy a football game on this Day of Atonement – but have we wrestled with how we’ve treated our friends, roommates, boyfriends and girlfriends, ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends? Our siblings? Our parents? Have we taken steps to do teshuvah in our personal relations, to repair fractured connections?

And what about the other 364 days of the year – do we take seriously the “entire Torah” that the sage Hillel recited on one foot: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor”? The rest, Hillel said, is commentary, go and learn it. Are we learning it?

In short, I am asking myself, our students, and everyone here today: How are our Jewish values informing our struggles with everyday situations and with larger life questions? And how informed are we about these Jewish values?

Hillel – not the 1^st century sage, but our Hillel at Northwestern– offers opportunities for Jewish expression in meaningful ways. The meaning comes from wrestling with Isaiah’s questions so that they become our own.

As we fast today, let’s dedicate ourselves to engaging with these questions and with each other.

If you’re a student, a faculty member, a community member – make your voice heard in grappling with these questions. The first big home game may come only once a year, Yom Kippur may come only once a year, but you can join us every day as we work to enrich Jewish life in meaningful ways.

I want to again thank our Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Chicago, and all of the generous donors, parents, and alumni who sustain us and enable us to do this important work. We couldn’t do it without you.

On behalf of my wife Claire and our son Jacob, and on behalf of Northwestern Hillel, I wish each and every one of you a Shana Tova and g’mar chatima tova ~ may you be sealed in the Book of Life.

And – at the risk of offending any Michigan alumni who might be sitting out there (with your blue- and maize-colored football jerseys hidden beneath your nice suits and dresses).

GO ‘CATS!

Shana tova!