Words From the Heart

Words From the Heart
By Rabbi Hilly Haber

A well-known Hebrew saying teaches us: “Words that come from the heart enter the heart.” I learned the truth of that saying a few months ago, when I visited the women’s jail on Rikers Island. I was with several members of our Central community on one of our monthly visits to our city’s largest jail complex, housing thousands of our fellow New Yorkers. After crossing the long, narrow bridge from Queens to the island, we passed through security and into the classroom. As the women filed in, one of them rushed over to me and introduced herself. Before I could reply, she shared that she was getting out soon, and that she had learned of a wonderful synagogue in the city that supports people who are coming home from jail and prison; she said she couldn’t wait to visit. “It’s called Central Synagogue,” she said. “Have you heard of it?”

Her heartfelt words touched my heart deeply. I share them with you because I know they will touch yours, too, as tonight we recognize and celebrate our Central volunteers. Their commitment to our New York neighbors has sparked new hope in some of the darkest corners of our city.

It is said that the talmudic sage Rav Huna used to open his door and call out, “Whoever is in need, let them come and eat!”¹ Central family, you embody that act of open-hearted generosity. This year, you opened the doors of our building before sunrise. You served more than 70,000 meals, made more than 41,000 sandwiches, and shared hundreds of backpacks, hygiene kits, coats, and other articles of clothing with organizations across the city.

This year, you shaped spaces of welcome and dignity for Jewish, Muslim and Christian families from around the world. You answered the ancient call of our texts: “The gerim who reside with you shall be to you as your citizens; you shall love each one as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”² Jewish tradition teaches that “love” is to be understood here not only as emotion but as action. Central Volunteers, you showed love by accompanying new New Yorkers to job interviews, medical appointments, and school visits. You practiced English with anxious parents and guided young New Yorkers through college applications, art projects, and math problems.

You walked together with New Yorkers who have come home from prison, as they follow the path of Teshuvah, seeking forgiveness and return. You climbed to the highest rung of Maimonides’ Ladder of Tzedakah by building pathways to employment, housing, and healing. Together, we created a groundbreaking pilot partnership with Northwell Health, the Center for Employment Opportunity, and Kingsborough Community College. Through that program, we have made real the vision of the prophet Jeremiah, who speaks of the restoration of a ruined city: “God says….I will bring relief…I will heal [this people] and show them a wealth of true peace.”³

This week we read Parshat Naso. The portion contains Birkat Kohanim, the priestly benediction, the oldest prayer in the Bible. For more than 2500 years we have carried these ancient words of blessing on our journeys through life:

May Adonai bless you and watch over you.

May Adonai’s light shine on you and be gracious to you.

May Adonai lift up the Face of divinity to you and grant you peace.

In a powerful midrash, our sages imagine the Israelites hearing these words and admonishing God, “Master of the world, You tell the priests to bless us. We only need You to bless us.” God reassures the Israelites that the priests are conduits of divine blessing, saying, “Although I have told the priests to bless you, I am standing with them and blessing you. And it is for this reason that the priests spread their hands [when they recite the blessing], as if to signal that I am right behind them, [looking out lovingly through the spaces between their outstretched fingers]”

When we extend our hands to one another in blessing, we invite God’s loving presence into a world that is increasingly inhumane. As we bless one another with acts of kindness and justice, hierarchies slip away; as we give and receive, we are transformed. We are reminded that we are human beings in need of one another.

In August of 1963, Rabbi Joachim Prinz, a refugee from Nazi Germany, stood with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington and shared a Jewish ethic of solidarity and freedom born of our people’s history of exile and persecution. He said, “Neighbor is not a geographic term. It is a moral concept. It means our collective responsibility for the preservation of [human] dignity and integrity.”⁴

63 years later, Rabbi Prinz’s words are more relevant than ever—and our community has risen to the challenge that confronts us. In the face of virulent antisemitism and Islamophobia, hostile division within our country, and an onslaught of federal policies and cutbacks that demean and degrade human life, we opened our doors and built bridges across New York communities. We chose solidarity over silence, dignity over division, and connection over cruelty. We extended our hands and embraced the simple truth that we belong to one another.

Last summer, we celebrated the publication of The Very Narrow Bridge: A Rikers Island Siddur, a joint project of several organizations, including JCRC New York, the New York Jewish Coalition for Criminal Justice Reform, and Central.

My favorite reading in that siddur is by Miguel, who found Judaism while he was incarcerated. Having met many of our volunteers over the course of a year, he came to Central immediately following his release.

Miguel writes:

I was wrong when I said that I am alone.

I now know that I am on that ark with Noah when he released the dove. I am in the wilderness with our People when Moses returned with the law. I am with Naomi when she returns to Israel with Ruth. My journey was never alone. I have David, Saul, Abraham, and the All-Mighty with me every step of the way.

I once saw myself as nothing going nowhere, now I am the Image of G-d and I have all the power and abilities I was meant to have... I was once ashamed of who I was, now I am looking forward to who I will become.⁵

Words that come from the heart enter the heart. Miguel’s words — addressed to all of us from the heart of our neighbor — speak to us of partnership and solidarity, of the birth of new possibilities, of healing and hope. We know, as Miguel knows, that we are not alone in this world. On this Shabbat of Parshat Naso, let us lift up and celebrate the beautiful, loving spirit of our volunteers as we carry on this vital work and walk the very narrow bridge that leads to connection and community.

¹Ta’anit 20b
²Leviticus 19:34
³Jeremiah 33:6
⁴https://www.americanjewisharch...
⁵“Excerpts From a Letter,” Miguel Martinez, The Very Narrow Bridge; A Rikers Island Siddur