It is quite possible that we all are coming to this New Year from two entirely different perspectives. On the one hand, if we but irregularly tune in to any news, we are sorely troubled by what seem to be insurmountable national problems. Our nation is entangled in a war that seems to have no end and no clearly safe and honorable way to that end. We are faced with massive numbers of Americans who cannot afford healthcare for themselves or their children. One child in seven in Colorado, alone…nearly 57,000, appears on the roles of the uninsured. Our schools seem to be in such disarray that our youth, we are being told, are fast losing their ability to compete on a global level. We are facing immense environmental challenges as the quality of our air and water, especially here in Denver, deteriorates. Witness the fact that as early as July, Denver had already broken Federal ozone regulations that apply to an entire year. As a population we are witnessing an epidemic of obesity and its concomitant health issues. Fiscally, we have built a national debt that threatens to drown all of our futures in red ink and turn much of our economy over to foreign investors. Then there is the gridlock and partisanship in Congress whose inability to enact a comprehensive immigration law and some health care solution is something only a bit short of criminal. Given all of this and far, far many more problems, and there is the lurking suspicion that, like Nero, we might all be fiddling; our Rome may soon be burning.

Internationally, we are being told that our efforts to defend ourselves from global terrorism at the hands of radical, fundamentalist Islam have made a clear turn…backwards. We hear and have ourselves sounded the alarm bells over Iran's ability to produce its own weapons- grade nuclear material but are incapable of deterring this ominous, potentially devastating development. Having exhausted our allies' trust because of this administration’s errant warnings over materials of mass destruction in Iraq, we cannot muster their undivided support in our attempts to levy effective sanctions against Iran. This is, of course, not to acknowledge European's own massive self interest in their so very lucrative trade with that rogue nation. We seem equally impotent in curbing the genocide in Darfur and in the lesser known but even more devastating situationin the Congo, and we watch with disgust and revulsion a United Nations which is increasingly anti–American and anti-Israel, an organization which has long since capitulated to a majority of countries whose rhetoric and efforts promote bigotry and blatant one sidedness, and all the enmity that these engender. The mere fact that Muammar Gadafy's Libya recently chaired the UN's new anti–Racism Panel, the follow on to the disastrously noxious Durban Conference, made a mockery of that organization and we Jews anxious over everything that emerged from this event.

Locally, we are facing a devastating housing situation where the rate of foreclosure was already greater in July of this year than it was for all of 2006. People, who should have known better, allowed themselves to be lured into ARMs of 3% without thinking that, if interest rates were to rise, as they surely one day would and actually now have, they would drown in the extra financial burden that they would have to assume. How many of these people have just joined the ranks of the homeless in this city is, as yet, still hard to say.

And last but not least is the melt down of the world's financial markets due to the sub-prime mortgage disaster which allowed banks and mortgage companies to lend money to people who had no business receiving those loans. Our financial watch-dog agencies should have known better as it fashioned this house of cards which threatened the entire global economy.

It is this picture, bleak on so many levels that could cloud our entrance into 5768. It could spoil the quiet enthusiasm and optimism we bring to these Days of Awe, wherein we pray for renewal and a rebirth of hope. Against this troubled picture, I thought to ask you today, how you, yourself, are doing at this very moment? I suspect that if you or someone dear to you is not suffering from some debilitating or threatening disease, you probably would answer that you are doing fine. How many of you would say: ‘Hey, the family is good, the market's coming back up, the job is going well and we’ve been able to get out and enjoy Colorado this summer? We're quietly getting it done and can even say that we're enjoying life.’ If you can say that, it clearly isn't going badly at all and you can enter this new Jewish year, 5768, with joy and a measure of satisfaction with life. After all, one does not need to wear the woes of your locale, the nation or the world at every waking moment.

My years in the military, where I couldn't criticize the government and keep my career, taught me something very important. And here is the crux of the second, opposing perspective which I mentioned at the beginning. Since I couldn't do anything about the malaise and the gridlock that often abounded in Washington, I had to take the attitude of “gam zeh ya'avor”–this, too, shall pass. Now, if you check Tanak or Pirke Avot, you'll not find these words. But they were, then, and are this New Year Day crucial to my mental health, and I would suspect, if you are keeping your head above water, yours, too. ‘This, too shall pass’ enables us to decompress when we come to the end of our day, the end of the week, or the beginning of a Jewish year. ‘This, too, shall pass’ expresses a faith in life and in history that ultimately bigotry, tyranny, dishonesty, demagoguery and all the other nasty, deleterious human behaviors will some day be over turned, and the lights of tolerance, freedom, integrity, and true, self–less leadership will shine through. It is the kind of faith that even in the darkest hours of the Holocaust sustained people like Anne Frank. She tightly embraced the belief that one day, all the horror would come to an end, and a new, saner, more hopeful, more decent world would again emerge.

Gam ze ya'avor isn't in our holy books, but it should be. And yet, in contradistinction to this drive–our–heads–into–the–sand, throw our hands up in frustration stance, Pirke Avot reminds us ‘lo alecha hamlacha ligmor, v'lo ata ben choreen l'hitbatayl mimenah’-- it is not our duty to complete the task, but neither are we free to desist from it. (Avot II: 21) If we are true citizens of this world, or simply this city, and are to be righteous in our own eyes, we need to be involved in finding solutions to a few of the problems we encounter. We cannot do it all. We cannot, for example, cure cancer. But we can surely spend some time, as did five of our Youth Groupers this summer, working with kids who have the disease, or make calls to our representatives, urging them to commit more funds to cancer research. We may not be able to solve the myriad problems of our school systems, but we ought to be intimately involved with the education of our own children because we owe them and our society that effort to see that they receive a decent education.

Even though the problems we are encountering seem insolvable, we cannot and ought not be abstaining and absenting. There are things that we can do, small in our eyes though they might seem compared to the gargantuan, gaping needs. And if enough of us are involved, I believe that we'd all be amazed at what might get done.

Overwhelmed at first blush by the enormity and intractability of the problems and our need to forgive ourselves; blunting our self–doubt and our seeming impotence through a gam ze ya'avor, ‘this too will pass’ attitude, we can and ought to approach the New Year by sizing up our own abilities, interests and propensities, and resolve to involve ourselves where we think we can make the best contribution.

God knows, Congregation B'nai Chaim could use your help. We need your enthusiastic abilities to create fund raising opportunities to offset some of the loss we incurred this past spring when our building got flooded. We need you to volunteer your time and talents to our Religious School in promoting projects to support its fine work. Such ventures don't have to take much time and certainly don't have to be elaborate. And were you each to bring one new Jewish family or friend to B'nai Chaim and introduce them to our congregation, there is no telling the good that you would do both them and us.

I liken what I am explicating here to the example that Abraham set. Even though he was up in years when he received God's call, he nonetheless answered it and threw his lot (pun intended) in with Eyl Shaddai. Knowing that he was getting nowhere in Haran, he pulled up stakes, following the beckoning of this god and, putting his faith in both God and in life, gave his life's energies over to serving the Eternal, and thereby, himself!

Abraham's example of faith––as old, even, as he was, and facing hostile enemies, frequent droughts, and serious domestic discord as he did-- ought to inspire us to be involved in the problems of our own day. It doesn't take long to research and defend a position on, say, affordable housing or a needed school improvement. It takes only a moment to call in your stance to your Senator or Congress–person. We can thank God for many blessings that do exist in our lives as we enter a new annum, and one of them is the fact that we live in a democracy which gives us the ability to participate (or not) freely in our government.

Somewhere between gam zeh yaavor and v'lo atah ben choreen l'hitbatayl mimenah we can find a balanced way to enter this year. We should not come in total denial, a poly–anna–like naiveté that says that all is well in the world, and that this New Year will present no challenges. Neither ought we to allow ourselves to drown in faithless despair. Rather, like Abraham, we need to listen carefully to the voice of God that pervades Torah, and this High Holiday liturgy. Indeed, as we hearken to and are inspired by these holy thoughts and words, we gain renewed strength. We can resolve to handle what life is bringing our way. And together, with God's encouragement and blessing, each of us, shouldering what we can, will find the way to make this New Year a sweet one.