2026 Yom Kippur Morning: Survival Is Not Enough

I want to revisit a reading from Rosh Hashanah:

these Romans,
all the legions of the East
from Egypt and Syria,
the islands of the sea and the rivers of Parthia,
gathered here
to trample down Jerusalem,
when they have become a legend
and Rome a fable,
that old men will tell of in the city’s gate,
the tellers will be Jews and their speech Hebrew.

This poem is a much fancier version of our oft-quoted quip: They tried to kill us, they failed, let’s eat. Well, on any other day but today, let’s eat.

Perhaps even more impactful is the three-word statement that is a hope, a promise, and a prayer: Am Yisrael Chai, the people of Israel shall live.

We are the wandering people, but we are also a people that has survived. Sometimes, our survival has been in the face of the most terrible of circumstances, and yet, in each generation, we are here. In 1948, the Jewish philosopher Simon Rawidowicz called us the ever-dying people. Every generation, he said, believed it might be the last. And every generation was wrong. We are also the ever-surviving people.

In 1967, Anthony Hecht wrote a poem called Words for the Day of Atonement. He was a soldier at the liberation of Flossenbürg. He interviewed many survivors to gather evidence for war-crime trials.

This is the first part of his poem:

Merely to have survived is not an index of excellence,
Nor, given the way things go,
Even of low cunning.
Yet I have seen the wicked in great power,
And spreading himself like a green bay tree.
And the good as if they had never been;
Their voices are blown away on the winter wind.

A man who walked into a liberated camp, and then sat with the people who walked out of it, tells us that surviving does not make anyone good.

Survival is not enough.

Nine days ago at Rosh Hashanah, we said hayom harat olam, today the world is born. These Days of Awe begin a new year for us, and we pray fervently to be inscribed in the book of life, that we might live for another year. That we might continue to survive.

But harat does not mean born. It means pregnant. Today, the world is pregnant. We might interpret this to mean that today is full of possibility, potential and change.

For the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and the end of Yom Kippur, we are in a liminal space. We pray to God: Zochreinu l’chayim, remember us for life, l’ma’ancha Elohim chayim, for Your sake, God of life. We do not only ask to live another year. We ask for a life that is for something.

The Amidah is the liturgical parallel for survival is not enough.

It starts with memory. Praised are You, Adonai, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, God of Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel. This first section of the prayer, the Avot, does two things. It reminds us that we are descended from Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah and Rachel. We have what is known as z’chut avot, the merit of our ancestors. And that leads to the second task of the Avot. It reminds GOD that we are descended from Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and so on. One might say that the merit of our ancestors gives us a bit of an in with God.

The Avot is about survival. We come from Abraham and Sarah, and we are still here. During these ten days, it is exactly in that blessing that we add zochreinu l’chayim, remember us for life. On this Yom Kippur morning, all of our ancestors stand with us, and their memory is both a blessing and a responsibility.

But that is only the beginning of the Amidah.

On an ordinary weekday, the Amidah continues with 13 blessings, and they read like a list of what makes for a Jewish life. We ask for wisdom and understanding. We ask for the ability to return, and for forgiveness when we fall short. We ask for healing for the sick, for a good year and enough to eat, for our scattered people to be gathered in. We ask for justice, for an end to cruelty and arrogance, for the righteous to be supported. We ask for Jerusalem to be rebuilt, for redemption to flourish, and finally, that our prayers be heard.

None of that is about merely staying alive. It is about how to live.

God says in this morning’s Torah portion, I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse, choose life, that you may live. And just a few verses earlier, God assures us that this is not an impossible task: It is in your mouth and your heart to do it.

Choosing life is not about living one more year of life. It is not about mere survival. It is about living as if every action we take can tip the scales from wickedness to righteousness, from profane to sacred, from hate to understanding and compassion.

Deborah Lipstadt taught Holocaust history for many years at Emory and later served as the U.S. envoy on antisemitism. She spoke in 2019 at the URJ Biennial.

She spoke about a student she had taught for 4 years who was now a senior. She noticed that he wore a kippah, which he had never done before. They talked about his paper and his plans after graduation. Then, as he stood to leave, he turned around and asked, “You notice?”

She asked him about it, and he said, “There have been so many attacks on Jews recently. Every time there is an antisemitic act, I am going to wear my kippah to show the antisemites they can’t frighten me.”

She admired his chutzpah. And at the same time, she said that her heart was breaking, because he had given the antisemites the power to decide when he would feel Jewish.

That is survival Judaism. It is real, and after these last few years, it is understandable. But it is not enough.

Lipstadt said that as the student walked out the door, she prayed that someday he would build his Jewish life on what Jews do, and not on what is done to them.

So what do Jews do? This morning’s Torah reading comes from Deuteronomy, a book that is about much more than mere survival. It has general commandments like honor your mother and father, co-mingled with the very specific, like this one: If you come upon a bird’s nest, send the mother bird away before you take the eggs.

The Torah attaches one reward to both: long life, the very thing promised when we choose life. Our rabbis noticed that of all the commandments, God revealed the reward for only these two. Honoring our parents, over a lifetime, is one of the hardest things the Torah asks of us. Sending away a mother bird takes a few seconds. So why the same reward? It is because there is no small mitzvah.

And justice matters so much that the Torah doesn’t say find it, or observe it. It says pursue it, and it says it twice: tzedek, tzedek tirdof.

This is what Jews do. We shouldn’t live Jewish lives just to prove that Hitler lost, or to show the antisemites that they can’t frighten us. Of course we remember, and of course we stand up. We absolutely should continue doing both. But we can’t ONLY do them.

Some of you know that in 1998, I lived here in Athens and worked as the Director of Programming for Hillel. In November, we commemorated Kristallnacht, and it was the largest event we had that year. I remember looking out at everyone and thinking, I also wish all of these kids would come for Purim, or Shabbat.

We often fill up more rooms talking about what has been done to Jews than with what Jews do.

I want to go back to the Hecht poem: I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. This line from the poem comes from Psalm 37. A little further on in that Psalm: Watch the whole-hearted, look to the upright, for there is a future for the person of peace.

The psalm does not promise that the good will be rewarded. It does not say we get rich, or safe, or even remembered. It doesn’t even promise mere survival.

But it does tell us where to look: watch the whole-hearted, look to the upright. The psalm doesn’t tell us who will survive. It tells us who to become.

We have always been very good at surviving. The question this morning is whether we will be as good at the rest of it: the Shabbat and the Purim, the mother bird and the pursuit of justice … the living and complex tapestry of Jewish life. That is where the future is.

Am Yisrael Chai. We will survive; we always have. This Yom Kippur, let’s not settle for survival. Let’s choose life.