The World is Waiting for You

by Rabbi Bridget Wynne

Erev Rosh Hashanah 2025 • 5786

September 22, 2025 • 1 Tishrei 5786

These are terrifying times. There is so much hatred, violence, pain, and demonization of “the other.” I hear from many of you how overwhelmed you are by the daily news, how easy it is to slip into despair, or simply go numb.

For anyone trying to stand up for justice, or just figure out how, it’s easy to wonder: Can I do the right thing? Will it be enough? It’s especially hard when we compare ourselves to others, people we admire, taking bold actions we feel we could never match. It’s easy to question whether our efforts could even matter.

To explore that question, let’s go back to our spiritual ancestors. They had fled slavery in Egypt and were wandering in the desert. They were free, but also afraid, unsure what to do. Moses spoke to them, and in his words, we can find guidance for how we might move forward in this time of fear and confusion.

Our ancestors’ task was different from ours. We face the urgent need to work against rising authoritarianism and the dehumanization of the vulnerable. They were charged with creating something new: a portable gathering place to serve as the heart of their community throughout their desert wanderings.

Yet their response was probably like many of ours. A large number of them surely felt overwhelmed, uncertain, inadequate to the challenge.

So what did Moses do? 

He told the people all that was needed to build their portable tent: coverings, curtains, poles, clasps, the ark, the menorah, a table, special clothing for the priests, and much more. It was an enormous project.

Then came the invitation. Moses didn’t issue orders or assign tasks. He asked the people to give from the heart, to offer what they could, each according to their own gifts and skills.

With his words, Moses offers us a way to find direction, purpose, and the courage to do what we can, even when we are afraid and unsure.

When we hear the long list of what was needed for the portable tent, it is clear: No single person could have done it all. Not even a group of the most skilled among them would have been enough. There was simply too much. The tent, called the Mishkan, required many kinds of contributions from everyone whose heart moved them.

And the list didn’t even include the essential daily tasks: organizing work, drawing water, gathering food, caring for children, and everything else needed to keep them functioning in the desert. 

The story of building the Mishkan teaches a core Jewish value that speaks directly to our moment.

Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, a 20th-century teacher of Jewish ethics, put it this way:

Every person needs to know that they have great value. Not an imagined value, in that you “consider yourself special”… but a deeply profound, even astonishing, importance. Our tradition teaches, “Each and every person must declare, ‘The world was created for me.’” (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, page 37a)

… [T]here has never been anyone exactly like you, and there never will be again. I – with my specific strengths, my particular parents, born in a certain time and place … there is a unique challenge placed upon me… [T]he world is waiting for me to fulfill what only I can do. My role cannot be exchanged with anyone else! (Alei Shur, Volume I)

Each of us carries a piece of the puzzle that is needed to repair the world. Now is the time to bring that piece forward.

Maybe you find protests overwhelming. Perhaps public speaking leaves you tongue-tied. These may be the most visible ways to fight injustice, but where would a movement be without those who can keep track of deadlines or make sure every person feels included and valued? Those who are good at these tasks may not be the people who always show up for demonstrations or give inspiring speeches.

Maybe you’re busy caring for children. Perhaps they can take part, too. Could they make cards for people who are being marginalized? Hand out water and snacks to those marching against repression?

At this moment, when so much is on the line, what matters most is that you act — from your heart, in ways that reflect your strengths. Let others do what moves them. 

Still, how do we know if we are doing enough? 

The truth is, we can’t. We may never know the full impact of our actions. But we do know this: no matter how bad things look, the future is not fixed. It will be shaped in unpredictable ways, by many actions, many choices. And each of us faces a choice: in this moment of crisis, in our country and elsewhere, will we have the courage to live up to the potential that is ours alone? This is what our tradition asks of us. 

This is not easy. In a Peanuts cartoon, one of the characters sighs and complains, “There is no heavier burden than great potential.”

It’s funny, but also true. There is wisdom in the discomfort. It does take courage to step into the unknown and offer what is uniquely ours.

Courage does not mean we are unafraid. Fear is part of being human, necessary for our survival. Courage means facing the fear and finding ways to act anyway. Rabbi Shai Held puts it this way:

Overwhelmed by fear, we are tempted to run away. Judaism comes along and says ... learn to run towards the very places that you are tempted to run away from... Fear is very hard; we have to push ourselves and be kind to ourselves at the very same time.” (“Compassion and the Heart of Jewish Spirituality,” YouTube, March 3, 2015, https://bit.ly/ShaiHeld)

This is a delicate balance, one Moses tried to embody. He began by gathering the people together, enabling them to literally see that they were part of something larger. No longer a collection of individuals who had escaped slavery, they were becoming a community, interdependent, bound by the shared need to build their future together. 

This may not sound like pushing, but experiencing our responsibility to one another, and to what comes next, can help propel us forward. It is far easier to run towards the places we are tempted to run from when we know we are not doing it alone. When we feel rooted in a community with others who are trying to do the same, something shifts. 

In a culture that prizes individualism, that sense of shared purpose often doesn’t come easily. It takes intention and practice. But it is possible.

My charge to you this evening is this.

Know that your unique gifts matter, that they—and you—are needed. 

Be kind to yourself, as Rabbi Held reminds us, by accepting your fear, seeing that it is natural and necessary. 

Find ways to join with others, so we can be propelled forward by experiencing the connection to something far greater than ourselves — to one another, to our spiritual ancestors there in the desert, each contributing what was theirs alone to give, to those who will come after us, to the world we are called to help shape.

Our version of the Mishkan is not a structure — it is the future we must build together.

May each of us be blessed to face our fears, to bring the gifts of our hearts, to offer what is uniquely ours, and to share our courage generously with one another.