Rosh Hashana Sermons 5787
Rabbi Miriam's Rosh Hashana sermon - delivered Shabbat 12th September 2026
Giving good tochecha
Rosh hashana 5787. Shana tova, a very good year, b’Ezrat Hashem, with God’s help, for us all.
I need to preface this sermon by saying that some of my best friends are dog owners. And genuinely, I like dogs. In fact my appreciation of them has grown over time.
But I’m also an occasional, fairweather jogger, and this means that Red Road park is a negotiated shared space with dog owners. And mostly we bumble along just fine. I like seeing the park filled with people out in the fresh air with their trusty hounds. I don’t even mind if a dog shows enthusiastic interest in coming on a jog with me. And dogs are warmly welcomed at our mindful tashlich woodland walk tomorrow.
But I want to share about two incidents that were really difficult when they happened, and got me thinking after. Both involved a dog owner not noticing that their dog had made a mess - innocent enough. Now there are many things in life where I think “live and let live” or “I’m not going to get involved in someone else’s life right now. I’m going to mind my own business”. But when it involves dog business (quite literally) in the park, I refuse to walk on by.
So incident number 1 - back in March. On the railway bridge. I’m level with the dog and the owner is a good 20 meters ahead. “Excuse me”, I shout, I think you might not have noticed your dog has gone to the toilet. “What, my dog?” she yells back “I always clean up my dog’s mess”. “I think you’ve missed this one. Just back there by the bush”. She stands there, mouth open, looking affronted. I do a thumbs up, point at the offending area again and jog off. I glance back and she’s having a half hearted look, but something about her body language tells me she’s tense and resentful and probably won’t look too hard.
Incident number 2 - a few weeks later. This time the other side of the park. Near the Barham Avenue spinney. A dog finds a lovely area in the middle of the mown grass path, with its owners oblivious ahead. Particularly smelly. This time, I think, I won’t yell from a distance. I’ll go up and gently inform them. Which I do. But again, the shock and denial in the response takes me aback. “Our dog? Where? We don’t see anything on the path. Oh the grass? So not the path.” And the displeasure, even disdain on their faces is evident. I thank them and run off but can’t resist a glance back. They have actually walked away from the area and not even bothered to look for the mess. I’m incredulous. My blood starting to boil, I turn back and approach them. “I can show you where it is if you like”. “No thank you. In fact, we don’t have time for people like you today. Jog on!” “But, but, this is a public park. It’s really smelly”. “Do you have a dog? No, I didn’t think so. Go on, jog on”. So I did.
It was pretty upsetting. I don’t like confrontation. So thank you for being my therapists here today. It’s cathartic to share. And It’s important to say that the vast majority of dog owners are responsible, tidy, delightful people. So I’m sharing this today not because of dogs or owners, but because conflicting interests are part of the world.
A wise teacher told me that the truly grown up thing to do in most situations of conflict is to take responsibility for our part in what has happened. Which doesn’t need to mean responsibility for the whole, but to see where we might be part of things going wrong. And clearly there is responsibility on the part of the dog owners. But what about my own responsibility? I now acknowledge that confronting someone, certainly shouting at them from a distance, is not the way to get change to happen. Or to phrase it from their perspective, feeling guilt and defensiveness is not going to get someone to change.
Today is Rosh Hashana, the day where we look at our deeds from the past year, perhaps longer, and try to change for the better. And these two stories, let's call them dog-mess-gate, pose two big questions for this time of year.
First, how can we do tochecha - the Hebrew word for rebuke - well? How do we let someone know that their metaphorical dog has made a mess, kindly, without humiliating them, without our blood boiling, and without the embarrassingly poor results that my own tochecha had?
And second, from the perspective of the person who realises or is told that they’ve done something wrong, how do we respond without deflecting or minimising or being defensive? How do we own our actions and repair them? If I put myself in the position of the dog owner, how could I have swallowed any defensiveness and just cleaned up the mess?
And because I handily have two days of Rosh Hashana, we’ll deal with one each day. Therefore if you’re looking to learn how to face up to something you’ve done wrong and start the work of repair, please come back tomorrow! Today we’re dealing with Tochecha. Rebuke. Good rebuke. Feedback. Pulling someone up.
לֹא־תִשְׂנָא אֶת־אָחִיךָ בִּלְבָבֶךָ; הוֹכֵחַ תּוֹכִיחַ אֶת־עֲמִיתֶךָ, וְלֹא־תִשָּׂא עָלָיו חֵטְא.
"You shall not hate your fellow in your heart. You shall surely rebuke them, and you shall not bear sin because of them."Leviticus 19:17
This incredible verse from Vayikra has three parts. The instruction to rebuke is the middle part. The first part is not to hate the other person in your heart. So rebuke is somehow the antithesis of hate, and definitely not a hateful thing. I read it as saying, when someone has done wrong, don’t stew, letting the problem get bigger and bigger, putting all your feelings on that person. Don’t let someone else’s misdeed turn into your hate. And then the curious part three of the verse is:
“you shall not bear sin because of them."
How would rebuking someone help us not bear sin?
The Ramban, our great 13th Century Spanish sage, says that if you are in a position to correct someone's inappropriate behaviour and you don't, you actually bear responsibility for their later wrongdoing. Because we’re optimistic about people’s ability to change and improve. People can get better when given feedback! So give the feedback.
The Rashbam (who lived about 100 years earlier, in Spain) has a different perspective. He thinks that the problem is when we pretend to love someone when we actually feel hurt by or angry about their actions. The bitterness or grudge grown in your heart is the source of the sin.
So tochecha either means you can stop someone going wrong, and stop more sin from happening in that way. Or rebuke stops us from sinning through the bitter feelings of the heart.
Or maybe both. Either way, rebuke can be, for Judaism, a really good thing. A mitzvah even! Rabbi Yosi bar Chanina in Midrash Rabbah says:
“A love without rebuke is no love. And Reish Lakish said: Rebuke leads to peace. A peace where there has been no rebuke is no peace.”
The book of Mishlei, Proverbs, says:
“It will go well for those who rebuke; Blessings of good things will come to them”.
And R. Hanina in the Talmud (in Shabbat) says Jerusalem was destroyed only because the people did not rebuke one another.
So we know that tochecha is a good thing. But how and when do we do it? Are there limits to when we can give tochecha? Was I right to go up to the dog walkers at all? And could I have said my piece better?
Judaism, of course, has advice, laws even, for all this.
First, make sure you understand the situation. Has someone definitely done wrong? In my case, I saw the dogs do their business, yes. But I wasn’t totally clear on if the owners ignored it intentionally or accidentally.
Second, tochecha should first be given in private. Calling across a park - not so good. Subtle word - better. The contemporary Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg calls this “calling in” rather than “calling out”. Particularly in our age of social media and cancel culture, there is a gentler mode - picking up the phone or meeting for an honest conversation.
If the message doesn’t get through, Arakhin 16b suggests we persist a second or third time. The doubling of the verb “hochiach tochiach” is their proof text for this. So my turning back in the park was maybe justified. To what extent do we persist? Until the person strikes, curses or rebukes the one giving the tochecha. I definitely got rebuked back. Thankfully not cursed or hit.
But crucially, we must take care that the rebuke doesn’t shame or humiliate. We actually learn from this section in the Talmud the prohibition to embarrass another. The tochecha should not lead their face to whiten.
So how do you do it? In the beautiful words of the Rambam,
“וִידַבֵּר לוֹ בְּנַחַת וּבְלָשׁוֹן רַכָּה”
One should speak to the other calmly and with gentle language.
The Mussar book Orchot tzaddikim writes:
“If you rebuke your companion right at the beginning with an angry voice and with wrath, and you shame them, then you are sinning, for your companion will not receive correction from you. For this is human nature: if a person comes to his companion with force, then his companion will be stubborn and unyielding to him, and will not listen to him.”
Fire breeds fire. And softness engenders softness.
Rambam adds that one should explain that the purpose of the rebuke is
“for their benefit, to bring them to reward in the World to Come.”
I admire this as a motivation and I’m not sure how this would have gone down in Red Road Park. There are times though, when our texts discourage tochecha, and this is maybe where it gets trickier to call. Yevamot states that:
“Just as it is a mitzvah to say something that will be heard, so it is a mitzvah not to say something that will not be heard.”
And the Kli Yakar points out that the word אָחִיךָ “your fellow” excludes three categories - wicked people, mockers and those unable to change.
It’s not always easy to know if there’s a realistic possibility that the conversation will achieve something. A week or so ago, in a nearby hotel, I watched as a group speaking Hebrew loudly snuck a whole box of supermarket beer into the hotel bar and drunk them while eating garanim, also snuck in. One of them had barefeet on the bar table. I did not attempt tochecha, whether from my own cowardice, or from a sense that it just wouldn’t go down well. I think the most powerful lesson I came across while researching though, is the motivation of tochecha. Is it l’Shem Shamayim, for the sake of heaven? Is it for the sake of leading the other to a better path? And crucially, does it come from a place of love?
Because the extension of that first part of the verse:
“don’t hate your fellow in your heart” is… “love your fellow in your heart”!
So tochecha must come from a place of love - really loving our fellow and wanting the best for them. And amazingly, the very next verse is…
וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵעֲךָ֖ כָּמ֑וֹךָ
Love your fellow as yourself.
How many of us are able to give rebuke in a loving way, in exactly the way that we would want to hear it? It’s possible, but very difficult. Even at the time of our great sages, Rabbi Akiva said:
“I doubt if there is anyone in this generation who is capable of giving rebuke.”
This is our quandary. Giving tochecha well is so difficult. And yet it is an obligation. The Talmud in Shabbat says:
“Anyone who has the capability to effectively protest the sinful conduct of the members of their household and does not protest, is held liable for the sins of the members of their household.”
It goes on to say the same of people of one’s town, and the same even for the conduct of the whole world. If we are in a position to protest and do not, we bear some responsibility. That’s pretty heavy.
I was not planning to speak about Israel today. I hoped that this drasha on tochecha could focus on a theme which is at the same time as intimate as the inter-personal hurts that we all carry, or as broad as the mistakes the entire world makes.
But on Tuesday with Ed Milliband’s announcement of sanctions, it got that little bit more complicated to be a British Jew, and I want to acknowledge this. The pain and difficulty of this moment is very real, even if it lands differently for different people here. Some people here will have despaired at the government’s announcement. Others will have sympathised with it. That’s OK. We can stay one community with different views. But I imagine that for everyone, there’s discomfort there. Discomfort with Jews and Israel being front page news once again. Discomfort with the increasingly demonised view of Israel in British public discourse. There is a lot of Jewish pain at the moment, and this needs naming.
How does this fit in with the idea of tochecha? There is undoubtedly so much bad behaviour out there that needs strong rebuke. It goes without saying that anything anti-semitic demands tochecha. That any Palestinian action which harms the lives of Israeli civilians, demands tochecha. And what about our own house? It pains me deeply that we live in an age where there are actual Jewish terrorists. Extremist settlers in the West Bank. I know people - fellow Jews (as well of course as Palestinians) - who have been physically harmed by them. The damage they have inflicted daily on property, land and bodies, the lives they have taken - all this is well documented. And the current Israeli government protects them. How do we rebuke in this situation? How do fellow Israelis rebuke? How can the Jewish diaspora rebuke? And even how can Israel’s allies, including the UK government, rebuke?
These are huge questions. And let’s remember that ideal tochecha comes from a place of love. Love and in the language of the Rambam, that it’s for their benefit and “to bring them to reward in the world to come.” I love my fellow Jews and I really want the best for them. The best outcomes and the highest standard of conduct. I wish the subject of tochecha could be limited to the level of dog mess in a park, but it cannot.
Nevertheless my experience in Red Road Park is our model for tochecha today, so let’s end with how I might have done it better.
I’m taking all the advice from our Rabbis in this re-write, and I’m also using a Clear Communication template created by the coach Kim Weinberg. I’ve printed out some copies of her template at the back and invite you to take one at the end, and take forward good tocecha - the very best kind in your own lives.
How might my interactions have gone if I started with recognition of my own emotional reaction. Maybe I would have taken a beat and steadied my feelings as I investigated what this situation looks like from the dog walker’s perspective. They’re deep in conversation or thought and simply didn’t notice their dog doing its business. Then I check into my love for them as fellow human beings, wanting the best for them as well as for me.
I might have gone up to them as I would with a friend, looked them in the eye, smiled, and said: “hi there, I hope you’re having a good morning.” I might have asked permission to engage with them: “I know you don’t know me. Is it ok if I mention something I just noticed?”
I might check my own body language and eye contact, and check that my tone is a gentle as the Rambam would want, and doesn’t contain snark or self righteousness and say “I don’t know if you noticed that your dog went to the toilet just over there. I wanted to point it out so we can keep the park clean. I say this from a place of love and without judgement - I’m sure it wasn’t intentional”.
I don’t know for sure. But I suspect it would have gone a bit better.
As Jews we are obligated to improve the world around us, and that includes pulling up the people around us. Pulling someone up on something can actually be pulling them up. And for this, Judaism gives us the beautiful idea of tochecha, good rebuke, which emanates from love. When it succeeds, it increases love.
I’m wishing everyone a gmar v’chatima tova. May we all be written and sealed for a good year, a year of peace, of health and of fulfilment.
Rabbi Miriam's Rosh Hashana sermon - delivered Shabbat 12th September 2026
Receiving tochecha
Shana tova to all.
We are poised now at a beautiful point in our service, about to hear the Shofar for the first time on Rosh Hashana, then heading into mussaf filled with more shofar. And the sound of the Shofar is so associated with teshuva, with repentance, this big theme of this time of year.
The Rambam, Maimonides, makes it most explicit when he says:
“It is as if [the shofar's call] is saying: Wake up you sleepy ones from your sleep and you who slumber, arise. Inspect your deeds, repent, remember your Creator.”
Today is about teshuva, repentance.
Yesterday I spoke about two incidents where I attempted - I think pretty poorly - to give tochecha: loving, corrective rebuke, to two people in Red Road park who hadn’t noticed their dog make a mess.
We talked about how to do tochecha really well. Something that is incredibly difficult. But which nevertheless is an actual mitzvah.
Today, we’re on the other side of things. Somebody tells us something that we could have done better. How do we react? Are we able to open up enough of our armour to hear difficult tochecha? Because sometimes we know we’ve done something wrong. Other times we don’t. And in those times, hearing difficult tochecha and owning what we’ve done wrong - this is the first step of teshuva.
My guide for this sermon is Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s “On Repentance and Repair - making amends in an unapologetic world”, published in 2022. And her guide is the great Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon / Maimonides / the Rambam, whose Hilchot Teshuva, laws of repentance, provides our great Jewish path to healing and repair after wrongdoing.
And what we’re talking about in the next few minutes is in fact just part of the first step of a five step process of teshuva, according to the Rambam. The five steps are the following:
Naming and owning harm. Acknowledging out loud what has been done. Being specific. Today we’re just talking about owning. That’s it. But it’s a crucial stage.
Starting to change. In the words of Rabbi Alan Lew, “if you don’t do the work, you’re going to end up back in that same place”. This step is about doing the work of transformation.
Restitution and accepting consequences. For the Rambam, teshuva - repentance - and forgiveness are totally separate processes. But taking care of the victim is still part of the work of teshuva. This could be financial or practical. It is victim-centered.
Apology. An apology, for the Rambam, needs to satisfy the victim. So not “I’m sorry you feel that way”. It needs to be an apology that comes as a result of soul searching and ownership.
Making different choices in the future. The Rambam’s litmus test and final stage, is that if we are faced with a similar set of circumstances in the future, will we make a better choice?
It might sound overwhelming and unachievable but Rabbi Ruttenberg’s book is packed full with inspiring examples of regular people - many of them who are non-Jewish and have never heard of the Ramabam - who have been through the process and transformed. A twitter troll who sent multiple abusive tweets and suddenly had a realisation that his target was a living, breathing human, and then sent her an apology and made a donation in memory of her father. A KKK organiser who met Jews and black people at university and slowly renounced his harmful ideology. There are also examples of successful teshuva on an institutional and even national level. Did you know that more than 40 countries have established official truth commissions or truth and reconciliation commissions worldwide over the past few decades?
But let’s start at the very beginning, because teshuva begins with something deceptively difficult: being willing to hear that we have done harm. Even owning it can be really difficult, particularly when we feel ambushed and taken aback in the face of an accusation.
Like when someone runs up to you in the park and tells you that your dog has made a mess. Or when a friend or family member tells you you really hurt them.. how do we respond without deflecting or minimising or being defensive? How do we own our actions and repair them? If I put myself in the position of the dog owner, how could I have swallowed any defensiveness and just cleaned up the mess?
Rabbi Tarfon in the Talmud puts it so well when he says:
“I would be surprised if there is anyone in this generation who can receive rebuke. Why? Because if the one rebuking says to him: Remove the splinter from between your eyes, i.e., rid yourself of a minor infraction, the other says to him: Remove the beam from between your eyes, i.e., it’s nothing compared with what you’ve done.”
I expect that some people who were here yesterday had an example in their mind of a time they were wronged, or someone who had hurt them, and perhaps considered the question of whether giving tochecha, loving rebuke, was possible.
But this is a harder one to even find examples for. And that’s because owning that we have harmed others involves risk and fear. A sense of shame can really get in the way. The writer Brene Brown defines guilt as the feeling that I did something bad, and shame as the feeling that I am bad.
In this sense guilt itself is not an altogether bad thing. It is the awareness needed to make us more of a mensch, a decent person. But shame - that feeling of humiliation that feels so horrible, that can be a great de-motivator, because we so easily conflate what we do with who we are. So to accept another’s tochecha when shame is at play can feel akin to agreeing with them that we’re bad, bad, bad.
It is shame that makes people deflect, minimise or make excuses. I think on reflection I shamed the dog walkers in the park, and so it’s little surprise that they responded with “I always clear up my dog’s mess” and “oh on the grass - that’s not on the path”.
And perhaps this is why this feels particularly difficult right now for those of us who love Israel and want the best for Israel. We are in the eye of a storm of scrutiny and critique. And when we feel attacked, threatened or hated, our capacity to hear criticism becomes impaired. Our defence buttons are activated and it becomes an incredibly hard place to say “actually yes, we are doing things wrong too”. Teshuva requires enough safety to lower our armour.
Our Foreign Secretary announcing sanctions against our beloved Israel is a timely example. I know I felt a complex set of emotions hearing him, including shame, even as he talked about settler violence which I too am horrified by. And I really get the instinct to deflect (what about violence against Jews in the West Bank?) minimise (it’s just a small group of bad eggs who are violent) or be defensive (what about antisemitism?). None of those responses are necessarily illegitimate. The problem is when we use them to avoid difficult tochecha.
The question is this. Both with Israel and in our personal lives. Can we become the kind of person who can hear something painful and think, “Thank you for telling me. I / we can do better”?
Yesterday we heard that there are some people who cannot hear tochecha, and with these people it shouldn’t be attempted. Mishlei, Proverbs has the beautiful line,
אַל־תּוֹכַח לֵץ פֶּן־יִשְׂנָאֶךָּ, הוֹכַח לְחָכָם וְיֶאֱהָבֶךָּ
“Do not rebuke a scorner lest they hate you; rebuke a wise person and they will love you”
How can we become the wise person? Some suggestions. First, notice where shame rather than guilt is at play in us. Separate the action from the sense of self. If we’ve done something wrong, it doesn’t mean that we are bad. In fact, each of us, I believe, is innately good and worthy of love.
Next, choose to receive rebuke with humility and to regard the opportunity to begin the work of repair as a gift.
Then begin the work of detaching from the harmful behaviour. Rambam gives this brilliantly evocative image: Someone who confesses but who has not abandoned sin in their heart is like someone who “enters a mikva holding a lizard”. The waters of the mikva purify, but they can’t do that work if you’re holding onto an impure creature.
Finally, believe that change is possible. Change and personal development are hard but ultimately I think they offer us as humans our greatest chance of growth and achievement.
I want to close by acknowledging the discomfort of this pair of sermons. I could stand here and reassure and comfort and talk about how we’re in the right and they’re in the wrong. But first I don’t believe in any of that. And second, as someone wisely said, “A rabbi’s job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
It’s not easy to talk about giving and receiving tochecha, and even harder to do both of these well, with love for the other and love for ourselves. But I do believe that improving ourselves, as partners with Hashem - this is the work of being a Jew.
And far better than these words, will be the wordless sound of the shofar that is coming now. The shofar is God’s tochecha - God’s loving rebuke - to us. It is the sound which tells us that we can lower our armour, we can separate from the metaphorical lizards in our hands, and that we can change.
Comments