Yom Kippur 5786 - Sermons

Rabbi Miriam's Kol Nidrei sermon - delivered Wednesday 1st October 2025

Beinonim - Mid, Not Meh: A Yom Kippur Reflection

Last week, the Israeli news channel Kan 11 ran a fascinating story. A generation of Israelis, mostly young people, who look “secular” on the outside, are taking on religious practices and behaviours. They are attending Slichot every night, following TikTok rabbis and rebbetzins, they go to shiurim (Jewish classes), the men wear tzittzit under their clothes, but no kippah visible on their head and the women wear jeans but have a siddur app on their phone. They are, in the words of Israeli pop star Ben-Zur, נשמות צמאות, “thirsty souls”. His song with that name has had 3.2 million views on YouTube in the month since it was put out. The lyrics translate as follows:

A generation of thirsting souls

Yirat Shamayim (Fear of Heaven) without definitions.

Not shouted in proclamations,

But in Torah learned, and light revealed.

Tzniut (modesty) is inward, not in the hemline.

Not the length of a sleeve, but the turn of the heart.

Teach me emunah (faith) and bitachon (trust).

Stay with me, even when I make poor choices.

Hold me in the hour of shame

That I remember: by silence, much is gained

Accept me as I am

Forget not - I am but beinoni

Guard me even when I fall and fail

For when in the lowest depths

Is when prayer is most heard

The music video has Ben-Zur playing to a packed stadium, tattoos and no kippah, but when he dances in his recording studio, tzittzit also dance from around his waist. He is shown at an Israeli canyon, and at archeological remains, and on the beach, in the car, in the doctor’s office. He is saying the shema and wearing tefillin in just one of the shots but the message is clear - wherever this seemingly secular pop star goes, his faith goes with him. 

As it does for this generation of “thirsty souls” who realise that the old binary of religious or secular, indeed religious vs secular no longer works. 

Our souls, too, are thirsty. They want depth, truth, meaning. It has always been the case, back far before even King David wrote in Tehillim “צָמְאָה לְךָ  נַפְשִׁי”:

“my soul thirsts for You, as a parched and thirsty land that has no water”. 

Perhaps the need this generation particularly feels is influenced by our times. Rabbi Alex Israel writes that young people today were:

“born into a world of cellphones, with all the insecurity, opportunity, alienation and choice that they entail. These are teens not necessarily seeking standard religious observance but are looking for an anchor, an escape from an impossible world, confidence, compassion, hope, spirituality, meaning.”

Perhaps they are reacting in part to October 7th, when Jews around the world leaned closer together, felt a bit more Jewish, with many saying a few more prayers, or taking on a few more mitzvot, some in public, some in private. 

One word particularly jumped out to me from Ben-Zur’s song: “beinoni” - in context:

“Accept me as I am… I am but beinoni”. 

Beinoni, with the root “bein”, meaning inbetween, translates roughly to a word beloved by GenZ: “mid”. Caitlin Moran actually wrote of this word recently:

“mid is basically the 21st century “meh”... but somehow it seems more polite. Meh sounds emotionally dismissive - but mid sounds like it is based on inarguable data”. 

BenZur was saying - my life may not be entirely, outwardly dedicated to God and religion, but still accept me, hold me, teach me. Remember that the prayers of the broken, the imperfect, are more easily heard by God, than those of the whole and shiny.

The word beinoni has big resonances for this time of year. The Rambam, Maimonides in his Hilchot teshuva says:

"Each and every person has merits and sins. A person whose merits exceed his sins is [termed] צַדִּיק. A person whose sins exceed his merits is [termed] רָשָׁע. If [his sins and merits] are equal, he is termed a בֵּינוֹנִי."

The same, says the Rambam, goes for countries - a country whose bad outweighs their good, or good outweighs their bad, or whose deeds are in balance. 

And I do wonder this year, how not just individuals, but countries, will be judged. How will this country be judged? How will our beloved Israel be judged? It is already cast as a rasha by so much of the world, but what will Hashem’s perspective be on its leader’s deeds this past year? 

The Rambam goes on to say: 

If one is found righteous, their [verdict] is sealed for life. If one is found wicked, they are sealed for death. A Beinoni's verdict remains tentative until Yom Kippur. If they repent, they are sealed for life. If not, they are sealed for death.

On this erev Yom Kippur, as we wait to see if Trump and Bibi’s hope-filled plan will be followed with good faith, we pray that Israel will be sealed for life. That the hostages will be home, perhaps even this Sukkot, that a new age of peace will bloom from the wreckage of the past two years. 

That’s what Rambam refers to as medinot, countries. But what of us individuals?

I think most people in the world are beinonim - not entirely good or entirely bad. In the Gemara even the great Rabba said “כְּגוֹן אָנוּ בֵּינוֹנִים”

“people like us are middling”.

To which his student and nephew Abaye charmingly answers

“If the Master claims that he is a beinoni, he does not leave room for any creature to live.”

In other words, if a person like you is middling, what of the rest of us?

So here we are, the beinonim, the people in the balance, the countries of the world in the balance. People with so much good to our credit, and, as human beings, so many shortcomings. Countries with so much good, so much love and kindness and creativity, and countries whose leaders have so much to answer for. 

In the book of Jonah, which we read tomorrow, I think the assumption is that it’s read on Yom Kippur because of the exemplary repentance of the Ninivites. They are pretty awful, but when Jonah pronounces judgement on them, the transformation is swift and thorough. But read closely, there are actually three kinds of repentance in the book. The Ninivites, who are all bad - the rashas. There’s also the sailors who I can safely say are tzaddikim, even though they don’t start off Jewish. They pray to their own gods, they are deeply reluctant to blame or harm Jonah, they urge him to pray to his God, and when that works, they instantly convert to Judaism. And the third? I think it’s Jonah himself, and I see him as the quintessential beinoni. A prophet who hears God speak to him… but runs away. A man deeply wrapped up in his own needs. He sleeps, he questions God, he complains when his shady plant is killed. Jonah is remarkably “mid”. Repentance doesn’t come easily to him - in fact, he needs to be at the point of a watery death before he has a change of heart. And when he does, he is still pretty salty with God. Jonah is the hero of the beinonim.  

I think Ben-Zur and Jonah shift our understanding of beinonim. And maybe Catalin Moran’s definition of “mid”, too! Beinonim are not the “meh” people, we are the “mid” people in the best sense of the word. We grapple. We challenge. We lean into our identity fiercely, even when it’s not outward. We do our best with faith, even when it’s difficult. Our journeys are not linear. Our Judaism is complex. 

This day, Yom Kippur, is the day for us beinonim. We have 25 hours to show Hashem that, ok, we may not be complete tzaddikim, but that we are leaning in where we can. That we feel the thirst of our souls. And so I’ll close by repeating some words from Ben-Zur’s son by that name:

“Yirat Shamayim (Fear of Heaven) without definitions, Not shouted in proclamations… Teach me emunah (faith) and bitachon (trust). Stay with me, even when I make poor choices. Accept me as I am… Forget not - I am but beinoni”.

Rabbi Miriam's Yom Kippur sermon - delivered Thursday 2nd October 2025

The Young and The Old

From Avinu Malkeinu:

אָבִֽינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ חֲמוֹל עָלֵֽינוּ וְעַל עוֹלָלֵֽינוּ וְטַפֵּֽנוּ:

Our Father, our King! have compassion upon us, and upon our children and infants.

From Shema Koleinu:

אַל תַּשְׁלִיכֵֽנוּ לְעֵת זִקְנָה כִּכְלוֹת כֹּחֵֽנוּ אַל תַּעַזְבֵֽנוּ

Do not cast us off in time of old age, when our strength fails, do not forsake us.

Each of these lines jump out to me every year, as does their contrast. We call out to God in the name of the very young and the very old. 

Over the past few years, I’ve participated in several coaching programmes designed to improve how we live and work. They’ve been genuinely transformational. I’ve learned about the inner sage and the inner saboteur, about curiosity and innovation, and about how even painful experiences can be accepted or converted into growth. I’ve learned the importance of support networks, walks in nature, creativity… and also that sometimes all the theory evaporates in the heat of a difficult moment. Still, these programmes have left their mark.

And interestingly, two of them also draw deeply on the imagery of the very young and the very old.

In the first, Shirzad Chamine’s Positive Intelligence programme, empathy and love are essential - not only toward others, but crucially toward ourselves. Deep empathy for ourselves and unconditional self-love. Most people, unfortunately, experience only conditional self-love. We tell ourselves we are only worthy of love if we achieve certain things. And we tell ourselves that empathising with ourselves is weak. That we need to be tough on ourselves. To cultivate empathy for the self and unconditional self love, the programme encourages us to rediscover our deepest unchanging essence. This is the true self that exists beneath the layers we’ve built up to please others and protect ourselves from harm. And when we can empathise with this core self, we are able to love it unconditionally. 

So there was an exercise where my group was asked to bring a childhood photo from when we were very young. A photo which captured the essence of who we were as a child. Perhaps you can imagine such a photo of yourself now. And if you can, feel free to close your eyes and experience a taste of the exercise. 

We were asked to study the child’s face, the eyes, the posture, and to consciously extend deep compassion to that child-self. To recognise that their essence still lives within us, even if buried beneath layers we’ve accumulated to survive adulthood. That child is worthy of unconditional love. And so are we.

In the other programme, Rebel Leadership, with coach Debbie Danon, I’d shared a challenging situation with Debbie, or an insecurity, and she asked me to imagine myself as an older woman, calm with the wisdom of life, and to ask this old Miriam what she knows. In a similar way, she suggested I use breathing techniques to shake off my scepticism, and to make space to reconnect with her. She may have reassurance, or she may give permission for my inner critic to loosen its grip. She may laugh at the things I’ve been fixating on in my 30s, but it will be a kind laugh. She’ll definitely give perspective.

It cannot be accidental that our Machzor mentions, at this particular time of year, the very young and the very old. And the places I mentioned are not unique.

In the selichot service we plead: 

עֲשֵׂה לְמַעַן יוֹנְקֵי שָׁדַיִם שֶׁלֹּא חָטְאוּ

Act for the sake of the nursing infants who have not sinned.

עֲשֵׂה לְמַעַן גְּמוּלֵי חָלָב שֶׁלֹּא פָשְׁעוּ

Act for the sake of the weaned children who have not transgressed.

עֲשֵׂה לְמַֽעַן תִּינוֹקוֹת שֶׁל בֵּית רַבָּן.

Act for the sake of the little children of “beit rabban” - in school or cheder.

The chazan in his tefilla before mussaf says:

 וְקַבֵּל תְּפִלָּתִי כִּתְפִלַּת זָקֵן וְרָגִיל וּפִרְקוֹ נָאֶה וּזְקָנוֹ מְגֻדָּל“Accept my prayer as the prayer of one who is elderly and experienced [in prayer], and as one who is respected, whose beard is full-grown”

Both the very young and the very old carry a kind of purity that we long for on this day. We say to God: Please. See us as one of them.

Again and again, we ask God to see us as children:

אָֽנוּ בָנֶֽיךָ וְאַתָּה אָבִֽינוּ We are Your children, and You are our Father

This is the day when we hold up that childhood photograph of ourselves — real or imagined — and say: This is who I truly am. Beneath everything. Please see me with compassion.

And there’s a beautiful passuk from the prophet Zecharia, where the prophet envisages a future messianic time where:

“elderly men and women sit in the squares of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of their great age.”

Then in the next verse:

“And the squares of the city shall be crowded with boys and girls playing in the squares.”

In this ideal future, the very young and very old are together. And to shift this vision into our imaginative one, what might our very young self and our very old self say to each other if they could meet? How would they interact? 

Now, as we approach Yizkor, these themes shift. Our community’s custom is for everyone to remain in shul. Since October 7th, there are countless more souls who need remembering. Soon, we will pass around photographs of some of those we lost.

They will remind us that to grow old is a privilege. They will remind us of the victims of October 7th and the tens of thousands of Gazans, who never had that chance. We ask Hashem to keep their souls close and to be with the leaders who can decide to no longer put innocent people in harm’s way. 

As we approach Yizkor, this gives perspective to the shape and span of our own lives.

And to put it starkly, on this day, when we dress in white and do not eat or drink, to feign being angels rather than mortals, Rabbi Alan Lew says that we rehearse our own death. On this day, we read Unetaneh Tokef and sense the books of life and death open before God.

This is the one day of the year when we do not shy away from thinking about death. And in a society which hides away elderly people and does not like to speak about dying, I appreciate that Judaism helps us to process the deaths of those we have lost, and to face our own mortality.

And so the dual focus on ourselves as a small child, and ourselves as a very elderly person, is as if we have a slowed-down perspective of our life passing before our eyes. We see, on this day, our life stretch out. We see also, the middle. All the experiences, joys, triumphs, disappointments, knocks, scars and interesting gnarly bits which have made us who we are. And we get a moment of perspective for this moment, the now. 

And we ask God for ourselves: for us, the young child, our pure essence self. For us, the oldest, sweetest, wisest version of ourselves. God, King who desires life, please inscribe us in the book of life.

And for us, as we think about our own past young selves, and future old selves, we ask for perspective on the now, and wisdom for how to use it well. 

And now as we turn to Yizkor, we think of those we have lost. It may be a close relative. It may be a beloved teacher or friend. It may be someone cruelly killed two years ago. They may have been wizened with age. They may have been very young. May the memory of those who can no longer stand here with us, call us to live more fully.