Kol Nidre Appeal 2003 One Rosh Hashanah morning, the Rabbi ...

oiling water—
but each reacted differently.
The carrot went in strong and hard but after being subjected to the boiling water, it
softened and became weak.
The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its delicate interior.
But, after experiencing boiling water, its inside became hardened.
The ground coffee beans were unique, however. While they too sat in boiling water, they
changed the water.
*****
"Which are you?" she asked her daughter.
"When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond?
Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?"
Ask yourself this: Which am I?
Am I the carrot that seems strong until I face pain or adversity,
when I lose my strength?
Am I the egg that starts with a fluid spirit, a malleable heart, and becomes hardened and
tough on the inside as external pressures change me forever?
Or am I like the coffee bean? In spite of its situation, the bean improves the hot water.
If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better
and change the situation around you.
***
This hasn’t been an easy year. For some, family and personal issues have been
challenging, for many the Massachusetts economy has forced us to reevaluate priorities.
Vicious attacks have wounded our national pride and as a nation we struggle with the
costly pursuit of our right to live free from terror.
In addition, as Jews, we face growing anti-Semitism, fundamentalist extremism, and
continuing—I’m afraid to say escalating— and devastating violence in Israel.
So what are we? Carrots? Do we sit back and let it happen? Stew in our own juice?
Are we eggs? Do we become hardened even as world tensions flare and hatred boils over
in the world which for better of worse is entrusted in our hands?
Or are we coffee beans? Working to change the very forces that threaten our right to be
free and to be Jews.
*****