More than forty years ago, as I prepared to ascend the pulpit for my first High Holy Days sermon as a rabbi, one of the elders of my congregation, dear old Arthur Leibowitz, pulled me aside.

“Rabbi,” he said to me, “Preach the Dickens at ’em.”

I said to him: “OK, Arthur. Just please don’t have any great expectations.”

American Jews already know, intuitively and rationally, that they are living in the "worst of times." The rise of antisemitism, both in the United States and abroad, and the ongoing, unfolding horror of October 7 and its aftermath, makes that all abundantly clear.

But, let me pull back the curtain for you, and show you that in some ways, we are living through the best of times.

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