In the aftermath of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services, I hope that we have been able to start a new year with a clean slate. There are many ways to tap into Judaism’s wisdom to add meaning to our lives. One way is by responding to the prophetic call for justice and engaging in social action.

In the temple’s foyer, we can find the social action display, listing many ways we can express Jewish teachings. We will find eight options listed on the “Tikkun Olam – repairing the world” cards. Let us know if you want to participate, and we will get back to you ASAP.

Though every project is meaningful and valuable, I want to focus on three of them: Nothing But Nets, the Katrina Mission to New Orleans, and the 363 Group.

Nothing But Nets: For just $10, we can save a life by purchasing a net which will prevent the spread of Malaria. Talk about fulfilling a mitzvah! These nets will be given to victims of the atrocities in the Sudan, in addition to other African refugees.

Katrina relief mission: If you want to participate, we need to hear from you as soon as possible. The deadline is drawing near to make plane and hotel reservations. As life has proceeded normally in Oklahoma City, residents of New Orleans continue to feel the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina. Let’s travel to the Crescent City, roll up our sleeves and get to work, doing what we can to repair the Lower Ninth Ward.

The 363 Group: We can do something closer to home by taking part with Mayflower Congregational Church’s 363 Group. Regularly on Saturdays, we have a chance to help the homeless; the 363 Group offers them a hot meal, socks, underwear, toiletries and good company. However, what we do not do is impose a religious message on them. We all meet at the Homeless Alliance, at the northeast corner of NW 3rd St. and Virginia. To participate, simply give us your e-mail; Mayflower Congregational will let us know what is needed. If you can’t make it to the Homeless Alliance, you can always contribute food and other items.

By definition, Judaism calls us to participate in our local and greater communities. We have no choice but to recognize the injustice in our world and then act to remove it from our midst. Eliminating injustice altogether is beyond our power; however, as a teaching instructs, “it is not incumbent upon us to complete the work, but we are not free to desist from it.”

Congregants be on alert: If you come to me with a money-laundering scheme or plans to sell organs on the black market, I have a legal responsibility and moral imperative to contact the authorities. If I learn that a congregant is allegedly suffering from Munchausen Syndrome and is systematically starving her child, I have a legal responsibility and moral imperative to contact the authorities.

If only my respective rabbinic colleagues felt the same way.

I have cringed at reports of rabbis in collusion with a fellow Jew in New Jersey, offering instructions of how to spread the money around to avoid suspicion of money laundering. I was horrified that another Jewish man had planned to use some of the sting money to extort organs from people in desperate need for cash and then sell the organs at exorbitant prices.

And then there is what is going on in Mea Shearim, the Hareidi (ultra-Orthodox) neighborhood in Jerusalem. Allegedly, a mother has been starving her three-year-old to death. When the secular authorities stepped in to treat the child, the leaders representing this “Toldot Aharon” Hasidic sect instructed the community to go ballistic. (i.e. riot with moral impunity).

As an update, Toldot Aharon leaders have published a 16-page booklet, “Blood Libel,” condemning an Axis of Evil of Hadassah Hospital, police and welfare services.

Words escape me …

Across the nation, what does the general community think of us?

Closer to home, what do interfaith families and the unaffiliated think of us? I wonder if they think that all rabbis and all Jews are like the ones they read about in the newspaper or see on cable TV?

I hope they don’t conclude: If that’s Judaism, then I want no part of it.

Another issue that bothers me even more: Why do those in the most traditional Jewish communities … the ones judging those like you and me who belong to Reform and Conservative congregations, continue to cross the line, legally, ethically, morally?

This should give us pause. Do my more traditional colleagues only believe that Jewish law, halacha, applies to them, and that they exist above and beyond secular law?

To me, a Jew is a Jew is a Jew. I fear that as we continue to cross the moral line, then all who choose to belong to Jewish congregations — Jews, Christians, agnostics; white, black, hispanic — lose respect, credibility and authenticity.

If that is true, then we all lose.

Like it or not, we have a responsibility to be witnesses.  Talk about a daunting task. It is hard enough to be a witness to one’s own life — to remember the details accurately day to day, month to month, year to year and infuse them with meaning. We are also expected to be witnesses to events separated by generations, even centuries? In a word — “yes.”

We can fulfill our responsibility in part by witnessing the performance of “Symphony No. 1 – Jeremiah” at Temple B’nai Israel’s Blatt-Levenson Sanctuary on Tuesday, April 21 at 8:00 p.m.

Leonard Bernstein composed this concert in 1942, arguably in part to bear witness to his relationship with his father and in part to bear witness to the horrors of World War II.

But talk about meaning layered on top of meaning and witness upon witness. By tapping into the prophet Jeremiah, Bernstein became a witness to the horrors our ancient ancestors experienced with the destruction of their Temple in Jerusalem. Bernstein channeled Jeremiah, who dared to call upon the people — from king to commoner — to atone for their sins and change their ways, or else face terrifying consequences.

Jeremiah saw first hand the horror humanity could inflict upon humanity. Centuries later, Bernstein was just becoming aware of the mechanized horror of the 20th century.

On Yom Hashoah (corresponding this year to April 21), we bear witness to the terror the Jewish people experienced — in addition to gypsies, Catholics, Eastern Europeans, the handicapped, political prisoners, among others.

Our daunting task continues to be how to derive meaning from the horror we have inflicted upon and continue to inflict upon one another. When we attempt to fulfill our task, time folds on itself. We become like the prophet Jeremiah; we become like Bernstein; we become like the reporter documenting Darfur.

On April 21 at 8:00, the OU symphony orchestra, under the direction of (temple congregant) Jonathan Shames, will help us bear witness. Haunting music and the prophetic call for justice will fuse together and fill the walls of our sanctuary.

On that day, let us willingly bear witness. And then, let us go one step further and act to fill our world with peace, justice and harmony.