I take some pride in saying that I no longer get a migraine during Yom Kippur, presumably because after decades of fasting on the appointed days, my body knows that the fast will end after twenty-five hours and does not feel the need to raise the alarm, which is often the trigger for a migraine.

Nevertheless, I have one now and just medicated for it, which is usually sufficient management for my increasingly rare migraines. It struck while I was looking again at the book of essays produced this year by the Movement For Progressive Judaism, entitled ‘Progressive Judaism, Zionism and the State of Israel.’ Most of the contributors are rabbis from the formerly named Liberal and Reform synagogues and a few are from religiously knowlegeable lay authors: political activists associated with anti Zionist organizations or publications. In some of the essays, older rabbis reflect that their earlier love for the State of Israel has been compromised in the years since 1967, when the State defends its control over disputed territories, which they would rather relinquish. Some of the clergy advocate a liturgy which makes room for expressions of fraterniity with the Palestinians, with whom our fate seems to be intertwined.

This year, 2026, also known as 5787, was the first year when the congregation I have belonged to for more than half a century used the new Days of Awe prayer books, a two volume set for use on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. As some of the congregants mentioned, the two separate volumes work well, being considerably lighter than a single volume to be carried on both holy days. It is also easier to find the place and the Torah readings are conveniently inserted at the point in the text when they are read, rather than as addenda at the end of the book.

I usually participate in an aftertoon discussion group which meets between Mussaf and Minchah (additional and afternoon prayer services) so that congregants have an opportunity to talk about matters arising from the service or aspects of contemporary Jewish life. This year, we were to discuss the new machzor, the new prayer books for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In preparation, I had opened mine on the kitchen table at home next to the previous, 1985 machzor, to compare and contrast at least a portion of it, the Mussaf service. The most consistent and obvious difference is the ungendered language of the new machzor in the English translations of the Hebrew, in discourse about God, which matches the language of the 2008 prayer book. God is not called King, Lord, Father or He or Master of the Universe. The translations are carefully chosen and I have written about them in a blog post some years ago called, ‘The Lord, the Lord: Translating the Tetragrammaton.’ If it were up to me, I would choose the poetic sound of the gendered language but I understand that people have good reasons for not wanting to speak of God as male.

The trend towards universalism has also been in place since 2008, with the words ‘V’al col ha olam’ ‘…and on all the world,’ added to the Kaddish which traditionally ends with the words ‘May He who makes peace in the highest make peace for us and for all Israel.’ It is reasonable to suppose that Israel’s peace depends on the peace of other countries. Another way of looking at ‘and on all the world’ is that it is insufficient to pray for our own people without pleading for the good of other peoples.

I also picked out a paragraph in the new machzor which I could not find in the previous one:

‘The High Priest’s third confession was for all Israel. Can this be sufficient for us today? God is God of all the earth and we are all partners in the repairing of God’s world, for a future and a hope. We must confess the part we play in the sins of humanity, for our action and our inaction.’

The idea that a confession ‘for all Israel’ devised in antiquity is insufficient for us today seemed to me to belong with a theme in some of the essays of ‘Progressive Judaism, Zionism and the State of Israel’, that being citizens of the world trumps our national identity as Am Yisrael, the People of Israel.

I think I was alone in this impression, so cannot assert it with much confidence. Neither can I be sure that our citizenship of the world abrogates our identity as Jews or vice versa. I think the Progressive clergy would say that one reinforces the other.

Meanwhile, I have been greatly impressed by an essay in the Progressive Judaism book by Rabbi Andrea Zanardo , who advocates that educational resources should include remembrance of the mass displacement of Jews from Arab lands, as well as the history of the persecutions in Europe.

Rabbi Zanardo writes:

‘Hillel’s warning in Pirkei Avot remains the hinge: Al tifrosh min ha tzibbur, “Do not separate yourself from the community.” When prayers for Israel are stripped of kibbutz galuyot – the gathering of exiles – of Middle Eastern/North African refugee history, and of language that acknowledges defence and survival, they cease to sound like prayers spoken by a people.’

One might suppose that Tikkun Olam, the repairing of the world, was the foremost commandment of contemporary progressive Judaism. Certainly, the phrase occurs in our prayer Aleynu, ‘l’takken olam b’malchut Shaddai,’ ‘…the world will be set right by the rule of God.’ ‘Malchut’ is literally kingship, but it is translated as ‘rule’ to avoid the maleness of kings and kingship.

But Tikkun Olam is not mentioned in the Ten Commandments, nor in the Shema. In this insistent reaching for the world, ha olam, are we at risk of letting our peoplehood slip away?

I sense that the thoughts I voice in this blog are unfair to my denomination of Judaism which has done so much for me and others but I sometimes feel like saying, as Michael Corleone said to Fredo in Cuba, ‘You broke my heart.’

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