High Holy Days

The Jewish high holy days created an intriguing juxtaposition for me last weekend. On Saturday I gave a talk at a freethought conference and on Sunday went to Rosh Hashanah services with my kids. What a lovely opportunity for "compare and contrast"! (And there will be more this week--Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is on Tuesday.)

The #1 theme of a sermon at a liberal Jewish temple is (I