“Blessed are You, Sovereign of the universe, who fashions within our minds the gift of memory, and who grants us the ability to remember.” Five years ago on Rosh HaShanah morning, as the morning sunlight filtered through the stained glass windows of Temple Emanu-El’s sanctuary in Sarasota, FL, I glanced up from my prayerbook and looked out over the crowd of worshippers sitting around me and saw so many faces in our community that I didn’t recognize. I wondered: Where had they come from?
