We hope the following teaching will help you to take a few minutes to let your community know about your work with Second Nurture, either as a stand alone teaching (in connection with the Akeidah Torah reading or the blowing of the shofar) or as an introduction to a Second Nurture cohort member sharing their story.
After the Akeida, the midrash teaches, Isaac tells Sarah what happened.
שֶׁחָזַר יִצְחָק אֵצֶל אִמּוֹ, וְאָמְרָה לוֹ אָן הָיִיתָ בְּרִי, אָמַר לָהּ נְטָלַנִּי אָבִי וְהֶעֱלַנִי הָרִים וְהוֹרִידַנִּי גְבָעוֹת וכו', אָמְרָה וַוי עַל בְּרִי דְרֵיוָתָא, אִלּוּלֵי הַמַּלְאָךְ כְּבָר הָיִיתָ שָׁחוּט, אָמַר לָהּ אִין. בְּאוֹתָהּ שָׁעָה צָוְחָה שִׁשָּׁה קוֹלוֹת כְּנֶגֶד שִׁשָּׁה תְּקִיעוֹת, אָמְרוּ לֹא הִסְפִּיקָה אֶת הַדָּבָר עַד שֶׁמֵּתָה, הֲדָא הוּא דִכְתִיב (בראשית כג, ב):
Isaac returned to his mother and she said to him: ‘Where have you been, my son?’ Said he to her: ‘My father took me and led me up mountains and down hills,’ etc. ‘Alas,’ she said, ‘for the son of a hapless woman! Had it not been for the angel you would by now have been slain!’ ‘Yes,’ he said to her.
Thereupon she uttered six cries, corresponding to the six blasts of the shofar. It has been said: She had scarcely finished speaking when she died.
In the Book of Judges, Sisera's mother waits anxiously by the window for her son's return, not yet knowing that he was killed in battle.
יוֹם תְּרוּעָה יִהְיֶה לָכֶם וּמְתַרְגְּמִינַן יוֹם יַבָּבָא יְהֵא לְכוֹן וּכְתִיב בְּאִימֵּיהּ דְּסִיסְרָא בְּעַד הַחַלּוֹן נִשְׁקְפָה וַתְּיַבֵּב אֵם סִיסְרָא מָר סָבַר גַּנּוֹחֵי גַּנַּח וּמָר סָבַר יַלּוֹלֵי יַלֵּיל
“It is a day of sounding [terua] the shofar to you” (Numbers 29:1), and we translate this verse in Aramaic as: It is a day of yevava to you. And to define a yevava, the Gemara quotes a verse that is written about the mother of Sisera: “Through the window she looked forth and wailed [vateyabev], the mother of Sisera” (Judges 5:28). One Sage, the tanna of the baraita, holds that this means moanings, broken sighs, as in the blasts called shevarim. And one Sage, the tanna of the mishna, holds that it means whimpers, as in the short blasts called teruot.
These texts compare the cries of two mothers to the blasts of the shofar.
The talmudic accounting of the "Mother of Sisera", who, in the Book of Judges, waits anxiously by the window for her son's return, not yet knowing that he was killed in battle. She is "other"—even of an "enemy people".
And our foremother, Sarah, upon Isaac's midrashic accounting of his experience with his father on Mt Moriah, after the Akeida.
For the moments of the blasts of the shofar, we do not know whose cries we are hearing. Those of our own family? Those of a foreigner?
We can also hear these blasts as the cries of the children in our families, our community. They are also the cries of "foreign" children—outside our tents and tabernacles. And as we listen to the sounds of the shofar, for these moments, we do not know whose cries we are hearing—those dear to us or those not-yet-dear to us.
We as a community respond to the cries of our children, those who dwell in our midst, and those who we claim as our own wherever they may be. But also, we are responding to the cries of children outside of our tents and tabernacles. Our families are stepping up to foster and adopt children and teens from foster care. And others in our midst are providing support for these families.
We are partners with an organization called, Second Nurture: Every Child Deserves a Family and a Community, to help families interested in fostering LA County youth to do so, knowing they have our support.
One of our families who has responded to the call of the shofar, the call of children who need families, is [whoever you invite] who will share their story with us now.