I have known people who have been transformed by Yom Kippur. As a rabbi, as someone who has been delivering sermons for half my life on this day, I wish that I could tell you that the transformation took place because of a sermon I was inspired to write. But mostly, the people I know who were transformed by Yom Kippur were standing at a crossroads of their lives as summer slipped into fall, both literally and metaphorically.

I will tell you one such story. It is far from the most powerful story I could tell you, but it is the one that means the most to me because it involves my father.

A very long time ago in my life, when I was on one side or the other of my bar mitzvah, my father accepted the invitation of our synagogue's cantor to chant the haftarah on the morning of Yom Kippur. It had probably been a very long time since my dad had that assignment – maybe as long ago as his own bar mitzvah. But he accepted the responsibility and began working on it some time over the summer.

Back in those dinosaur days, there were no digital recorders, no CDs, no cassette tapes. We had a very large and very heavy reel-to-reel tape recorder with a rectangular forward-reverse knob the size of your thumb. There was no way to cue this thing – you just had to guess where to stop and replay when you were working on it. And so my father would sit each night for half an hour or so listening to the cantor's voice and repeating: v'amar solu-solu panu darekh harimu mikh'shol miderekh ami. The first few verses in particular became so familiar around our house that we all knew them. Ki ram v'nisa shokhein ad v'kadosh sh'mo marom v'kadosh eshkon....

Now, I am not sure who had chanted the haftarah at our synagogue during the years previous. My guess is that I was either in Junior Congregation or the lobby when that moment arrived. But I was present when my father was called to be maftir that Yom Kippur. And I quietly sang along with him, including the way he always seemed to hum for just a split second at the end of every verse.

My father's success with the haftarah led him to expand his horizons, and within a few years, he had mastered the shacharit service for Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. For perhaps twenty years after that, he led that service each of the three mornings. The first day of Rosh HaShanah 5750 was the last time he was able to do so. By then, he had trained lots of younger people who were interested in learning the nusach, including me. By then, he had constructed a life for himself that had known its share of ups and downs, but in which the influence of Jewish tradition was ever increasing. The result was that my father and mother produced three children whose professional lives are devoted to serving the Jewish community. My brother directs college-age youth services for United Synagogue. My sister is a Jewish funeral director.

Can I attribute this entire story to a few verses of Isaiah -- v'amar solu-solu panu darekh harimu mikh'shol miderekh ami? I certainly didn't know my dad as well as my mother did, and I am pretty certain I knew him differently than my brother and different still than my sister. But I can trace that transformation to the opportunity to recite a haftarah and the impact it had one Yom Kippur.

Ever since then, whenever I hear that verse, v'amar solu-solu panu darekh harimu mikh'shol miderekh ami, I am transported back to my own pimply youth and the changes those words seemed to make in a man I thought would never change, a man I thought was probably born as my father and was never going to die.

Do you know what the words mean? They mean, "Make a path! Make a path! Clear the way! Remove the obstacle from the path of My people!"

We are so focused on the rest of Isaiah's message that we rarely look at these first few words. Solu-solu! Make a path, make a path! Panu-darekh! Clear the way! Harimu mikh'shol! Remove the obstacle! To what is Isaiah referring? What does he mean?

I don't know how many of you have ever had to create a walkway or a road where none existed before. It's not just a matter of clearing some brush or picking up the loose stones. It is hard work to make a passageway from one place to another, because something else is always there. The landscape is never empty – the land is never flat, the ground is never smooth, the length is never unobstructed. In fact, most of the time it is plain easier to simply go around, to go slower or to allow time and travel to incrementally create the path of least resistance.

But along comes Isaiah, and he proclaims God's command to make a path and clear the way. There is no going around the obstacles; there is no avoiding the hard work. What is underfoot seems to be as important as the destination to which it leads.

When this message is working, on every other day of the year, it is a recipe for self-improvement. I hope that many of you took advantage of the forty days leading up to tonight to examine your souls and your relationships with others and make a path, clear the way, remove the obstacles. I hope you took advantage of the full year since last Yom Kippur to create the sidewalk, the road or the highway that led you to this sacred evening. As we sit here at this moment, our bellies full and our eyelids drooping, we may be feeling pretty good about ourselves. And frankly, if we can take our metaphors literally for just a second, being kept in life, sustained and enabled to reach this moment is an encouraging referendum on our preponderance of good deeds.

But by the time we hear Isaiah's words tomorrow – just half a day from now – the artifice of comfort will have been dismantled. Our stomachs will be growling, having missed that late-night snack, and breakfast, and lunch. Our heads will be aching, deprived as we were of caffeine and Tylenol and carbohydrates. Our throats will be scratchy with no water to drink. As the Torah has commanded, we will have afflicted ourselves in penitence for the transgressions that we have repeated four or five times, in order to remind ourselves that the way is not flat, the path is pretty bumpy, the obstacles are more numerous than we thought.

And God will sweep in with resounding rhetoric and majestic melody to make a path, to clear the way, to remove the obstacles. Inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life, we will be given, God willing, another year, a clean slate, to try again. What God accomplishes in a moment in the landscape of my soul is mine to maintain and reinforce in the year ahead. But the fact that God must accomplish in that moment the cleansing of the landscape of my soul means that I have not done as good a job as I had thought in my relative comfort the night before.

Torn down to its foundations, perhaps to its bedrock, my life is handed back to me with a mandate: rebuild.

You know, not only Yom Kippur produces this challenge. If the tenth day of the month of Tishrei is the crisis we can anticipate, then there are a thousand other crises we cannot imagine. A diagnosis. A collision. A downsizing. A betrayal. An explosion. A confrontation. A fall. An intervention. An intrusion. A death. Suddenly, completely or virtually without warning, life is torn down to its foundations, its bedrock, and handed back with a mandate: rebuild.

Whether it is Yom Kippur or, God forbid, a personal trauma, the words Isaiah spoke for God have rung in our ears: Solu-solu! Make a path, make a path! Panu-darekh! Clear the way! Harimu mikh'shol! Remove the obstacle! It has come to pass. And each of us has a choice to make if we are to continue to live.

The choice is between nostalgia and renewal. The choice is between comfort and aspiration. The choice is between recreating what was there before the way was cleared and erecting something stronger and better on the ruins that remain.

Mostly, we choose nostalgia. The great Yiddish writer Sholom Aleikhem had an unerring eye for human nature, particular the human nature of the Jew. He wrote of a set of characters in the mythical town of Kasrilevke, including Noah Wolf, the butcher who was profane and abusive in his language, and Ezriel the Fishmonger who was sarcastic and insulting, and the water-carrier, the shammes, the rabbi and others who spent the day before Yom Kippur making the rounds of the town and apologizing to everyone for their misbehavior. Of course they were forgiven. Of course they went to shul all day after that and heard, "Solu-solu! Make a path, make a path! Panu-darekh! Clear the way! Harimu mikh'shol! Remove the obstacle!" And of course, the next day, Noah Wolf was again coarse and confrontational, Ezriel was again cynical and judgmental and all the others returned to their familiar patterns. The story is not about them and there. The story is about us and here.

Rabbi Jack Riemer, one of the great preachers of our day, looked at that story and wondered why the power of the day, so strong at the moment, had little or no residual effect. He had no single answer, but a raft of suggestions.

Perhaps, he said, we do not recognize the need for repentance. We look around and figure that, all things considered, we have been pretty good – better than most. Perhaps, he said, we do not want to change who we are because it is too much effort, too difficult and we have limited energy to put into such endeavors. Perhaps, he said, we hide behind the language of the confessional – "we have sinned, we have betrayed, we have stolen" instead of "I have sinned, I have betrayed, I have stolen." Placing the transgression on such a collective level diminishes the need for my personal penitence and convinces me that I had comparatively little to do with the enumerated sins.

Or perhaps, said Rabbi Riemer, we have given up the hope of being able to change. Perhaps we look at ourselves and decide we are inadequate, unworthy, too old, too set in our ways.

It is this last possibility that concerns me the most. I am no stranger to it. I have become very set in my ways, not exactly despairing of tomorrow, but feeling wizened and resigned. How can I expect to deliver a message of renewal to you if I have chosen nostalgia for myself? If the devil I know is better than the one I do not know, then what is the purpose of this sermon, this day, this endeavor of teshuvah?

So it is at times like this that I return to stories I know of people who have been transformed by Yom Kippur, those like my father who allowed a small experience that every bar or bat mitzvah has had, to begin the process of changing his life – sometimes two steps forward and one step back, but changing it nonetheless.

I urge the same lesson on you, but you will find it where you will, not in the memories of my life. But find it you must, and there is no time to waste, because the consequences are great. What is true for you as an individual and for me as an individual is true collectively for all of us. When the prophetic voice proclaims, "Solu-solu! Make a path, make a path! Panu-darekh! Clear the way! Harimu mikh'shol! Remove the obstacle!" we must be ready to rebuild, and at that moment we must make a choice: The choice is between nostalgia and renewal. The choice is between comfort and aspiration. The choice is between recreating what was there before the way was cleared and erecting something stronger and better on the ruins that remain. We have to answer the question, are we Noah Wolf the Butcher, Ezriel the Fishmonger? Or do we believe we can do better than before?

Over the past year, since last Yom Kippur, we have witnessed a series of natural disasters befall the human family. Last year's hurricane and typhoon season were deadly. An earthquake deep beneath the Indian Ocean sent a wall of water that devastated Southeast Asia, sweeping hundreds of thousands to their deaths by tsunami. The power of two of the strongest hurricanes to make landfall was directed at the Gulf Coast of this country, while other monster storms tore though and continue to tear through other parts of the American continent and its surrounding islands. Widespread forest fires plagued California again. A mutated virus is reputed to make AIDS look gentle. And just days ago, yet another earthquake killed tens of thousands in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan in a matter of minutes. The frequency and toll of these events are enough to make even a skeptic wonder if the wrath of God or the cosmos has been unleashed against humanity.

I am not a member of the Chicken Little brigade. I do not believe that the sky is falling. Like most of you, I am modestly concerned about how we are polluting our environment, and like most of you, I am doing very little about it. Like most of you, I reject entirely the notion put forward by ministers, imams and rabbis of a certain ilk that a hurricane is a judgment from God. But I desperately want there to be a lesson from this run of disasters other than "stay out of the way of bad things."

Late in August, Ann and I were looking at pictures of the devastation in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. In those days after the levees gave way there appeared to be no solace. Wind and rain had destroyed entire neighborhoods. Floodwaters had washed away homes and cars and businesses. And the worst of the devastation was reported to be inaccessible to rescue workers and cameras. The storm had made a path through the city. It had cleared the way. It removed every obstacle from its path. The city had been leveled and there was a clear need to start over. Ann said to me, "It is Yom Kippur for New Orleans."

Most of us who have visited New Orleans have visited the French Quarter and the Garden District. When Mayor Ray Nagin triumphantly proclaimed that Café Du Monde was unscathed and when President Bush appeared against the magnificent backdrop of Jackson Square, we were reassured that everything would be all right. But those of you who have lived in New Orleans, including some of you with us tonight who live there still, know that the tourist districts, the high-rent properties, the old and established part of the city were bound to survive. But the real damage, the real devastation, the real tragedy were not visited upon hotels and restaurants, but upon the people who work there and live in vulnerable homes below sea level. The lower the family income, the higher the cost of the destruction. The lower the quality of construction, the greater the level of demolishing. The less one could afford to lose, the more that person lost.

The middle class suffered more than the wealthy, and the poor more than the middle class. And now we are faced with the problem of rebuilding. How shall we do it in New Orleans, fair city of the Gulf port region? The path has been made, the way has been cleared, the obstacles have been removed, and now we must rebuild. On what basis shall we do so? The fact is we have a choice.

The choice is between nostalgia and renewal. The choice is between comfort and aspiration. The choice is between recreating what was there before the way was cleared and erecting something stronger and better on the ruins that remain.

The case for nostalgia is strong, since most of the country has a romantic sense of New Orleans. The case for comfort is a good case – nice hotels, good restaurants, sparkling mansions will make everyone feel better that the city we know is coming back. The case for recreating what was there is strong – let the good times roll and the liquor flow and a lot of misery can be dispelled, at least for the moment.

But what will it say about us if we rebuild the slums? What will it say if we allow the poor to return to poverty, perhaps worse than before? What will it say if we proclaim laissez les bons temps rouler and adopt an attitude that is laissez faire?

It will say, my friends, that we are frauds. It will say that like Noah Wolf and Ezriel, we pay lip service to contrition and compassion and return to business as usual tomorrow. It will say that those who suffered most deserve to suffer again. It will say that we have not repented, not changed.

Perhaps we do not recognize the need for repentance. We look around and figure that, all things considered, we have been pretty good – better than most. Our evacuees have been taken in by others and our government has been able to do more for the victims than the Pakistanis and the Indonesians did for theirs. Perhaps we do not want to change because it is too much effort, too difficult and we have limited energy to put into such endeavors – there are, after all, wars to fights and an economy to stimulate, there are those in the political majority who must be embarrassed and deposed by the political minority. Perhaps we hide behind the collective level of general prosperity and volunteer efforts, diminishing the need for focus on one city or region because the United States remains in good shape on the whole.

Or perhaps we have given up the hope of being able to change. Perhaps we look at ourselves and decide we are inadequate, unworthy, too old, too set in our ways. It is more important to defend our policies – the social contract that is fulfilled in a welfare state that treats the individual as incompetent or the slow growth of trickle-down economics that treats the individual as dispensable. We find ourselves cynical at the process and distrustful of the good will of others, so we give up. Better the devil we know than the chance we won't get to know the devil at all.

But you and I know the power of this day, of the change it can effect in people. Incrementally, if we only take the first step, our lives can improve. If we choose renewal over nostalgia, aspiration over comfort, we can recreate New Orleans in a way that honors its history without repeating its neglect.

You don't think it can be done? I saw the first step on the evening news in the midst of the desperation, a scene that would have been unthinkable at a different time in the past. An African-American man was trapped in his attic by floodwaters. He was pulled to safety by a white rescue worker, a total stranger. As he clambered into the boat, he fell into the arms of his rescuer and said, "I don't know how I can thank you." And the rescuer returned the hug and said, "as long as you're all right, that's all I need."

The tools we need to rebuild New Orleans were forged a generation ago. In the two-steps-forward, one-step-back world of the struggle to create the New South, the will to do better was affirmed. Anyone who lived through that time – including anyone who lived through it in the Commonwealth of Virginia – knows it meant hard choices, honest self-examination and the relinquishing of long-held beliefs and attitudes. It meant redirecting resources and making clear that the privileged were expected to sacrifice their excess so that the deprived could meet their needs. But mostly, it meant a change of heart to make a path, clear the way, remove the obstacles to the path of the people.

And it is not just about New Orleans. It is not just about Gulfport and Biloxi, not just about Port Arthur and Beaumont. It is about Kashmir and Banda Aceh, even if they are not our communities as Americans and as Jews.

And it is not just about the havoc wreaked by hurricanes and floods and earthquakes. It is about recognizing that preventing people from suffering and deprivation is more sacred than rescuing people from suffering and deprivation. It is about finding a lesson in the run of disasters other than "stay out of the way of bad things."

I have known people who have been transformed by Yom Kippur. As a rabbi, as someone who has been delivering sermons for half my life on this day, I wish that I could tell you that the transformation took place because of a sermon I was inspired to write. But mostly, the people I know who were transformed by Yom Kippur were standing at a crossroads of their lives as summer slipped into fall, both literally and metaphorically.

My words have already evaporated into the ether. But you know what small moment penetrated your heart. It was a picture. It was a story. It was a swell of compassion that made you want to be better and more responsive than you are, a road sign as you stood at that crossroads.

V'amar solu-solu panu darekh harimu mikh'shol miderekh ami; "Make a path! Make a path! Clear the way! Remove the obstacle from the path of My people!" It is Yom Kippur for your soul, for our people, for this nation, for our world.