Some of you may remember one of my favorite stories about the man who was concerned that his wife was losing her hearing and so sought the advice of a family physician. The doctor told him, “Here is a simple test. When you come home tonight, as you enter the front door call out , “Honey, what’s for dinner?” If she doesn’t answer, walk in half way into the house and ask again. If she still doesn’t answer, go all the way into the kitchen and ask again, and you will know she has a real hearing problem.” So the man goes home, opens up the front door and calls out, “I’m home, honey what‘s for dinner?” Nothing. He walks halfway into the house and asks again: “Honey, what’s for dinner?” Still nothing. So he walks all the way into the kitchen and asks, “Honey, what’s for dinner?” At which point his wife turns around and says, “For the third time, Pot roast!” The power of denial is perhaps one of our most enduring and ubiquitous defense mechanisms of the human spirit. We live each day literally in the shadow of death, yet we act as if it won’t really ever happen to us.

Perhaps it is simply because to really face up to the transformation we are all living through at this very moment in history is so frightening to comprehend, that our minds, our emotions, our sensitivities and sensibilities refuse to allow it in – for fear it will simply overwhelm us.

We sit alone or around our dinner tables and cocktail parties and when we have the courage, we wonder aloud why it is that we haven’t yet experienced some lone individual driven by a hatred for the United States and the freedoms we cherish strapping explosives to his body and blowing himself up in the middle of the 3rd street promenade or the Westside Pavilion. And even as we speak the words or formulate the thoughts, we shudder at the certainty that the world today is populated by hundreds if not thousands of young men and women who if given the chance, would do just that.

What in previous eras was considered so uncivilized as to be out of the question even in war – like the deliberate targeting of civilian populations, or suicide as a fundamental military tactic, or the public beheading of civilian captives – indeed, just about anything you can imagine in your worst nightmares, is now on the table.

Of course there are still some states that cause trouble – North Korea, Iran, Syria, Sudan, but mostly the international world order is under the most profound threat perhaps in the entire history of humanity, because of individuals.

There is a new war we are fighting in the world – a war with dangerous, pernicious individuals, who are the personification of evil in the modern world. They have mobility, access to information, and can communicate throughout the world with the touch of a button from any laptop computer almost anywhere on the planet.

If the 9/11 Commission taught us anything, it was our country’s great difficulty in coping with the small, ever-changing mobile target presented by the individual villain alone or in small groups of just a few. We all know too, too well, how just a few committed individuals willing to die for their cause could bring down those giant twin towers and along with them the very foundation of our sense of security forever.

We all grew up with our hero literally and figuratively being the “Lone Ranger.” From Superman to Spiderman - living alone, in secret, they were supposed to be defenders of truth, justice and the American Way.

Our inability to find and capture Osama Bin Laden simply underscores the fundamental nature of our 21st century military and social challenges. The price of crude oil, the rising-out-of-control prices at the pump down the street, can be turned on a dime by the actions of a few individuals with malevolent intent.

Individuals enter alliances with others across oceans and continents with the snap of a finger. Just a small group of individuals armed with only a computer can now disseminate messages and information that open new chapters of terrorism - mobilizing, recruiting, indoctrinating. Simply by posting a few messages and pictures on the internet, a few individuals in Saudi Arabia, the people who beheaded Paul Johnson sought to intimidate the US – the greatest superpower in the world – through the push of a couple of buttons, posting a few images to incite people half a world away.

The power of one? One of the best selling books of the entire last year was called, The Power of One, and it really isn’t such a novel idea. After all, our Mishna taught 2,000 years ago, the whole world was created for the sake of one person; and if you save one life it is as if you saved the entire world. An astounding statement – each person’s worth is infinite, equivalent to the entire world – because that is how it has always really been – everything of ultimate value in our world, has come about because of the power of one.

Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Jonas Salk, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks, Mahatma Ghandi, Albert Schweitzer, Helen Keller, Abraham Lincoln, Alfred Nobel, David Ben Gurion, Yitzhak Rabin, Elie Wiesel, Anne Frank, Golda Meir, John F. Kennedy, Louis Pasteur, Mother Teresa, Michaelangelo, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, VanGogh, Rodin, Bruno Bettleheim, Bill Gates, Christopher Reeve, Plato, Aristotle, Dickens, Dostoevsky…THE POWER OF ONE.

Who is to say whether your child will become someone whose name will be added to these others? Your power to make a difference by what you do in your own home to create a loving, nurturing environment where your children will grow up to become great scientists, artists, educators, lawyers, scholars, musicians, doctors, inventors, teachers, statespeople, world leaders should never be underestimated.

The power of one is what Judaism has always championed. The world was created through one individual the Midrash teaches, so that no one can say, “My ancestors were better than yours.” Jewish civilization itself, is the result of the power of one – one person, Abraham who was willing to say, “Hineni” – here I am and hear the call of the Divine.

Is it an accident that our tradition created the legend of the Lamed Vav Tzadikim? That it is only because of 36 Righteous Individuals in every generation that the entire world is sustained? I don’t think so.

So easy to say, so very, very hard to really do. With great power, comes great responsibility. And you and I have great power. We are the wealthiest Jewish community in history. We are the most influential Jewish community in history. And we live in the single most powerful nation in the history of the world. Hiding is not an option.

Leo Tolstoy said, “Life is a place of service.” And he didn’t mean this type of service. He meant the kind of service represented by our historic Tikun Olam Directory that we proudly passed out tonight. Every one of the more than 100 mitzvah opportunities that our congregants participate in which are listed in this directory has one name listed by it. The power of one to make a commitment to make a difference in the our community and perhaps the entire world.

Margaret Mead once said, “Don’t ever think that a few, committed people can’t change the world, for that is how it has ever been.”

Wiesel says, “I remember the night there was as knock on the window – it didn’t take much courage, a knock on the window, and because of that man my family was saved and I carried the image of the righteous gentile in my heart forever.”

Many of you do. But what if you are wrong? What if you really are here for a purpose? A purpose that only you can rightly do? That is really what the legend of the 36 righteous is all about – because according to that legend, they don’t know who they are either.

Several years ago, a woman who died in New York City left a strange

Well, of course the papers and radio stations found out about it and played it for all it was worth. Everybody had a few chuckles over the farce. So, after going through all the necessary legal steps, a final report was given to the court which read, “After due and diligent search, God cannot be found in New York City.”

Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund once said: “We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make, which over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.”

After all, there are only two basic attitudes toward life—one of hope and one of dread—one of trust, the other of fear—one of optimism, the other of gloom. We can live each day like the famous misprint in the weather forecast that read: “There is a five percent chance of today and tomorrow.” Or we can emulate Albert Einstein.

That is our Yom Kippur challenge as well. With Einstein, to see a universe of miracles. There is a woman in our congregation who saw a problem in our community and told me, “I kept thinking someone should do something about that. And then I realized, I am someone.” Indeed, there really is only the power of one. But you and I are some one. And just like in every age, that will always be enough.