After being involved in a strategic vision for Jewish Life on campus, I decided to run for president of the Hillel at Northwestern University. In my Junior year, I had been a leader of two Jewish programs, one focused on Israel and the second one combating revisionist Holocaust history, but it was only a rare occasion that I found myself at Shabbat services. Upon winning the election the Rabbi pulled me into his office and said, "Josh, if you're going to be president you are going to need to come to services more often."

I explained to him that at that point in my life I had found prayer to be somewhat hypocritical. We would have a Friday night service and pray for the world to be a better place and then sit down for a nice dinner. For me then, there was a contradiction in praying to end hunger and then having an abundance of food, much of which was thrown away. I explained that I was more committed to social action than to prayer.

Instead of rebuking me, my Rabbi said I reminded him of Isaiah’s words in the Yom Kippur Haftorah. Isaiah tells the people to fast without it leading to action is meaningless. "Is not the fast I desire the unlocking the chains of wickedness, the loosening of exploitation, the freeing of those oppressed...? Is it not the sharing of bread with the hungry, the bringing of the wretched into your home, clothing the naked and not hiding from your kin in need?"

He reminded me that prayer can lead to action and when action is already engaged, prayer can offer support, direction and connection. This is a year where we are called to join both our prayer and action in participating in this upcoming election. We have an opportunity to embrace Isaiah’s words this Yom Kippur and have our fast have meaning.

As kin in need, gay and lesbians Jews’ lives are being voted on, this November 2^nd election. Though many think the constitutional amendment is about gay marriage, it is not. It is about using our constitution as an instrument of discrimination, an act that our Jewish community has haunting reminders of in the Nuremberg Laws. The intent of this amendment is not to prohibit gay marriage since the GA legal code already has a Defense of Marriage Act defining marriage between one man and one woman and prohibits recognition of any unions deemed legal by any other state. This constitutional amendment jeopardizes any legal protection of gay and lesbian couples under the law including wills, hospital visitation, domestic partnership benefits, families rights, etc.

We are your kin. We are your children, your parents, your teachers, your congregants,your lawyers, your rabbis, your doctors, clients, neighbors and patients. Our lives are under attack and we this year we need both your prayers and your actions. Please help us to defeat this amendment and say NO to discrimination. Make 5765 a year all of us can look forward to. May we be inscribed in the Book of Life.