My heart is heavy this Shabbat Eve.

This week Morgan Lewis, a highly respected independent investigation firm, released its report of long-standing sexual harassment, abuse and discrimination at my Alma Mater, the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

It is a devastating report that specifically names six individuals about whom reports of egregious misconduct were numerous and credible. The report was devastating to me.

When the report came out, Leo, our rabbinical student son, asked me, “What are you planning to say about this?”

“Nothing,” I replied.  I cannot imagine I responded, what interest a group of retired Jews in Sanibel would have in this scandal.  

Besides, all of this took place long after I graduated. When I was there, there was only one female student, Sally Priesand, who became the only female rabbi in the world. I didn’t know her but from all I could observe, everyone treated her with admiration and respect bordering on awe. At the ceremony when her class was ordained, all her male classmates rose in unison as her name was called in tribute to her achievement and in acknowledgment of the historic moment in Jewish history those of us present were witnessing.

Then I added in response to my son that three of the six individuals named had had significant positive impact that helped push me forward as a rabbinical student.

Leo immediately responded, “Who?” I told him.

All three are deceased now, but when I began HUC my Hebrew background was very rudimentary.  Two of those named encouraged me, and I was very grateful.

The summer I met Vickie, when I was studying at the HUC School of Jewish Communal Service, the President of the College Institute invited me to stay in his family’s home for a month while they were in Israel.

Two years after I was ordained, Vickie and I and our infant son Leo spent a month on vacation in Jerusalem. While we were there, the same President called me to his apartment and asked me to consider leaving my congregation and joining the administration of the College-Institute as his Assistant. It was a heady offer for a young rabbi and certainly a fast trac opportunity to advancement in our movement.

Fortunately, I had the presence of mind, the honesty and the courage (and it took all of these) to tell him what in effect many of you have learned about me over the past four years, “I can’t administer my way out of a paper bag.”  I told him I was moved by his offer, but that my dream had always been to be a congregational rabbi.

Whew! Now I think I really dodged a bullet.

For certain, I did not see any of the well-documented abuses of the ensuing years. Women were treated differently. Female faculty were blocked in their quest for tenure for reasons that had nothing to do with their scholarship, research or teaching ability. Faculty members harassed and propositioned female students. Gay and lesbian students faced discrimination. The President to whom I have referred was one of the perpetrators. In my day there were no openly gay students enrolled although it is clear now that they chose, wisely at the time, to remain in the closet.

But as a student, I saw nothing of this.  It all happened, so to speak, after my time.

I share these sordid findings with you because it is all now in the public domain. I share it with you now because the institution that enabled me to become a rabbi almost half century ago and, is now enabling our son to do the same has been devastated by the fallout from these revelations.

For myself, the report is a shock and a disaster. 

But for Leo and those who study with him it must question the very calling to which they aspire, and the whole thing has me in turmoil.

But I find guidance in this week’s Torah portion.

It begins as you heard with a miraculous dream in which Jacob encounters God.  You remember last week that twice he cheated his brother Esau and was running away from home to escape his wrath.

In the dream of which I just read, though, he receives a promise of redemption and affirmation that he is the one to carry forward the Covenant God made with Abraham and Isaac.  Despite the horrible things he did he can still fulfill his destiny.

But it will not be easy. 

He has twenty hears ahead of him where he will suffer time and again for his misdeeds.  His Uncle Laban will trick him as he tricked his father, by taking advantage of the darkness to substitute Leah for Rachel in his wedding tent in the dark of night.

He will describe the twenty years with Laban as a living hell in which Laban abused and mistreated him and during which, “scorching heat ravaged me by day and frost by night, and sleep fled from my eyes.” (Genesis 31:40)

But at the end of his time at what I have called “The Laban Reformatory,” Jacob will be ready to both atone for what he stole from Esau and take his place as Israel, one who struggles with God for the purpose of making a more just caring and compassionate society in the future.

So, it is with HUC. It will need to atone. It will need to do what it can, as Jacob did with Esau, to redress the grievances of the many who suffered discrimination and academic and sexual abuse.  It will be a hard road ahead.

The Haftarah portion we will study tomorrow from Hosea holds out similar hope. Israel’s sins have been monstrous: idol worship, oppression of the poor and needy. You name it; they were guilty of it. God is all but ready to divorce them completely. 

But, the prophet teaches, if they repent and atone for their sins and return to the ways of God and abandon the ways of idolatry and all it represents, Israel can once again fulfill its destiny as a beacon of God’s teachings to the world.

And so, for the sake of my son and those who study with him and those who will study after them, I pray HUC, as did Jacob will find a way to atone for its institutional sins and the sins of those who led it.  I sense and I hope that HUC-JIR will embrace Hosea’s message, and after a meaningful process of Teshuvah, move forward into the future as a bastion of truth, learning, spirituality and the values of righteousness and justice that our Torah and prophets so eloquently teach.

Too often, over the years, I have heard people say, “The Bible is a book about men in which women receive short shrift.” But as I read Scripture, it is the woman who repeatedly ‘gets it’ and the man who is often ‘clueless.’

It started with Eve

For example, Eve, has been maligned for generations for the “fall of man” when in fact; she is – in my view –the heroine of “the elevation of humanity.” In the Garden of Eden, she had the courage to seek knowledge and trade immortality for a life with the potential to have meaning and purpose. 

Rebecca

Rebecca was another earth shaker. One may certainly question the way she went about things, but she certainly had greater insight into what God needed in terms of an heir to the Covenant of Abraham than did her husband Isaac. She acted decisively on her instinct.

Tamar

Tamar, Judah’s daughter-in-law deserves credit for his transformation from one who sold his brother as a slave into one who would not let his other brother become a slave.  

Zelophehad’s Daughters

The story of Zelophehad’s daughters. In the Book of Numbers marks a vital first step in establishing a woman’s right to inherit her family’s property.

The Women of the Exodus

Then there are the six women who made it possible for Moses to stand before Pharaoh to demand the liberation of our people: the two Hebrew midwives, Shifrah and Puah, Yocheved, Miriam, Pharoah’s daughter, and Moses’ wife Zipporah.

Deborah

Deborah in the book of Judges successfully united the tribes of Zebulon and Naphtali to thwart foreign invaders. She summoned Barak, a leading General, but he refused to lead the troops unless Deborah went with him into battle. She was a judge, military leader, prophet and poet, one of the Bile’s strongest characters of either gender.

Samson’s Mother

In that same book Samson’s unnamed mother received God’s vision that she would bear a son who would begin to redeem the Israelites from the Philistines, but when she told her husband, he was sure they would die. But Manoah’s wife knew better. She was another example of a savvy woman with a clueless husband.

Hannah,

Hannah, Samuel’s mother is another pivotal figure in the Bible. Compared to her, Eli, the High Priest at Shiloh was a bumbling fool.

The Megillot

There are five books of the Bible designated as Megillot (scrolls), Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations Ecclesiastes and Esther, and these are associated with Passover, Shavuot, Tisha B’Av, Sukkot and Purim respectively.

Three of the five Megillot are about very strong women. Purim celebrates the courage of Vashti and Esther. Song of Songs tells of a woman strong enough to resist the blandishments of King Solomon’s harem to follow her shepherd lover.

Then there is Ruth. The story tells of Naomi’s faithfulness and Ruth’s loyalty and the reward she receives to become the great grandmother of King David, who, according to both Jewish and Christian traditions, is to be the ancestor of the Messiah.

I hope the examples of Eve, Rebecca, the six woman who saved Moses’ life, Deborah, Hannah, Samson’s mother, Vashti, Esther, the heroine of Song of Songs, Naomi and Ruth are sufficient to convince everyone that far from being unimportant, many biblical women outshine the men around them in terms of leadership ability and perception of what it was God needed them to do. They are important role models for young women today and an inspiration to all of us.

It is an important that more people learn about these heroic women.

When did we stop caring about Jewish identity? When did we stop caring about Jewish continuity? And why?

When I entered HUC-LA in the fall of 1968, the very first weekend featured an informative seminar on officiating at interfaith marriages. The panel consisted of the eminent Rabbi Max Nussbaum, z’l, of Hollywood Temple Israel, and two others.

Rabbi Nussbaum persuasively represented what was at the time – by a vast margin — the majority position of CCAR rabbis. He explained why he does not officiate. His role, he emphasized, was to create Jewish families and promote Jewish identity.

Another panelist, from the surrounding LA area said he would officiate if the intention of the couple was to have a Jewish home and Jewish children. In other words, he would officiate at an inter-marriage if he felt it would create a Jewish family and foster Jewish identity.

The third position was so outlandishly unusual at the time that they had to import a rabbi all the way from Baltimore to represent it. He stated, “My condition for officiating at a marriage ceremony is that a couple asks me to.”

Little more than half a century later, it seems that this “third position” has become almost mainstream. The evidence is in the online advertisements that many of our colleagues’ post proclaiming themselves eager and happy to perform weddings not only for interfaith couples but in cooperation with clergy of other faiths.

How did we get from where we were in 1968 to where we are today?

One reason is that there are fewer Jews affiliating with congregations, and therefore fewer congregations hiring rabbis. HUC-JIR’s goal in the 80’s, 90’s and to this day seems to be to create as many Reform rabbis as possible without concern for what the job market can carry. The result is that more of our colleagues must find new and creative ways to earn a livelihood. Without question wedding officiation can be a viable avenue.

Then, as has been frequently observed, there is the relatively recent phenomena of “Rabbi Mills,” online “seminaries” offering quick and remote learning processes leading to “ordination.” These “rabbis” in my observation rarely impose conditions on marriage ceremonies they are asked to perform. 

We must also consider the evolutionary development of Outreach. When he first introduced the term in 1978, Rabbi Alexander Schindler, z’l, was very clear: “We oppose intermarriage, but we embrace the intermarried.” Rabbis who worked for the UAHC (which became the URJ) were forbidden to officiate at interfaith ceremonies.

In relatively short order the tension between those two legitimate values – opposing intermarriage while embracing the intermarried — proved difficult if not impossible to maintain. Increasingly, congregations demanded willingness to perform interfaith marriages as a condition of employment.

When, despite my unwillingness to officiate at interfaith marriages, I was invited in 1986 to assume a pulpit in Nashville where my predecessor of 25 years officiated, colleagues from around the country contacted me to ask, “How did you do it?” I doubt I could “do it” today.

Rabbis who changed their position and announced their willingness to officiate reported the joy with which their congregations greeted their decision to become “open-minded” on this important question.

In the wake of “audacious hospitality” recent statements by Reform Rabbis decry any concern with “Jewish identity” and distance themselves from the once universally accepted notion that it is preferable for Jews to marry Jews.

Increasingly too, Rabbis consider it fine for member families to raise their children as both Christians and Jews. Consequently, they willingly perform baby naming or brit milah ceremonies for children who will also be or have been baptized. 

Before long, I fear, the increasingly strong push by many will cause HUC-JIR to welcome as candidates for ordination students with non-Jewish partners. As one younger colleague has shared with me, “It’s not a matter of, “If,” but, “When.”

Some colleagues who believe in these wide-open door innovations happily report upticks in involvement and their ability to reach increasing numbers of Jews. They see these developments as keys to a viable Jewish future.

Since the direction of our movement seems irreversible, I hope they are correct. But I have my doubts. “In The Origins of the Modern Jew Michael Meyer describes Moses Mendelsohn’s effort to live as an Orthodox Jew in the European world of his day as, “an ephemeral solution.”

The prevailing attitudes that are becoming predominant in our movement strike me similarly as an ephemeral solution only.

I cannot see allowing non-Jews to serve as Temple officers, ceasing to talk about the desirability of endogamous marriage, giving Hebrew names to babies also being raised as Christian, or of HUC students with non-Jewish partners becoming rabbis as being in the best interests of Jewish life.

The Story of Balak and Balaam reminds me that no outside force will ever destroy us https://findingourselvesinbiblicalnarratives.net/2015/07/02/before-you-sing-mah-tovu-again-please-read-this-parashat-balak-numbers-222-259/

Although present trends in our movement cause me to worry, that we may destroy ourselves, I cling to hope that we will not.

Despite all we have endured through history, the Eternal One has seen fit to keep our ancient Covenant intact and viable. So, I pray those moving Reform Judaism in the United States in its present direction are wiser than I am. And if they prove not to be, I pray that God will look to the indisputable loftiness of their motives and guide us through the error of their ways.

For the first time in nearly two years Vickie and I are away from Sanibel and in San Francisco visiting our older two children and their families.  

Soon, we shall travel to Connecticut to reconnect meaningfully with our youngest and his growing clan. What a blessing it is to feel safe to travel and be with those we love! 

Recently, after a delicious vegan Chinese meal from one of San Francisco’s many wonderful Szechuan restaurants, I opened my fortune cookie and read: “Success is not a destination. It is making the journey.”

Such wisdom from a fortune cookie!

The cookie’s message reminded me of one of my favorite prayers written by, serendipitously, the late San Francisco Rabbi Alvin Fine, who – also serendipitously – was Vickie’s rabbi as she grew up.

Rabbi Fine wrote:

Birth is a beginning 

And death a destination 

And life is a journey

From childhood to maturity

And youth to age…

From defeat to defeat to defeat

Until we see that victory lies not

At some high point along the way

But in having made the journey…

How quickly the time has gone by! 

While I hope I have made the journey “from childhood to maturity” there is no question I have made the journey from “youth to age.” I must also acknowledge that at 75 I am closer to my “destination” than to my journey’s “beginning.” How did it happen so fast?

Wasn’t it yesterday that our children were babies crawling around on the floor?  Now our three are full-blown adults and have made Vickie and me grandparents eight times with a ninth on the way.

As I watch them play and interact with one another, I count my blessings and replay in my mind a flood of scenes from my past. I recall things I thought about and did when I was their different ages.

Without question, my life has had it share of “high points along the way” as well as its share of “defeats.” But thankfully, my journey continues.

In that regard Sanibel has been a source of untold inspiration.  Every day I see and marvel at people much older than I, who continue to live their lives with purpose and meaning. They are learning new things cultivating new hobbies and pursuing ones that have been meaningful for them over the years with great vigor and enthusiasm.

As I continue my journey, I pray to move – and I pray that all of us can move — in Rabbi Fine’s words:

From offence to forgiveness

From loneliness to love

From joy go gratitude

From pain to compassion

From grief to understanding

From fear to faith.

Vickie and I do not watch a lot of television, but we were glued to our set, hands tightly intertwined, while waiting for the verdict in the Derek Chauvin murder trial.

The trial was unique.

Millions of people were eyewitnesses. There was not a sudden burst of activity that one could either miss or misinterpret.  The world watched in horror as Derek Chauvin choked the life out of George Floyd for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds.

 When the judge announced that the jury had found Derek Chauvin guilty on all three charges, we breathed a sigh of relief.

Much credit must go to Darnella Frazier, the seventeen-year-old woman who filmed the entire episode for the world to see. Her courage enabled us to reach a turning point in American history.

I am proud to have been present on that historic day in 1987 when the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion honored Rosa Parks. The citation for the Roger E. Joseph Prize presented to Mrs. Parks reads: “who …with total conviction and courage, launched a boycott, changed a law, and helped reform a nation. Her indomitable spirit was the life force and catalyst for what has become the civil rights movement of this country.”

My hope is that it will not take HUC-JIR 32 years to honor Darnella Frazier in a similar manner. Her courage has sent a message across the cities, towns, and villages of the United States that people of color suspected of misdemeanor crimes are not subject to summary execution by the police.

Make no mistake! The overwhelming majority of police officers are dedicated professionals, who risk their lives daily to truly protect and serve all the citizens of our country.

Growing up, I was always proud of my cousin, Stanley Ferber, and his distinguished career as a member of the New York City Police Department.

Recently, I read the account of LaVonte Dell a black man pulled over by a white officer, Joshua Scaglione. When the officer asked why, Mr. Dell’s daughter was not in a car seat, he replied that it had been a tough year, money was tight, and he could not afford one. Officer Scaglione took Mr. Dell to Walmart where he purchased a car seat for him with his own money.

When asked why, the officer said: “I’m just doing my job.  What good would giving you a ticket do besides putting you further in the hole?”

Yes, Officer Scaglione felt he was just doing his job.  In a similar way, so did Darnella Frazier. 

In each of the five years preceding the pandemic, my wife Vickie and I spent between five and ten weeks each year in Germany teaching high school students about the Shoah. In our lessons we stress that the Holocaust did not happen only because of the unspeakable evil of Hitler and his lieutenants. It happened because too many everyday people were willing to look the other way.

So, we emphasize, when you see evil — let’s say a group of students bullying another — you can do one of three things.  You can join in and be popular. You can pretend it’s not your problem and walk away. Or you can have the courage of Darnella Frazier and call out the evil you are witnessing.

The Holiness Code (Leviticus 19:16) demands that we “not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.”  In other words, in Jewish thinking there is no such thing as an innocent bystander.

Clearly Darnella Frazier understood the importance of this vital principle of Torah.  The world will be a better place if all of us do as well.                                                                                                                                                                                     

With Passover approaching my thoughts turn to Elijah for whom we open the door at our Seder to express the hope that we can make the world better than it is.

Elijah is the most storied character in all of the Hebrew Bible.  If one counts Midrashim there are more Elijah stories then there are stories about Moses (and more than the character who has the second largest number of Midrashic vignettes, Solomon). This phenomenon is due in large measure to the work of the prophet Malachi who at the end of his book transformed Elijah from a ninth pre-Christian c. figure of might and courage to the one who in Jewish longing would return one day to announce the coming of the Messiah and with him bring an end of war and bloodshed.  With the coming of the Messiah an era of everlasting peace and harmony would begin on earth.  Jews, of course, still await such a messiah or find inspiration for their efforts to create a world of peace and harmony in the hope that Elijah represents.  For Christians, Jesus is that Messiah, and they work to prepare the world for his return when the Jewish messianic hope will be fulfilled.

But the ninth C. BCE Elijah was subject to the same emotional highs and low that many of us experience. He had been the fearless champion of the Almighty yet – like many who selflessly give of themselves – he has fallen into a deep depression of self-doubt.  Even after his greatest triumph – decisively defeating the prophets of Ba’al on Mount Carmel — he fears that his work has been for naught and will have no lasting effect.  And worse, the wicked Jezebel still has a price on his head.

God tries to encourage him and by mystically transporting him to Mount Sinai (Horeb) where, like Moses — whose career Elijah’s parallels in many ways – Elijah stays on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights.  There he is granted an extraordinary vision that offers those of us who believe today one of the most effective ways of explaining God’s presence in our lives.  Like Moses, and like many of us, Elijah seeks evidence that God is real!  God wants to help and sends a great wind, but God is not in the wind.   Then God sends an earthquake, but God is not in the earthquake, nor is God in a fire.  But Elijah – like many of us – does perceive God’s reality in Kol D’mamah Daka, a still small voice.

Yes, if we listen very carefully we can perceive God’s will for us in a voice that speaks to us from the quiet stillness of our hearts.  It is that voice that encourages us to make the choice to use our talents in whatever ways we can for the benefit of others.  But the Voice only encourages; it does not compel. The choice as to how we use our talents is ours.

As profound and wonderful as it was, though, not even God’s voice could completely lift the cloud of despair from Elijah, and God knows the time has come for him – as it came for – to relinquish his role as God’s prophetic representative.  The Eternal One tells Elijah to anoint Elisha to serve as prophet in his place.

This should not be perceived as punishment.  At the waters of Meribah (Numbers 20) God knew that Moses’ unparalleled career had to end and that he would not be the one to lead the Children of Israel  — despite his eager desire to do so – into the Promised Land.  Like Moses and Elijah we must all some day relinquish our hold on the raison d’etre of our lives and trust others to carry on our work.

Those of us who aspire to be servants of the Almighty like Moses and Elijah can find valuable instruction here.  Our task is to do as much as we can for as long as we can. We must realize, though, that our prime years of productive service will not last forever.  That knowledge should give us urgency to make the most that we can out of every day that we have.  And, as the time approaches for us to let go, seek to empower others to carry forward the work that gives meaning and purpose to our lives.

Rabbi Stephen Fuchs

If you attended Shabbat Eve worship at Temple Isaiah in Columbia, Maryland on March 19, 1976 you heard me deliver a sermon titled: “From the Top of the Hill Looking Down: Thoughts on Reaching Thirty.”

For those of you who could not make it that night I said:

Getting up early for morning Squash is not so easy as it once was, and each day the bathroom mirror testifies to the presence of an additional gray hair.  Age has been creeping up on me, and last Tuesday it tapped me – not at all gently – on the shoulder.

“celebrated,” I continued, “is hardly the appropriate word to associate with my thirtieth birthday…’endured would be more descriptive.

The trauma of the completion of my third decade lies in the passage of youth.  I am not old – just older –and not really young anymore. I am at the height of my physical strength, but I can expect my strength only to diminish. I feel like one at the top of a hill.  All that is left is the descent.

Then I recalled attending a lovely celebration on my birthday a few days prior at Tio Pepe’s, one of Baltimore’s finest restaurants to celebrate the retirement of Rabbi Abraham Shaw who was completing forty years as Rabbi of Temple Oheb Shalom in Baltimore.

After drinking just one margarita that night, it was easy for me to close my eyes and imagine the celebration was not for Rabbi Shaw but for my thirtieth birthday. I began to wonder what my reflections would be 40 years later when I looked back, hopefully with the same satisfaction as Rabbi Shaw, on my rabbinical career.

I looked around our private room that night and formulated my perceptions of the older colleagues  (I was easily the youngest one there) with whom I sat:

One I labeled, “a bookworm rabbi,” who so immersed himself in Jewish study and writing of which most of his congregants understood and cared little. Yet they basked in the reflected glory of “their rabbi’s” scholarly achievements.

I classified another celebrant as “the businessman rabbi,” who, conducted his rabbinate like a corporate executive. He was a cracker-jack administrator and a great PR person with a ready smile and the knack for running from place to place and getting lots and lots of things done.  Unfortunately, I judged, that way of life allows little time for in-depth study, family life and intense personal involvement with the joy and sorrows of those he (and they were all he’s rabbis in the room were he’s at that time) serves.

There was another rabbinic colleague I considered an “acquiescent.” He just seemed to roll with the punches, does his best to give people what they want while seeming to have lost the desire that might have once burned inside of him to really challenge his congregants from the pulpit.

As I look back today, perhaps I judged my colleagues too harshly. After all, each was considered a success, but on that night forty-five years ago I resolved I would not become like a bookworm, the businessman or the acquiescent with whom I dined.

I promised myself that I would never lose my idealism, my desire to really make a difference in people’s lives or my personal integrity for the sake of popularity or position. 

I have tried my very best to keep that promise. 

But I wonder how a young colleague at my 75^th birthday celebration would judge me.

I feel so blessed to have landed \in Sanibel where you inspire me to realize that 75 doesn’t have to be old. Those of you who are five, ten, fifteen and 20 years older than I have been such a blessing to me. You have made me realize that with God’s help I can still be productive and still make small differences in people’s lives. Jeanette Keyser, who died this past Shabbat at age 94 inspired me every time she trundled or wheeled herself into this room. Her body was frail, but her eyes shone with curiosity and the desire to learn.  She never lost her sense of wonder, and that is what I want for myself.

As I arrived at the tennis court on my birthday, Peter Danford wished me a happy birthday and friends asked me, “How do you plan to celebrate?”

“I am celebrating,” I answered, “by being here in the sunshine to play the game I love so much.”

Oh, I have seen enough and heard enough and experienced enough in my life personally to know that things can change in an instant. 

When they cracked my chest open for the first time to replace my congenitally defective aortic valve when I was fifty, I could not imagine my 75^th birthday. There have been other significant bumps in my road including the need to open my chest a second time in 2012 to replace the replacement valve and sheath a life-threatening ascending aortic aneurysm. So, believe me, I know robust good health will not last forever, and it can vanish at any moment.

As I stand before you tonight the words I just read from the Torah, the exact words I read for the first time as a Bar Mitzvah 62 years ago resonate more than ever. I know that too many times (and once is already too many times) words I have spoken or things I have done have caused hurt and pain to people I love or people who depended on me in other ways. I never meant to. I was not aware on those occasions that I had given offense. But the Torah starkly reminds me that ignorance is no excuse. I am still guilty and must take responsibility for my actions as must we all. 

So, my sermon to myself at 75, which I invite you to apply to yourselves if you deem it appropriate comes from the third verse of Psalm 141:  

“Set a guard, O Eternal One, to my mouth. Keep watch at the door of my lips.”

With that important admonition in mind, now that I am 75 I redouble my desire to live every day as fully as I can, enjoy what pleasure life affords me and try my best to fulfill the charge God made to Abraham 4000 years ago as he launched the new way of life, we now call Judaism:  והיה ברכה

“Be a Blessing,” to myself, my loved ones, to all of you, and all of those whose lives I may yet touch.

Amen