At the start of a new Jewish year, one of Judaism’s leading thinkers asks what it truly means to choose life. Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove and Jon Frankel welcome renowned Jewish thinker Rabbi Yitz Greenberg for a Rosh Hashanah conversation about creation, renewal and the choices that give life meaning. Greenberg reflects on his new collection, Life Against Death, and explores Jewish responsibility, Israel, pluralism and why the High Holidays call us not simply to reflect—but to choose life.
What does Rosh Hashanah ask of us beyond apples, honey and the promise of a new beginning? Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove and Jon Frankel begin their Rosh Hashanah special with a candid conversation about the High Holidays—the joy of renewal, the weight of Yom Kippur and the difficult work of repairing relationships before we ever enter the synagogue.
They are joined by renowned theologian, scholar and activist Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg, who reframes Rosh Hashanah as something even more fundamental: the holiday of creation. For Greenberg, recognizing that life is finite gives every human being a responsibility to decide how we will use the time we have. Every word, relationship and action presents a choice between forces that strengthen life and those that diminish it.
That idea also sits at the heart of Greenberg’s new collection, Life Against Death. The conversation moves from the Holocaust and the renewal of Jewish life to October 7, Israel, Zionism and the increasingly difficult relationship between Israel and American Jewry. Greenberg and Cosgrove wrestle with how Jews can defend Jewish self-determination while remaining willing to criticize Israel and its government—and why a healthy Jewish community needs room for disagreement, competing voices and genuine pluralism.
At the beginning of a new year, Greenberg ultimately offers both a challenge and a hopeful vision: human beings have extraordinary agency. We cannot perfect the world all at once, but moment by moment, choice by choice, we can move it toward life.
Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg:
https://www.hadar.org/about/people/rabbi-yitz-greenberg
Life Against Death:
Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove:
https://www.instagram.com/elliot_cosgrove
Park Avenue Synagogue:
https://www.pasyn.org
https://www.instagram.com/parkavenuesyn/#
Jon Frankel: