Rabbi's Blog

Kol Nidrei Sermon 5786 / 2025 : Armadas of Goodness in a Stormy World Rabbi Julie Hilton Danan

On the day before Rosh Hashanah in 1943, Rabbi Marcus Melchior stood before his congregation in Copenhagen’s magnificent Great Synagogue. It was the holiest time of year, but instead of preparing his people for prayer, he warned them to flee.

Through a chain of messages, beginning with the courage of Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, a German diplomat stationed in Denmark, Rabbi Melchior had learned that the Nazis were planning to round up the Jews of Denmark on Rosh Hashanah. He instructed everyone to go home, gather their families, notify their friends, and not to be home for the holiday, when unscheduled “guests” would be arriving.

The 46-year-old rabbi, his wife, and five children would be taken in by Pastor Hans Kildeby, Lutheran minister at the Church of Ørslev, sixty miles away. They had only met once, but the Pastor was willing to risk his own life and safety to take them in.

Word spread quickly, through whispered phone calls and quiet visits. That night and the next day, Jews across Denmark disappeared. Some were sheltered by old friends. Some were hidden by strangers. In the coming days, thousands would be ferried across the Øresund Sound to neutral Sweden. When the Nazis came, they were not at home.

I grew up hearing this story. As a child, I pictured a dramatic midnight flotilla with dozens of boats making their way across the strait. This summer, I visited Denmark and learned that the reality was far messier, more frightening, and more human than my childhood imagination. At the Jewish Museum in Copenhagen, I watched a film narrated by Rabbi Melchior’s son, Bent, who himself later became Chief Rabbi of Denmark. He described his own escape as a boy of 10.

Their family was crammed into the dark, smelly fish hold of a small vessel. For seven nauseating hours they were tossed about on the choppy sea. At dawn, they were relieved to see a lighthouse and land—until they realized the sun was rising from the wrong direction. The inexperienced captain had lost his bearings, and they were back on the Danish coast.

The fisherman turned the boat around, and at last they reached Sweden, where the first sight was a small boy was playing on the beach. He spotted the exhausted refugees, ran to get his parents, and the family welcomed these strangers into their home. The boy and the Rabbi’s son became lifelong friends. Even in Sweden, life as a refugee was difficult. But they were alive. While two-thirds of European Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, 99% of Denmark’s nearly 8,000 Jews survived—and most returned home after the war.[i]

It was not a flawless rescue. It was not a single heroic act. It was a messy, improvised, sometimes desperate effort. It depended on the Swedish government, some of the Germans looking the other way, donations from the wealthy, and the bravery of the Danish Resistance. And yet it worked, because countless Danes—neighbors, pastors, fishermen—chose to help. They each brought their small boat, their courage, their willingness. And together, they formed an armada of goodness.

Denmark 1943 was not the only time people formed an impromptu fleet in a moment of crisis.

• On September 11, 2001: When Lower Manhattan was sealed off and hundreds of thousands of people were stranded, the Coast Guard put out a call for boats. Within minutes, an impromptu armada of ferries, tugboats, pleasure craft, police launches, and private fishing boats converged on the harbor. For nine hours, they evacuated half a million people to safety. The “9/11 Boatlift” remains the largest maritime rescue in history—not because of military planning, but because ordinary captains and crews answered the call. The Boatlift demonstrated the extraordinary heroism and selfless actions of everyday citizens who risked their lives to help others during the chaos and despair of that day. 
• During Hurricane Harvey, 2017: When Houston was flooded, the so-called Cajun Navy—an all-volunteer armada of private boat owners—drove in from Louisiana and beyond. They rescued more than 4,500 people and delivered vital supplies. At a time of growing political and social division, they were a shining example of Americans uniting to help others. They simply saw neighbors in danger and stepped forward.

The Danes and Swedes in 1943, the boat captains on 9/11, and the Cajun Navy, are all examples of people who stepped up and did their part in a crisis far beyond their making. They even endangered themselves for the greater cause of preserving life. We often talk about the tough or even “unprecedented” times in which we live but consider those times and the people who did their part in even more perilous circumstances. Each of them had good reason to think of themselves and save themselves, but they chose to show up for others.

Today, it’s not just one crisis. We are living in a time of multiple crises, a storm that threatens to capsize the very societies in which we live. Every day, the news brings waves that can overwhelm our sense of safety and hope:

• A warming climate with fires, floods, and storms.
• Political violence and growing polarization.
• Mass shootings in schools and houses of worship.
• Refugees and asylum seekers searching for safety.
• Rising antisemitism and hatred of all kinds.

It is easy to feel overwhelmed, paralyzed, or hopeless. Many people ask me: “Can one person really make a difference? Do my small actions matter in a world of such vast problems?”

Our tradition answers with clarity. Rabbi Tarfon said: “It is not up to you to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” Hillel taught: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? When am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” The call is not to save the whole world. The call is to bring our boat—whatever its size—into the fleet, and if not now, when?

Every day people respond to the crises of our times by stepping up, becoming part of the solution in creative ways. I could not possibly name everyone in our community who serves others in impressive ways. Some members of our congregation serve as presidents or officers of large philanthropic organizations. Some shine in political organizing. Others continuously support the young people, the ill, and the needy in our local community. Tonight I just want to share a few examples of people who saw—or personally experienced—something very wrong, and responded like those boat captains, by taking others on board and doing good.

• Seaside members Leslie and Alan Slan are longtime social activists.[ii] But when they personally experienced antisemitism, they didn’t just think of themselves. Their Black friends had experienced racism and they were well aware of the rise in hate and prejudice. So together with friends in the Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice and Seaside members Peter Schott, Zita Dresner, and Jan Kliger, they founded SOAH—Speak Out Against Hate. Soon, the groups was drawing hundreds of people to their gatherings and working with business leaders, elected officials, faith leaders, school and youth leaders and first responders, encouraging them to speak to their communities about the need to confront hatred and substitute love.
• After the horrific events of October 7, 2023, many of us felt paralyzed with grief. When Seaside members Sol and Nina Glasner chose to act, they found they were not alone. In early 2024, they joined volunteers from age 22-82, from many countries around the world, to work on Israeli farms, harvesting crops that would have been lost. Each night, they shared stories with fellow volunteers. Sol wrote home (see on this Blog Post): “People are grateful for the opportunity to do something positive and meaningful at a time when so much in the world is going wrong and beyond their control…one  said the experience helped ‘lift the darkness.’ Being in our group [said another] proves ‘there's a worldwide conspiracy to make the world a better place.’”

• Reverend Vicki Gordy-Stith, our beloved colleague here at Epworth, and her husband Rev. Bo endured the unimaginable loss of their son Elijah to gun violence. Her response was “to do what I can to make sure that no other mother goes through the heartbreak we endured.” Rev. Vicki founded the Delaware Beach Chapter of Moms Demand Action, working for safer communities with a multi-faceted approach. Her boat was not alone on that sea. The group’s umbrella organization, Everytown for Gun Safety, now numbers 11 million supporters, including 1000 city mayors, teachers, survivors, gun owners, and students who continue to make a difference on the community, state, and national levels.
• At my previous congregation, I spoke, as I often do, about the plight of refugees and the Torah’s most repeated command: “Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” One couple, both children of Holocaust refuges, really internalized the message.  They gathered an Interfaith Group to support and resettle refugee families. Today, members of our congregation and local community hear the Torah’s call and are working with immigrant communities to protect their rights. 

And those are just a few examples. We can imagine that we each captain a different metaphorical vessel, large or small, luxurious or simple. Your boat may seem small, but it matters. In Denmark, the rescue depended on every kind of boat—from fishing vessels to small skiffs. On 9/11, ferries and tugboats worked side by side with pleasure craft and kayaks. In Houston, flat-bottomed swamp boats joined aluminum canoes.

To riff on the prayer: Echad, Yachid, u-meyuchad: each of us, everyone  individually and all of us united together can make a difference in the world. A good starting place is our own Social Justice/Tikkun Olam Committee and Chesed and Community Service committees, with their amazing volunteers who need more people to join them. Find others and feel your joint energy and dedication, that Armada of Goodness, what one of the volunteers Sol met called, “a worldwide conspiracy to make the world a better place.”

Tonight, on Kol Nidrei, we gather at the threshold of Yom Kippur. Last year is over, and we release the vows we could not keep. We acknowledge our failures together, sins of commission and sins of omission. Jewish tradition says that we are all responsible for one another. Look around and see that none of us is alone. We sail together.

The storms are real. The seas are rough. But history shows us that even in the darkest times, when individuals bring their small craft and join together, they can form an armada of goodness strong enough to change history.

Featured Image: From October 1943 Gerda II was used to ferry Jewish refugees from German occupied Denmark to neutral Sweden. With a group of some ten refugees on board the vessel set out for her official lighthouse duties, but detoured to the Swedish coast. The little ship and her crew (Skipper Otto Andersen, John Hansen, Gerhardt Steffensen and Einar Tønnesen), ferried some 300 Jews to safety. Photo credit:  Ad Meskens - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20743183