Yom Kippur: Being a Proud Reform Jew

Sermon by Rabbi Jennifer Hartman
2012/5773

Recently a blog post circulated among reform rabbis [1]. The article surprised and appalled many of us. Written by Rabbi Berg Wein, an orthodox rabbi, the article begins: “The modern liberal Jew has redefined Judaism according to his or her wants and fashion. The modern liberal Jew cares more about their child attending an Ivy League school then having a Jewish education, is ashamed of Israel and abhors tribal loyalties”. The rabbi goes on to say: “As long as attending Harvard or Yale is more important to Jewish parents than giving their children a basic Jewish education and the ephemeral pursuit of utopian world justice is more important than Shabbat or marrying a Jew then the disappearance of large swaths of American Jewry is guaranteed”.

This is quite the criticism of modern liberal Judaism! Wein is not alone in his critique. A professor of mine at the Hebrew Union College, Steven M. Cohen, writes and teaches that intermarriage will bring about the end of Judaism [2]. This he told to a class of 25 rabbinical students, 20% of whom were born into intermarried families. Wein and Cohen are only representing half of the picture! They are not in this synagogue, and they do not see what I see every day.

Rabbi Wein accuses us of being ashamed of Israel. We are not ashamed of Israel. We, especially those of us under 35, ask different questions than previous generations. This does not however mean that our connection has weakened. Almost half of last year’s confirmation class chose to spend an extended amount of time in Israel and Temple Israel sends a full congregational trip to Israel every year. I have spoken with people in their 20s and 30s so eager to take a trip to Israel they have opened savings accounts to make this a reality. In addition, programs on Israel fill our auditorium!

We are accused of living Judaism in a way that is unsustainable. I find this difficult to believe when 16 and 17 year old students ask to continue their Jewish education past confirmation. With sports and exams, extracurricular activities and homework, they still want to commit time to learning and being together in the synagogue, when we engage them in real relationship and meet them where they are at.

I believe that Jewish families want to make a commitment to Judaism when we have great interest in our pilot program, Judaism in Real Time. This program asks families to commit time to learning, studying and practicing Judaism together, in their homes and the synagogue. On Rosh Hashanah afternoon we gathered together to eat apples and hone, sing songs and discuss the lessons of this season. Instead of parents dropping their children off at religious school or Hebrew school and continuing on with their day, Jewish learning becomes a family endeavor. These are families committed to living the Jewish calendar, not changing it to fit their needs.

I believe in the power of Reform Jewish theology when conversion students sit in my office and tell me that their attraction to Judaism came from our emphasis on education and tikkun olam. They tell me they love the fact that Judaism does not ask you to leave your analytical skills at the door when you enter the building. They feel empowered by the reform movement’s tag line “choice through knowledge”. This lets them know that they will be able to live a Jewish life that makes sense to them within the context of the modern world. The pursuit of world justice is not our weakness, but one of our greatest strengths. Isaiah tells the Israelites to be a “light unto the nations.” How can we possibly do this if we only interact with the Jewish community? One of the most famous quotes by Rabbi Hillel is: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when? We live out our religious ideals and our desire to work for the good of the community when we work to improve the world. By actively supporting the Vote No campaign Temple Israel demonstrates to all the residents of Minnesota that as Jews we perceive that all people are created B’tzelim Eloheim, in the image of God. We express to all that we will not stand idly by as one group is discriminated against. Our confirmation students learn this lesson when they travel to the Religious Action Center in Washington D.C. and meet our congressional representative and senators to make their cases for or against issues about which they are passionate. Last year 100% of our class attended this trip and it looks like we will be close to the same this year. These are students who understand that their Judaism is about both civic and religious responsibility.

If there is anything that the High Holy Days teach us, it is that life is complicated and messy! Judaism sets out black and white principles of right and wrong, but we live in the grey area between them. We want to come to Temple on Yom Kippur, but we don’t really understand why we can’t break our fast with eggs and bacon. We love and support Israel and we want to visit, but we also want to go to Spain, Italy and France. We want to fall in love with who we fall in love with, but we want to marry them under a chuppah and break a glass. We think peace will come in the Middle East, but we are afraid that it might not. Student Andrew Lustig insightfully and elegantly describes our complex, ambivalent, passionate identification in his spoken word poem posted on you tube [3]. He tells the viewer: 

“I am the Jewish star tattooed on the chest of the Jewish teenager who chooses to rebel against his parents and grandparents warnings of a lonely goyim cemetery by embracing that same Judaism and making permanent my Jewish identity.” “I am a concept foreign to the rest of the world, I am not Judaism I am sleep away camp.” “I am your grandmother who has seen Auschwitz and Berkenow, who has seen 49, 67 and 73; who is tired of trying to make peace with those people who just want to blow up buses and destroy her people. I am the 19 yr old who has seen Budress, Waltz with Bashir and Don’t mess with the Zohan and who thinks, who knows, peace is possible. I am the complicated reason you take the cheese off the burger you eat at the Saturday morning tailgate. I am never asked if I have horns or a pot of gold, if I rule the world or killed Jesus. I am asked where my black hat is, if I really get 8 presents on my Christmas, why my side burns aren’t long and if I really have never tasted pork. I am asked what a gefilta fish is, I say I don’t know, I don’t like it, nobody does, but we eat it anyway”.

“I am on JDate and not match.com because well it is just easier that way. I am your Hebrew name, your Israeli cousins, your torah portion, your 13 candles, your bat mitzvah dress and the cute Israeli soldier on your birthright bus. I am 18 when I discover that Israel is not actually a Garden of Eden, of milk and honey where Jews of all backgrounds come together eternally grateful to do a hora in the streets. I am still confident that it will be. I am the way your stomach forgets to be hungry and your lungs forget to breathe when the rabbi commands the final tekiah gedolah and the entire congregation, the congregation that is not a synagogue but an entire people listening to the call of the ram’s horn. I am Jewish.” [3]  

Many of us can relate to something in this poem. This spoken word piece was posted on YouTube on January 11th, 2012 and has had over 250,000 hits. The video has been posted on websites and blogs. It speaks to Jews because it highlights the contradictions and struggles with which we all live. Judaism is a religion but also a culture, it is about community but also the individual, it is a legal system but also a system of belief. It is particularistic, defining Jews as God’s chosen people, but also universalistic with an understanding that all human beings are needed to make the world a fair and just place. It is a religion that is over 5,000 years old yet it is still relevant. It is always the same yet ever changing and right now we are in a period of great change. As Rabbi Zimmerman spoke about on Erev Rosh Hashanah, the world is changing quickly around us and as Jews we must decide if we will change with it or become irrelevant.

Judaism has a great tradition of change. “Rabbi Moses Isserles the great author of the preeminent code of Jewish law, the Shulchan Aruch, enunciated the principle of “Ha-idana – the present time” in his own legal writings. This principle holds that if contemporary sociological conditions and philosophical understandings have changed from what they were in earlier epochs, then adaptations and changes in customs and practices are permitted and even required. Rabbi Isserles teaches us that Judaism’s views change and adaptation is part of our heritage, even as our people continue to find rootedness and celebrate the sense of community that derives from the traditions that we have inherited.” [4] Moses, a Jew may have been given the Torah for the Israelites, but Adam, a human, was given dominion over all the earth. We are the inheritors of both of these gifts. We are Jewish. We feel it in our bodies and souls. But, we are also human beings and we want to be as much a part of the world community as we are a part of our Jewish community. Many clergy reacted defensively to much of Rabbi Wein’s article. But, when we took a step back, we realized the article had some valid points. The article brings to light truths that we must take into consideration if we are to truly understand ourselves and others perception of us, even if it is hard to hear. Our commitment to Israel may seem as if it is waning when families choose to send their teenager on a summer experience to an obscure part of the world rather than Israel because they can go on Birthright for free. Birthright is an amazing and wonderful opportunity for students disconnected from Judaism. It gives them a chance to explore their Jewish roots and uncover their Jewish heritage. All too often it is used by people with strong Jewish upbringings who choose not to prioritize exploring their homeland.

We cannot ignore Wein’s statement that Judaism is in danger when parents do not prioritize Jewish education. We at Temple Israel can only teach the children who enter our classrooms, and you, the parents and grandparents are the only ones who can guarantee they will be there. I remember when I was in 6th grade. I, the child of a cantor and ordained rabbi, asked my mom if I could end religious school with my Bat Mitzvah. My mom looked at me and said: “I would never let you drop out of secular school at 13 what makes you think I would let you drop out of religious school at 13?” That, as they say, was the end of the discussion. With one sentence my mom taught me the importance of Jewish education.

The modern world gives us a choice. We can choose to be Jewish or we can choose to leave our heritage behind. We can choose to celebrate our Judaism only in our home and hide our faith outside, or we can live our Judaism wherever we are. These are difficult decisions for us to make because we feel so comfortable in the modern world. I mean, how can we possibly feel like outsiders when Jon Stewart proudly speaks about being Jewish and the Colbert Report does a bit on Rosh Hashanah? Yet, we still struggle with our choices. I know, because I have to make them also.

Temple Israel has been blessed with a wonderful female rabbi for 25 years. Our members are not surprised to see a rabbi in heels or wearing a dress or make-up. Even though there have been women in the rabbinate for over 30 years, in the popular imagination a rabbi is still an old man with a white beard and long payyos. I feel lucky to be able to be a rabbi in a congregation where I can truly be myself. You would be surprised by how many people in New York City were stunned to hear that I was in rabbinical school.

In a city with 1.5 million Jews one would think the average person would know what it means to be a rabbi, yet I would get some truly interesting questions and comments. My favorites were: “Is that like a nun?” and “Can rabbis get married?” I must be honest. I sometimes wondered if it was worth telling people that I was studying to become a rabbi. It would not be hard to give myself a new profession. Whereas here in Minneapolis it feels like every other person works for General Mills or Target, in New York, its finance. All I would have to do is say that I worked in finance, pick one of the five or six major firms, and the conversation would quickly turn to a new topic. It would be a fast and easy way to avoid what often became an awkward and intense conversation.

How do I know it would be so easy? I tried it a few times. I was curious. What would it feel like to hide my profession? How would the conversation flow without the look of shock, the quizzical expression, the fumbling with what to say next? How would I feel different if I did not have to explain to the person standing next to me that really I am a normal person?

Well, I can tell you now, it did not feel good. It was uncomfortable. It was a lie. I was not presenting my true self. The conversations went flat. It had nowhere to go because I was not being myself. I loved that I was studying to be a Rabbi and I am proud to be a Rabbi. Judaism is, and has always been, a big part of who I am. Judaism gives me direction in a complicated world. It is where I turn when I have big questions or small problems. Jewish holidays and rituals are what bring my family together. It is my moral compass, my guide when life becomes confusing.

I chose, consciously and purposefully, to commit to Reform Judaism. I did not pick a form of Judaism that is the easy way out, I did not pick Judaism for lazy Jews, I did not pick inauthentic, unsustainable Judaism. I did pick Judaism that is complicated and difficult because I believe in its message. I did pick Judaism that enhances life through ritual and tradition. I did pick Judaism that moves my soul and my spirit. I did pick Judaism that provides me with guideposts in a universe that is often hard to navigate.

Reform Judaism, liberal Judaism, is not perfect. Judaism is over 5000 years old while Reform Judaism is not even 200 years old. We still have to work to identify how we can best be Jewish in this ever spinning world. We do not even have a name that properly fits us. We are called– Reform, liberal – none are quite right. We need to continue to explore our relationship to each other, to Israel and to the wider community. We need to commit ourselves to Jewish learning and Jewish practice. We need to solidify our feelings of community. During this time of soul searching we need to examine the criticisms imposed on us and look into our communal selves to see if we have indeed missed the mark. Liberal Judaism has much to offer the Jewish and secular worlds. There is meaning we can garner and purpose we can uncover if we are willing to take the time to do so.

We will only gain as individuals and as a community when we strengthen or beliefs and our practice. I would like to end by adding my own versus to Andrew Lustig’s poem: “I am the proud Bat Mitzvah who leads Shabbat morning services for my community. I am the student who is sad to go on summer vacation because I will miss my religious school friends. I am the 20 something who attends Shabbat evening services and then goes to dinner with friends. I am the teenager who learns about my heritage while trekking through Israel with peers. I am wearing high heels, fashionable clothes and a kippah to lead services. I am what a modern rabbi looks like. I am how a modern Jew acts. I am proud.”

[1] http://www.rabbiwein.com/blog/post-1378.html

[2] http://www.jewishlife.org/pdf/steven_cohen_paper.pdf

[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJe0uqVGZJA

[4] Rabbi David Ellison, HUC-JIR Chronicle 74

Erev Yom Kippur: Sanctuary Service

Sermon by Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman
2012/5773

The Kol Nidre Blessing and prayer is an act of contrition to say that we are sorry for the wrongs and sins – not that we have done last year – but that we will do this year. Historically, it is a prayer that was created during the Spanish Inquisition when Jews were made to say “yes” when they meant “no,” to convert to Christianity to save their lives. To say the Kol Nidre prayer was allowing them to observe Judaism in secret but in public having to have another identity.

Historically, it was a way for them to acknowledge that they know they would sin the minute they left that service. But really, there’s something eternal in that prayer, something about the future that’s really what I believe the Jewish people is all about, about leaving a legacy for the future, making the world better. That’s at the heart of the Kol Nidre prayer and blessing and service – we look to the future.

It’s interesting because I find that people are more focused on the here and now and actually are not looking beyond their own needs. We more often than not are like the woman who, in the airport, goes to buy a newspaper and a small package of cookies. She sits at the gate waiting for her plane to arrive and all of a sudden, she hears a rustling. A man in a nice suit is eating a cookie. He sits right behind her. He’s eating her cookie! She is outraged. So she takes one herself. Then what happens – she hears rustling again. “I can’t believe it“– she can’t even look at him, she’s so angry. So she takes another one. What’s worse – the last cookie – you know what he does? He breaks it in half, and sends half of it over to her. He gets up and he leaves. She’s just fuming, she’s playing in her mind what happened over and over and over again, and then, her plane arrives, her section is called, and she opens her purse to get out her boarding pass. And there is her unopened package of cookies.

Whose cookie is it? It seems as though we are taught from a very young age about whose cookie it is. Is it yours? No, it’s mine. It just doesn’t really leave a legacy, does it? It’s about the here and now where you don’t even notice what’s right in front of you. We seem to be so caught up in that.

For me, it really is about the text from the book of Joel that says “Your children will teach their children, and their children their children, and their children the generations after.” When you’re worrying about your cookie, you’re not looking to the world and to the future and what you want to leave behind. You’re looking at just what you want.

I think there are three ways for us to create a legacy. It’s to help us understand that wisdom and knowledge is truly important. I think in this day and age we really don’t need to teach our children how to make a living; they seem to do that pretty well. We’ve taught that really well. It’s how to make a life that’s meaningful – that we’ve missed a bit. That, I think, is about a legacy.

So the idea of Judaism being a deep well of wisdom is essential. Donniel Hartman was here from the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and he said we have focused so much on the death narrative, on the Holocaust in Israel, that our children think that is the only thing that’s Judaism – that is what we’ve fed them for all these years, and it just isn’t enough, it’s out of context. We have to teach them an entire Jewish history; we have to teach them what our sources say. We have to teach them how to be in the world and what Judaism has to teach.

You know that cookie story? Well, let’s look at what Judaism has to say about it.

A year and a half ago, the Cantor and I took a number of families to Israel and we participated in what’s call the Leket program. Leket is the four corners of a vineyard or a field that is not harvested by the person who is a steward of it. Rather, it’s left for the poor. We picked onions for an entire morning and learned about this program that actually also brings uneaten food from bar or bat mitzvah ceremonies, from weddings, from a b’rit milah or a naming to food shelves in Israel to feed the hungry so that the food isn’t thrown out. I talked to the Sisterhood about this program and they’re trying to start it here at Temple Israel. It’s telling us it’s not about your cookie or my cookie – actually, none of us own the cookie. In Judaism, God owns it all, and we are but stewards of what we have. It’s said in Judaism that if we don’t give tzedakah, guess what? We are like squatters, squatters on this earth because tzedakah, justice, and charity are our rent for being on this earth. Now that is something to talk about – that is a deep well of truth. About caring for each other rather than worrying if it’s our cookie.

Wisdom and knowledge lead to character building, and that is another legacy we leave to the future generations. You see, character is built by experience. You can have someone 17 who is incredibly wise and somebody who is 93 who hasn’t quite learned some lessons they need to learn. It’s not chronology – it really is experience. But it seems that we again have not allowed this generation to have the experiences that build character. I believe failure is the number one teacher of character. Each one of us in this sanctuary has failed at some point in our lives and that’s what’s gotten us to this point, because we learned a lot of great lessons.

Wendy Mogel says that everyone needs a bad fourth grade teacher, and everyone needs a shallow, promiscuous friend. (She says it a different way.) Because the lessons you learn from a bad teacher are lessons of life; lessons you learn from a bad friend (a friend your parents don’t approve of) are things you shouldn’t do in life. You learn that – those are good lessons. But we so quickly want to protect our children and we change the classroom or complain to the principal. If we want self-reliant children and adults then we can’t protect them – they have to learn the lessons of life.

And character – character builds convictions. A conviction is an essential part of who we are and is an essential part of a legacy we must leave. You see, today would have been my father’s 90th birthday. He died six years ago in the month of November. But today, he would have been 90. Here’s a man who I didn’t agree with on many fronts. We had extremely different political views but he taught me a lot about what it means to have convictions. He spent most of his life surrounded by women, and he was not afraid of his female side of things. He was a heart surgeon, but he was an artist, he was a gourmet cook, he was a connoisseur of fine wine. He taught me a lot about beauty and aesthetics, and he wasn’t afraid to make sure that we were fed the delicious delicacies that he created. He also was a man who reinvented himself many times.

He began as a surgeon; he was a surgeon in St. Louis and worked for the university there and was one of the first surgeons to do open heart surgery, beginning first on dogs as an experiment and then moving to humans. At 50 years old, he decided to retire from surgery because he never wanted to walk into an OR and have people whisper behind his back that he was too old to perform the surgery. He retired and went into preventative care. He was a part of Mr. Fit. I don’t know if you know about that, where they came up for the risk factors for cardiac care. The idea of controlling blood pressure, the idea of not smoking, of exercising, making sure that we could control our own risk factors and have a healthier life.

And when that was over, he didn’t want to become a burden to his medical practice so he went back to school and learned echocardiogram and did those, to keep patients coming to his practice. He also tried to sell his practice to the university, to teach young doctors how to talk to patients and it got this close – it was quite an innovative idea where he was actually going to have young medical students follow him as an apprentice program. At the last minute, it fell through and so he retired from his practice.

My father taught me about conviction. He would tell me, “Marcia, it doesn’t matter what you think. It matters that you think. Stand up for what you believe in, even if I disagree.” Today, on Yom Kippur I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror if I didn’t say something about the two amendments that will be on the ballot in November. What I can clearly say is that there should be no amendment to a constitution to limit people’s rights and responsibilities. Whatever one thinks, that is just wrong.

My father often would argue with me. He taught me how to debate; he taught me to debate the issues and not the people. In his memory today, as he would have turned 90, I just want to say that he really did die the way that he lived. He was hospitalized and my sisters told me to come home. I came back because he had decided he didn’t want any additional heroic measures. He had just finished dialysis, which he had been on for three years, and so we thought it would be a few days. He went back to his room and said, “You know what? I want everyone to go home, have dinner, go enjoy it, and then come back later tonight and we’ll talk.” We all went home. We were having dinner around the table where he often served us and fed us, in the home that he built for us – and we got a call that he had died. He died alone, and I believe he did so that he could always be the patriarch of the family, so we didn’t have to watch him. For him, that was important. (My mother, on the other hand, needed everybody there.)

So on his 90th birthday, I thank you for indulging me, helping me know that it really is about the legacy that each of us leaves that is essential to this world. We can take this day of Yom Kippur to look into that future and, like my father, kind of do life his way. Zichrono livrachah – may his memory always be a blessing. Amen.

Erev Yom Kippur: I’ll Meet You Halfway

Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2012/5773

There is a pretty well known story of a tailor name of Schneider who despite his excellent stitching, his fine clothing alterations, just can’t seem to make a buck. Around the High Holy Days he goes to the rabbi and asks what he can possibly do to make his business flourish. The rabbi responds with a very “Yom Kippur” message telling him that he must make God his partner, and then all his endeavors will meet with great success. Well, years pass and it seems that Schneider has all but disappeared, until one day the rabbi sees him pull up to Shul in a Rolls Royce. Astounded, the rabbi asks him what happened. “Why, I took your advice rabbi,” said Schneider. “I made God my partner and boom, the business took off, I’m a success, huge clothing stores all over the country, look there goes one of my trucks right now! The rabbi looked up and sure enough Lord and Taylor.

We tend to think that God can do most things by God’s self. But there is much proof of God’s dependence on us. In the first 5 days of creation God went by the name of Elohim, and all that existed during that time were birds and trees and land and quaking earth and mud sliding mountains and flooding waters and hot sun and chilling winds and you name it.

On the sixth day, when our species was created, we started calling God Adonai. Elohim is the God of the spinning natural world – a world of beautiful landscapes, flowering fields, oceans rich and teeming with life, and also the natural spinning world that has brought floods, earthquakes, parched lands that yield no produce, others that have plenty, hurricanes that knock down houses and put cities underwater. But Elohim, you should know, however, is not the God of hunger, for there has been created enough to eat.

Adonai is the God that calls out for partnership when such things occur. Adonai is the small voice inside of each of us that says: Looks like the boss needs help. And, Adonai is the God that calls out to us like God did in the story of Cain and Abel and says: the bloods of your brothers cry out from the ground. When human being attacks fellow human being, God cries out for partnership.

This partnership idea is very much a Yom Kippur theme, and other stories come to mind. One, of course, is the book of Jonah, read tomorrow afternoon. We know about the big fish, but some of us still get Jonah confused with Gepetto. Do we really understand what Jonah is about?

It isn’t really about the fish. The book of Jonah is about a God who’s looking for a good partner to help straighten up a lot of evil people who live in the city of Nineveh. It is God’s desire that people better themselves. That we pull ourselves out of the great depths and embrace better behavior. Jonah is a very reluctant, unwilling partner. Called to service Jonah flees as far away from God as he believes a person can possibly go. Down to the seaside, down into a boat, down into the hull of the boat. Over the side and down into the ocean. Down into the belly of a fish. He obviously confuses the direction of lowness with being distant from his would be employer. Jonah is content to reject God’s offer of partnership.

Eventually Jonah gets with the program, but he never really understands his partnership with God. Maybe that’s because God didn’t put it to him the right way. God yanked Jonah out of bed one night and made him take on a completely new task. Did God meet Jonah halfway?

Maybe one of the reasons Jonah had no desire to forgive others was because he had no ability to forgive himself for something. Maybe he simply felt that he was beyond redemption. The biblical book never informs us what he may have done, but something tells me he felt so guilty about his own behavior that he held everyone else to that same standard, one they could not possibly meet. Maybe we need to sort things out for ourselves before we can be of any use to others. There is certainly no record of God trying to find out what was in Jonah’s heart. No attempt to meet him halfway.

Jewish mysticism teaches us that the balance of the entire universe rests on our ability to make that partnership work. It begins on this Holy day, by coming clean with your partner, then collaborating on a plan to make the world work better. Partnership always involves meeting the other person halfway.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav told the story of the prince who went insane and insisted he was a rooster. He sat on under the table naked, clucking and eating his food off the floor. The king had tried everything to cure him, but nothing worked, and he was in despair. How could this mad son of his ever grow up to inherit the kingdom?

Then a wise old Jewish man, a rebbe arrived and said he could cure the prince. The king was desperate, so he said, "OK, fine, go ahead, I'll try anything..."

So the rebbe took off his clothes and sat under the table, pretending to be a chicken, too. The king was totally shocked. No doubt he had expected the old man to argue with the prince or try to verbally beat it out of him. But the Rebbe knew what he was doing. And so, sitting there under the table, he got to know the Rooster Prince.

Then one day, the Rebbe called for a pair of pants and began putting them on. The Rooster Prince objected, saying, "What do you mean, wearing those pants? You're a rooster -- a rooster can't wear pants!"

"Who says a rooster can't wear pants?" the Rebbe replied. "Why shouldn't I be warm and comfortable, too? Why should the humans have all the good things?"

The Rooster Prince thought about this for a while. The floor under the table was very cold and uncomfortable. So he asked for pants, too, and put them on.

The next day, the Rebbe asked for a warm shirt, and began to put it on. Again the Rooster Prince objected: "How can you do that? You are a rooster -- a rooster doesn't wear a shirt!"

"Who says so?" said the Rebbe. "Why shouldn't I have a fine shirt, too? Why should I have to shiver in the cold, just because I'm a rooster?" Again the Rooster Prince thought about it for a while, and realized that he was cold, too -- so he put on a shirt. And so it went with socks, shoes, a belt, a hat... Soon the Rooster Prince was talking normally, eating with a knife and fork from a plate, sitting properly at the table -- in short, he was acting human once more. Not long after that, he was pronounced completely cured.

There was no way to convince this prince other than meeting him halfway. So too, in our lives, when we want to influence someone’s behavior we have to know who they are and what makes them tick first. Then we join in a partnership to create a new relationship, even to create a new human being. And the beauty of it is that in doing so we find that we ourselves become more sensitive and loving and easier to get along with.

So, as we prepare this YK to forgive others and to ask others for forgiveness, we may want to take a few minutes alone and forgive ourselves. We have to believe we are worthy of a partnership with God and with each other.

And then as we seek to improve our relations with those whom we love, may we take the time to understand what makes them who they are, and learn better ways of communicating with them in ways they understand.

Perhaps the point of the next 24 hours, before the gates close at Neilah tomorrow evening is to learn to present ourselves as willing partners and very precious co-workers for a better world.

Rosh HaShanah: Ultimacy

Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2012/5773

Some years ago I recall seeing advertised an interesting product for the person who has everything. It was a desk clock that ticks backwards, counting down seconds rather than adding them. You set the clock for your expected life span and then, at a glance, you are able to see how much time you have left. Isn’t that a great idea? Haven’t seen it? That’s because they don’t make it anymore. The life span of that particular product was over calculated.

I was thinking about that clock because there has been a lot in the news recently about life expectancy. We are being told that today’s children are likely to live to be over a hundred. Our congregation is blessed to share in the life of a woman who has taught more of our children than all the rabbis. Ruth Knelman, at the age of 102 remarked, “Well you know, Rabbi, the first hundred years are the hardest!”

You might think that an increase in life span would result in a more relaxed view of the meaning of life and how to accomplish what we are here to do, and yet it seems to have the reverse effect. Back in the days of shorter life spans one’s death was taken more seriously as an impetus for focusing your life early on, finding one’s ultimate value and asking, What do I live for? What is my unique gift to the world?

The High Holy Days are the holidays of ultimacy. Put aside our fantasies about Powerball, getting rich or becoming famous, forget amassing as many material goods as we can; never mind trying to outlive Methusaleh whom the Torah tells us lived 969 years and didn’t accomplish anything worth reporting. Instead: What am I here to accomplish?

Figuring out the “ultimate” is a tricky business, and yet Judaism does not shy away from it. The Shema prayer is an extraordinary acknowledgement of that oneness and ultimacy. We Jews are a very distractible people. This Adonai our God is One stuff, this monotheistic ideal, this unity principle is important to Jews. Stay away from multiple gods, saith the Lord, you’ll get confused! Don’t worship in a hundred different little places, you’ll get lost! Everybody come to the Temple in Jerusalem. We need focus, otherwise we wind up overwhelmed like the fabled Jewish weatherman who, as the storm rolls in, comes on camera and says: “Ach, trust me, you don’t wanna know!”

We are bombarded with so many issues by the media, the internet, reporters, writers, politicians, columnists, fund raisers, demanding that we make their issue our issue. With all that faces a well informed modern human being in a complex society it is time to ask: what is of ultimate importance to me? What do I live for? I cannot solve all the world’s problems. I cannot achieve every single one of my dreams, so what is my ultimate? I believe each of us is here with a purpose. Applying a somewhat mystical ideology, I trust that our hearts were designed as part of an aggregate human heart, a combined soul, if you will, in which each individual soul plays a part. If we are able to locate that which is most meaningful to us, our ultimate, I have faith that collectively we could cure the ills of this world.

But how to discover such a thing? It is said, "If you don't know where you are going, any road can get you there." We teach our children to get good grades, to be decent people, to choose a career, to find a partner, to go to college. But who asks them to scan their hearts and set a course to fulfill their life’s meaning?”

Unity, oneness, is an ultimate objective. Why else do we fall in love and unite with another? Why is family always mentioned as the ultimate value on one’s death bed? Why do those who dwell as one with others in a solid unified community live longer than loners? The oneness of being is an ultimate.

As some of you know, I was pretty sick this past winter. I thank God this yontif for creating within us only one appendix. It’s not really appropriate for a clergyman to discuss all his personal medical details from the pulpit. I’ll spare you that, though if you are interested after the service I do have the cat scan here…. or what my surgeon called his “strategic plan.” I will, however, share with you that mortality looked me squarely in the eye in a way it never had before, and asked me a question: What am I here for?

Mortality, death, is in and of itself an ultimate issue - thus Yom Kippur in 10 days is referred to as a rehearsal for Death. We fast from food, drink and sex. For one day we experience our existence without the distractions. It is even the custom that day to wear the clothes you will be buried in. On Yom Kippur we act as if it is our last day, our only day to face the truth of our implicit meaning; to remember who we are and why we were born. Truth is, we walk through most days half alive, but on Yom Kippur the reality of death urges us to face the urgency of living!

Rabbis are constantly asked: Why do the Jews play down the notion of an afterlife? Of reincarnation? Of other worlds beyond this one? It is because we know that this is it, and that the opportunity to achieve our mission is imminent, not eternal, not deferrable. The binding of Isaac story we read this morning is about identifying and committing to your ultimate issue. Abraham himself had to have been overwhelmed with his task of fathering an eternal nation and still had many obstacles ahead of him.

No passage in Torah illuminates the striving for ultimacy more than the one we read this morning. Abraham, the first human to intuit ultimacy in the universe, is then commanded to cross the ultimate line and murder his own child. What the heck is that about? God has spoken to Abraham saying: I’m going to make your people as numerous as the grains of sand on the shore of the sea and the stars that fill the heavens. Any nation that comes in contact with you will be blessed. Lech l’cha. Bring forth your message from your inner core!

I am going to imagine that the discussion might have gone something like this…

Abraham. I called you from your father's house. I led you through Canaan to the Negev, to the land of Egypt. I raised you up, made you a rich man. I defeated four kings in your name.

“All true, El Shaddai, all true”

“And when you asked me for your greatest desire, something so incredible your wife laughed at the very thought of it, what did I do, Abraham?”

“You gave us a gift more precious than the moon and stars; You gave us Isaac, El Shaddai, and I can never thank you enough for that.”

“My thought exactly.”

“Um, where we going with this?”

“Abraham, in the many years I have spoken to you, have I ever asked you for any favors, any special deeds, any burdens?”

“Not really.”

“Have I ever asked you to do anything unpleasant or injurious to yourself?”

“Well, there was the one thing with the flint stone and foreskin…”

"Other than circumcision Abraham?"

“No, you have been very reasonable. No other complaints. Is there anything at all you want from me?”

Well, now that you mention it, there is something.

“Name it, El Shaddai.”

I have a simple test for you. Take your favored son one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights which I will point out to you.

“That’s not even funny.”

I wasn’t joking.

“Ok, then that’s just not possible.”

It is possible, and I want you to do it.

“Why could you possibly want me to sacrifice my own son, God? That makes no sense. It goes against everything I believe in. Why?”

The Lord works in mysterious ways, Abraham.

"I’ll say! Look, You’re supposed to be all powerful, right God?" There is no ‘supposed’ about it.

“And, just so I understand, that means you can control everything, everywhere, all the time. Correct?”

Down to the sub-atomic level, but let’s not get into that. The answer is yes.

“So given that, what is the point of this conversation? My destiny is the future of my people. No offense God, but I am not going to kill my son. So if you would like to control my limbs, go ahead. But otherwise, I have to go feed the goats.”

Very well Abraham. I have now transported you to Moriah at the appointed place. Your son Isaac lies bound before you. The knife is in your hand. You must now do this thing and I will reward you greatly. If you do not, my anger will be stunning.”

“I will do anything except this God. Please ask me to do anything else.”

No. You must do it now, Abraham!

“Ok God. Have it your way.”

(pause)

Abraham?

"Yes, El Shaddai?"

You have defied me.

“Defied you God? I brought the knife down and one of your angels stopped me before I could land the blow. Talk to him!”

Abraham. Your blade was not aimed toward Isaac. You were going to kill yourself rather than do my will.

“Well, it is hard to lie to someone who is omnipotent. I told you I would not kill my son. It is wrong, no matter what you say. So I didn’t. Sorry.”

"Abraham, I have created you. And rather than heed my word, you have rejected my commands in favor of your personal ideas of what is right and wrong. Where is your faith, Abraham?"

“I have no faith that can lead me to murdering my own son. Even faith doesn’t work for me God when it contradicts the very purpose for which I exist. I’m only sorry God that I have failed your test.”

"You didn’t fail my test Abraham. You have shown me what is the deepest thing in your heart. You have confronted the Eternal here and you have made clear your ultimate. There is nothing more important to you than the future of your people and their mission. Now go out and tell the world!"

It may not be the easiest story in the Torah to digest, but it smacks us in the face and demands that we too answer the seminal question: What moves us to the core? What is the ultimate value that we are willing to sacrifice our very lives on the altar of time itself?

One writer hauntingly describes our lives as boats flowing down a river. At a certain point the boat is lifted out of the river into a boat lock for transport to a higher elevation. Slowly the vessel is raised by time seeping in from all sides. And with every passing day the desire grows for the moment when life will reach the top, and the sluice gates will open and we will finally move on. But lo and behold, by the time the boat is back in the water, there isn’t that much river left. We look back and say, how long was I in that boat lock? Why did I stay there? Where did the years go? What was I waiting for?

Do we expect to live that purposeful, fulfilling life by accident? We are expected to choose the standard components of friends, partner, career, neighborhood, children, and then hope that meaning will take care of itself. But we discover that this does not happen. We reach a certain point in our lives when health or love or work break down, when children move away, or simply the process of aging, and we lie awake at night and wonder why we feel empty inside. What we have learned is that we don’t fall accidentally into our purpose. And beshert? I’m not a fan.

But you and I have seen people driven to their inner depths discovering the purpose of their lives. Suddenly confronting oblivion they embrace real values, living with conscious direction and intention: they create true love, they embrace true friendship, they begin giving to a purpose that will endure beyond their bodies. For many people it takes a mid-life crisis, or a terrible loss, or an exploding appendix to even consider the problem of what they are supposed to do with this precious gift called life. That’s why we read Abraham’s greatest trial, the confirmation of his ultimate mission... so we will be able to detect and design our own destiny.

Obviously I don’t know the answer for each one of you. Of all the words God says to the people of Israel throughout the Bible, the most often repeated phrase is lo lefached - “don’t be afraid.” Above all things, do not succumb to fear.

Let us not, in the new year, fear to locate the inner core of our being and to act upon it. May we embrace our authentic selves and find our own unique piece of the human puzzle.

And when each of our hearts has found its place, may the sum total human heart beat as the heart of God.

Rosh HaShanah: All I Need to Know I Learned at Camp

Sermon by Rabbi Jennifer Hartman
2012/5773

There is a book and also a poem some of you may have heard of entitled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. It is one of my favorite poems. I had a poster of the poem hanging on my wall all through college. There was something wonderfully ironic about staring at this poster while I spent hours doing homework. For those of you who don’t know the poem I will share it with you now.

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned: • Share everything. • Play fair. • Don't hit people. • Put things back where you found them. • Clean up your own mess. • Don't take things that aren't yours. • Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. • Wash your hands before you eat. • Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. • Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. • Take a nap every afternoon. • When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together. • Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. • Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we. • And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

I must admit I have not thought about this poem much since college. When I packed up my college dorm room for the last time and moved into an apartment I decided it was time to hang things with frames. My posters got rolled up and put into a poster tube and stored at my parent’s house. Maybe, one day, I would pull them out again. Then something completely unexpected happened in June. Our Camp TEKO director had to resign two weeks prior to the start of camp due to a family emergency. I was asked to step in. I would be less than honest if I said I jumped at the opportunity. While I was excited by the idea of spending the time helping to grow our camp and getting to know the campers, I was nervous. Was I capable of this endeavor? How would I quickly learn all there was to know about TEKO? Would I be able to make sure that every camper had a positive and memorable experience?

Growing up I went to camp every summer. JCC camps and theater camps, sports camps and overnight camps, I tried them all. I learned that I missed Shabbat and singing Jewish songs when I was at secular camp. I also learned that I did not really like overnight camp. More than that, all I knew was that camp was fun and something I had to do. As they both worked, my parents did not believe in letting my brother and me have two and a half months with no structure. When I talk to my friends who spent summer after summer going to Jewish overnight camp, their analysis is much different than mine. For them camp was not something fun to do over the summer, but a place where they discovered their true selves. It was a place where they felt independent and where they could safely explore their ideas and beliefs. It was the place where they made friends who knew them better than anyone else.

I became a believer in camp as an adult. As a rabbinical student I had the opportunity to observe the beginning stages of a new Union for Reform Judaism camp in the Pacific Northwest. Their enthusiasm for camp and all it has to offer children and families was contagious. This led me to run two summer programs for teenagers. One, in San Francisco, taught students about tzedakah and tikkun olam through volunteer projects around the city. The following summer I, along with other staff, led 40 teenagers through Eastern Europe and Israel. It turns out that everything I had ever heard about camp experiences is true. I watched as these teenagers blossomed through their experiences together, their need to rely on their inner strength and their new found friendships and their desire to forge connections with adults other than their parents. I was convinced of the benefits of sending teenagers away from home for a summer!

This past summer I saw, first hand, the incredible impact that camp, Jewish camp, had on over 300 children. I was witness to painfully shy children reaching out to others to make friends. I saw very competitive campers learn to lose with grace. I observed as kids learned how to make accommodations for their group members with special needs. I had the unbelievable responsibility of ushering 3rd and 4th graders into a stage of independence by helping them find the inner resilience to stay away from home for the first time. It was incredibly rewarding to see these children go from anxious, unsure campers to outgoing, independent, sleep away experts. For me, what was even more thrilling was seeing the campers excited about Judaism. By the end of their time at camp TEKO they knew the Motzi and Birkat Hamazon, they sang Modeh Ani with enthusiasm and Hatikvah with respect. The campers excitedly used the Hebrew word of the week and loved to guess the super heroes and heroines. It was exhilarating to see them engaged with Judaism.

Camp is a magical place. It is a place where “Parents, while supportive from afar, allow for the challenges of life, the successes and setbacks that a professional staff is prepared to channel into positive learning experiences. Children learn to respect one another and learn how to share.” In addition, the counselors at camp also learn and grow. As one camp counselor stated in a recent article: “What I do there matters.” She talked about helping a camper cope with her mother’s debilitating depression and comforting others whose parents were fighting or separating. She talked about the many hours devoted to water-skiing lessons, about instilling the confidence needed by awkward, gawky, painfully self-conscious 8 and 9-year-olds to stay prone in the water, hold on to the rope, then rise up and stay on their feet as the boat pulls away. “What’s more important than that?” she asked. Being a camp counselor gave her incomparable preparation for the future, requiring the skills to manage group projects and motivate individuals, set goals and juggle tight schedules, and stay available for 24 hours a day, six days a week, in sickness and in health.

As camp came to a close and I thought about all I had learned and all I had seen the campers and counselors learn over the summer I realized:

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned at camp. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the gaga pit. These are the things I learned: • Be patient. • Help others. • New experiences help us grow. • Remember to be thankful. • It is ok to take a risk. • Friends are a treasure. • Be a good listener. • Drink lots of water. • Wear sunscreen. • Running, jumping and skipping are all good for you. • Play is a great way to learn. • Everyone, even grown-ups, make mistakes. • When you are scared, take a friends hand and approach life together. • It is amazing what you can accomplish when you work as a team. • Sometimes in life we need to get dirty. • We all need Shabbat.

As I moved from being a camp director to a rabbi preparing for the High holidays these lessons stayed with me. They are the lessons we remind ourselves of each year at this time. As we look back on the year we reflect on times we wish we had been more patient with ourselves and others. We think about the times others reached out their hand to help us in our times of need and are grateful for their love and friendship.

During this season we take the risk of looking deep into our souls. It can be an uncomfortable endeavor because we do not know what we will find. We find the courage to take this plunge because, as with most risks in life, the rewards are immeasurable. Doing this work together as a community makes it much less frightening! Our rabbis, in their wisdom, wrote the confessional prayers in the plural for just this reason. We admit our sins with the prayers of this season, almost all of which are written in the plural; we have sinned, we have transgressed, we turn to God, we ask for mercy. Alone, the act seems overwhelming, but together we can take on any challenge or confront any fear. This is one of the primary lessons of camp.

At camp we learn to listen, listen to counselors and life guards, but also to our friends. Rosh Hashanah reminds us of the importance of listening to and really hearing one another. Shema! We often forget to listen not only to what is spoken, but also to what is unspoken. Listen to the heart of another. Listen to the words of the eyes and the soul. Only in this way will we be able to ask for and give forgiveness. Only in this way will we truly be aware of all the blessings in our life and be grateful for them. The capacity to forgive, and the willingness of others to forgive each of us, is truly one of these blessings.

Life, not just camp, is dirty. It is filled with mud and dirt, scraped knees and elbows, hurt feelings and bruised egos. It is in these moments of messiness that we learn the most, grow the most, and uncover the most about our true natures. These are the times we learn to treasure our friends, not fight with them. They are the times we are reminded we are resilient enough to fall. They are the times we remember how important it is to take proper care of ourselves and our environment. As children we are encouraged to take risks and make mistakes. We are told that they are not a big deal and a part of learning. As adults we forget this lesson and think that we must always be perfect. We try to present ourselves as flawless. It is an ideal we cannot sustain. How much happier would we be if we gave ourselves the permission we give our children? How much more fun would we have if we held hands and joyfully skipped from one activity to another?

Most of us no longer have the opportunity to go to camp. Nor do we have the built in time for vacation that the school schedule provides. Rarely in our busy lives to we slow down and take account of all that has happened in our lives both good and bad. We rely on these High Holidays for a time to reflect. They support us, guide us, and help us to uncover these important lessons. During this time we are reminded of our obligations to ourselves, to each other and to our tradition. We are reminded of all we do every day and all those around us do to help make our lives meaningful.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur remind us of the lessons, but it is in our daily experiences that they come alive. That is part of what makes camp so special. It is a microcosm of what we wish the world might be. Let us leave these 10 Days of Awe renewed, restored and re-dedicated to making the wisdom of the Gaga pit real in our lives.

i May 29, 2012, The Camp Counselor vs. the Intern By DAN FLESHLER

Erev Rosh HaShanah: Sanctuary Service

Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman
2012/5773

Happy New Year to all of you who have come here this past week. I’m sure for you, as I know for myself, that being together is essential and important as we watch the world feeling as if it seems to be spinning out of control.

Last year I talked about change as an individual transition and this year I’m going to talk about world change: change that is not incremental any longer but exponential. It happens every day and every minute, and I believe that religion is the battlefield in which this change is emerging.

You see last week, as many of us who know the US ambassador to Morocco from our very own town, Sam and Sylvia Kaplan faced the death of Chris Stevens, the Ambassador to Libya. This brought a heavy heart, and our prayers and our hearts go out to his family and to the three other foreign diplomats who gave their lives.

And then the riots in Egypt, seemingly a response to the movie that went viral, “Innocence of Muslims.” Rabbi Glaser and I watched it for just a short time. It is a horrible movie, horrible. (The Muslims shouldn’t be rioting: the Actors’ Guild should be.) This is a movie in its very content that I do not believe was the cause of the riots. I think that is simplistic, and actually is a place that many people go. I thank God every day I was born in this country, and that I have first amendment rights. I appreciate it, I bank on it.

But the fact that we have a cultural divide and a difference in our basic rights: that is not new to the world; we all know it. What’s new is that it went viral, what’s new is that people had access to it, that it is the world that is changing, that it is out there. There are mega-changes. We are in a major transition in our world and that is what the response is: it’s happening in Egypt, it’s happening in Tunisia, it’s happening in Libya. It’s a reaction to a world and a transformation that is bigger than any one of us, any country. It is a world change; we know it. We began long ago as a movement in the Enlightenment movement in what is called the Industrial Time, the industrialization. We are at the end of it, if not onto a whole other post-modern, post-industrial world. We don’t quite know what it is but I can tell you when these major transformations happen, let me show you and tell you two obvious ways of knowing.

The generation gap becomes wider. Now let’s just talk for a moment about the generation gap. We have the great Generation. Those of us who are Baby Boomers need to ask our ten year olds to help us with our electronics: that is a generation gap. It is truly the case that the lives of our children and our grandchildren are vastly different than our lives. They’ve grown up in a culture and a sea of the ability to be on time all the time, connected world-wide, whenever they choose.

The second barometer of the transition that is immense is that people become entrenched in their ideas. There’s a new book out: it’s called The Big Sort, and basically what it says is that we live and we pray and we eat with people just like us, and that that has been a move that has happened where neighborhoods are monolithic in their political beliefs, in their values and how they see the world. No longer is there a Democrat standing over the fence with their Republican neighbor – somebody moves out of the neighborhood because they’re not like everyone else.

They showed in this book that actually when people got together and spoke to people who disagreed with them politically they became more entrenched in their beliefs, rather than open to a different opinion.

Those are the barometers that show us that this change is not small but transformative. We know these transformational changes in Judaism, and what we’ve found is that religion has one of two responses. It either becomes a breaker wall that says, “No change, unacceptable, I’m going to fight it” and that’s what we’re seeing throughout the world. Or, what we have seen in history is that religious institutions and religion are at the forefront of saying, “Let’s go into the change, take the best of the change by keeping our basic values but by understanding that we are living in a world of change - we’ve done it many times before.”

To help people negotiate and navigate the change in the world, religious institutions have been at the forefront of that. We’ve taught people how to understand the change and keep values in other institutions in their life, whether it’s at work or at home, whether it’s with their friends or their acquaintances; that’s the best of what religion has done during these massive changes.

But there always have been those two responses. You can look at the rabbinic period of time and we’ll get a little history: (don’t get too fogged over here at nine o’clock). What’s amazing is that during this rabbinic period of time, no longer could Jews support the temple’s sacrifices. We were off the land; we weren’t farmers any longer; we weren’t shepherds any longer. We couldn’t bring sacrifices; we had to buy sacrifices. That wasn’t going to last long. So what happened was that those people who were born into power, the priests, the Sadducees, gave way to the rabbis, to the rabbinic period of time that said, “You know what? You can actually move out of the world you were born into. You can advance on your own through knowledge and you can become a rabbi and become a leader and become a teacher.”

These are vastly different ways of knowing. The priests put up the breaker wall. The rabbis leaned into the change. I don’t know about you, but I don’t see any sacrifices here. They’re gone. The zealots? They’re gone. We are the inheritors of the rabbinic tradition. We have survived that transformational change.

We had it in the Enlightenment period, as well, when opportunities were open to Jews that had never been open before. And there was a need to understand how to negotiate modernity with tradition and that’s how the Reform movement was born. We are the fastest growing movement of today, but don’t get too excited: because actually, compared to other movements, we are the fastest growing, but the fastest growing “movement” is unaffiliated Jews – that’s fifty percent of our community.

The change is interesting because what you have to understand as we move through change is that there are eternal truths. The L’dor V’dor – from generation to generation - to teach Judaism to the children and grandchildren head to head - that is an everlasting value that will remain no matter what change comes its way. The idea of educating our children, of giving them the tools of Judaism: Hebrew, and Jewish history, and Jewish tradition – that will not change. The idea of tikkun olam – the idea of caring for this broken world – that is not going to change. But we need to figure out how to communicate and do those things differently if we’re going to be relevant in the twenty-first century.

There’s a great Hassidic tale. You know Hassidism? It actually began in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth century. And so did trains, and so did the telegraph, and so did the telephone – major technological changes at the time. So the disciples of a Rebbe wanted to know what to do with all these newfangled, amazing technological wonders. And so they said, “Please, Rebbe, tell us: what do we learn from the train?” The Rebbe thought a minute, turned to his disciples and said, “Sometimes, if you’re a second late, you miss everything.”

“Okay. What about the telegraph? What do we learn from the telegraph, Rebbe?” And the Rebbe said, “Every one of your words is counted and paid for.”

“And what do we learn from the telephone, Rebbe?” “Oh, that one’s the best. What you say here is heard over there.”

The Rebbe got it. He understood that transformational change is not something to ignore but it’s something to adapt to, to reinterpret and reinvigorate our tradition, to respond to the changing nature of the world outside. You see, there are questions to be had in the world we live in, the world that is no longer full of authority but goes to autonomy, the world that was once hierarchical and now is networked, the world where communication and knowledge were the basis and the ownership of only a few, and now are democratically accepted and understood. With a click of the mouse you can Google anything and you can become an expert on Moses Maimonides; you don’t have to go to rabbinical school to learn it.

Here we have a world that is so different, where people can get anything, anytime, anywhere, and really, from anyone. And in that world we can say, “Not allowed” or we can say, “Well, what does that mean?”

So here are what I think are some essential questions to be asked about this world. If we can say whatever we want, whenever we want, and it will become viral, when do we decide not to say it? When do we guard our language and our words and our tongue? In Judaism, Shmirat Halashon, to guard your speech. What happens in a world that is just turned on 24/7 – it is on all the time and we can plug in. I just had a parent say, “Oh, yeah, I’m going to talk to my teenager – she Skypes, she IMs, she has Face time, and oh, by the way, is watching television doing all of those things.”

When do we decide to turn it off? To save our souls: that’s Shabbat. And when we live in a world that values power and we can have it, when do we find our humility and give the dignity to every human being, even the person who answers the phone? That is Derech Eretz : it is making sure you’re civil to everyone, even if you have more power.

And what happens in a world when I can get whenever I want at any time: what do I decide is important and not something to just throw away? That’s Ba'al Tashchit: to not destroy.

And when, when do we decide that the person who disagrees with us is just not summarily wrong, and we become more entrenched? When do we open ourselves up to change? That’s Rosh HaShana, that’s T’shuvah, that is understanding that each of us are B'tzelem Elohim, created in the image of God. We have a lot to have a conversation about because the world out there will take us for a ride. Every day each of us gets 5,000 messages to buy, buy, and buy. Whether you turn on your computer and the advertisements are right there; whether you walk into a coffee shop and it is constantly telling you to make sure you have this logo and that logo; meeting somebody in the halls of school – whatever they wear is telling you to buy what they wear. So we can abdicate our responsibility to the world out there but that would be exactly what we’re doing, we’re abdicating our responsibility.  We have to talk about real life. That’s what religion in the twenty first century and any century is. It’s making sure we have conversations about real life things that affect you and bring the values of Judaism and the tradition of Judaism to compare it to, to talk about, to incorporate.

I promise you that at Temple Israel in the years to come we will mediate the world out there; we will make sure that there are many doors and one roof; that people can come in at different portals to experience Judaism and we’ll meet them where they are, and that we will get out of this building to meet them where they are. In coffee shops, in bars, in places where young people congregate, we will be there. And we will ask those important questions. We will mediate between this Jewish world and the non-Jewish world and bring our friendships and our religious understandings of diversity back into this sanctuary. We have done it throughout time. We will make sure that Judaism is accessible to all, whatever our special needs are. Those are the things that we have to work on and do in order to remain relevant in the twenty first century. Religion as a breaker wall does not work. A porous wall, open doors, a welcome mat: those are the images of tomorrow.

And so, in the tradition of that nineteenth century Hassidic rabbi, the Rebbe, I ask you, what do we learn from streaming our Rosh HaShanah service? We learn that even though we can’t see the people, we touch them, we move them, they’re connected to us, even when they can see us.

And what do we learn from Facetime? Maybe that we can imagine and examine the fact that we hold people in the palm of our hands.

And what about You Tube? Well, I think that’s clear: that every action and every word can come back, it can come back directly to you. It is known, and it will be judged. L’Shanah Tovah.